Today is my sister Caro’s birthday. Happy Birthday Caro! You can easily give her a present just by visiting her blog here. Thanks.

Last week I was making bokeh backgrounds for my card at CAS Colours & Sketches and I made a couple at the same time. Since the technique tends to alter the look of the ink colours due to blending, it wasn’t going to work for the challenge since I felt that the card really needed a night of navy mat. I stuck with the smoky grey cardstock though since Caro tells me that I need to get over my issue with grey. And it’s her birthday, so it’s all about her.

To make the background, I put equal numbers of dots of pool party, marina mist and smoky slate onto an E block, spritzed with water and pressed the block onto some watercolour paper. I left it to dry for about a week – not that it needs that long, but I hadn’t decided what to do with it next.

I was really pleased with the card that I made for the challenge last week, both the background and the sentiment hanging off the edge. Here’s a reminder in case you missed it

I wanted to do the same kind of thing. But, of course, different. I got out the Hello You thinlits dies and cut out the happy in night of navy and then with my fingers crossed, stamped birthday (from Endless Birthday Wishes) onto the watercolour paper. I then cut out the end loop of the y in happy from watercolour paper and a scrap of night of navy and built up a support for where that loop falls off the watercolour paper. Then it was a simple matter of constructing the card – I’m a fan of fast fuse for attaching watercolor paper securely, the 2-way glue pen for fiddly gluing and the multipurpose glue for everything else. I lined the envelope the same as the previous card – using the Neutrals designer series paper stack and the envelope liners framelits. I hope that Caro approves.