Happy Birthday to Me

Hey it was my birthday yesterday, woohoo!!! The party continues, it started last weekend at the crop in PA, and now I'm in FL and getting ready to go out on a cruise. SOOOO, do you want to know what I got for my birthday? Try to guess. Anyone who guessed a garbage can wins. No, I'm not joshing you. My hubby gave me a garbage can. What a romantic! Oh, okay, it's really a ceramic waste paper basket with seashells on it and I did mention that I liked it last time I was here so it's a nice garbage can. Did I hear someone say what else? I think I did. I got a copy of "the Great Escape" which leads me to believe somebody was reading my profile. I watch that movie every chance I get which is usually once a month or so, it's always on cable. But now I will get to see it from beginning to end and I can pause it if I want to. Now that's a big deal. If you haven't seen this movie, go rent it or something. You'll love it.

For next year I gotta remember to put something in that profile about my love for gold and diamonds and amethysts.

Now here's what most of you are here for, the card. I made myself a birthday card. I love this stamp set, ("Voila" from Stampin' Up) I've been putting it on my wish list for a couple years so I decided to get it for my birthday. I always give myself really good presents. Then as I was looking for a challenge to use it in I found the Stamp Something challenge that asked for you to make a birthday card and the Stamp Something for the Weekend challenge #12 which is a color challenge to use pink and grey. How fortuitous for me, as that has been a favorite color combo since I was a kiddie and made woven potholders in pink, gray, black and white. So I went hunting through the limited supply of papers I brought with me and I had the SEI Chocolate collection with me which I found at the crop last weekend, and if you follow this blog it includes the yummy paper Pam had used to cover her notebooks, I was drooling over that paper. It's perfect for the pink part. It's double sided paper and some of the papers have glitter on the butterflies in the designs, really yummy. I used "framboise" for the jacket, "sucre" for the pants, and "papillon" for the background. You won't find many chefs that will dress this way but here on Planet Chris if you like pink, you can wear pink and not worry about being picked on. I liked the Get Sketchy challenge #2 sketch for this stamp set. Besides the sketch they asked you to punch something so I used the Stampin' Up scalloped eyelet border punch on the side of the background paper. I wanted to make the platter with the cake on it the focal point and put the bow just under it. Too bad I didn't have it figured out better in my head. I did it in a stupid way but in the end it looks okay, besides it's a card for me and I'm my worst critic, no one else is going to notice anything odd about it. While I was going through challenges to see what's out I saw that the Paper Cutz challenge was to design a project using something that flies and those papillons fly. A few other details, I used prismacolor pencils for the parts not paper pieced, hero arts pink pearls for the buttons and highlighted the sentiment and the candle with a gelly roll marker.

That's it on the card but for those of you who are a little nosey like me, I left for the cruise in the middle of writing this and now that I'm back I have two pics to share. Takako took a picture of my little family and even though I look yukky in it, Liddy and hubby look pretty good so I'll share that with you and a picture of the sunset. The cruise was out of Sarasota on the Marina Jack II. It was a couple hours and we got to see some gorgeous houses, have a nice meal and Liddy got to hear more of my brother Michael's wacky stories. He does crack us up, but I think we're all easily amused.