99 Red Balloons

Welcome, I hope you had a good weekend.  I do not think can go any further without acknowledging that today is very special day ... a Leap Day, a day which we only have once every 4 years.  As a child this day fascinated me, originally because it  seemed so odd to have a day which only occurred once every 4 years and, when I was a little older, I would try to imagine what it must be like to be born on 29 February.  Which day would I choose to celebrate my birthday on the other three years or would I ignore those years and age much more slowly than my sisters?

A new challenge starts at Crafty Boots Challenges today, I think it is true what they say, the older you get, the faster time flies and I find it heard to believe that this is already our fifth challenge this year!  The new theme was inspired by the fact that here in the UK, next weekend is Mothering Sunday.  But this challenge is not specifically about either Mothering Sunday or Mother's Day, it is celebrating all of the fairer sex and therefore the theme is entitled 'Something for the Lady'.

My card today is celebrating another special day.  OK, it is not exactly 99 Red Balloons but there is an awful lot of them in this card and it is the first of six cards I shall be making over the next year for family or friends who will be turning 60.  

I wanted a card which would reflect the awesomeness of reaching 60 and I also wanted it to reflect the larger than life personality of my amazing friend.  We have been friends for a long, long time and have had so much fun together over the years.  Sadly we do not see one another very often these days a we live over 200 miles apart but we keep in touch by phone and email.

This is the third or forth attempt at getting the card I wanted.  I used the new-ish Stampin' Up bundle called 'Balloon Celebration'.  I used the polymer stamps for version one but I was not happy with the quality of my stamped balloons.  A little lateral thinking and I switched to punched balloons using some really lush red and gold glitter card, I used both punch sizes.  I also stamped the balloon strings and cut around them.  (As the thin balloon strings would not support the weight of the glittery balloons, I glued them to some acetate strips.)

I then took a kraft box and layered the surfaces with gold mirri and white glitter card.  It took quite a few attempts to get the angles on the flaps just right.

As it is virtually impossible to successfully glue to glittered surfaces, I used small gold brads to attached the balloon strings.  My gold numbers were die cut using Sizzix Bigz dies.

It took me almost two and a half weeks to ultimately achieve the look I was going for but I was very pleased with the end result.  My next problem is to work out how to send it through the post.

Crafty Boots Challenges is celebrating the amazing artistic talent of one of it's Design Team, please find time to look at some of her work and perhaps leave her a few words.

Dionne