Birthday Petites and Curly Labels

It's been so long since I participated in a challenge and it feels so good to be back!  Okay, "so long" is relative, but it's been over a month and I've missed the creative inspiration from blog challenges.  Life happens and things come up and unfortunately my stamping time has suffered.  That, and the little bit of stamping time that I've had has been used for specific projects so I couldn't play along with challenges for a while.  I decided to jump back into the fun and start with a Dynamic Duos color challenge--Pool Party and Island Indigo.  I combined these two 2011-2013 In Colors along with some Patterns DSP and Sale-a-Bration product to come up with this fun birthday card.

Before I get into the details, I just want to mention that the Island Indigo isn't quite as bright as the photo shows.  Sometimes the lighting or the camera just doesn't show the true color as well as I'd like.  I stamped the Happy Birthday stamp from the Pretty Petites stamp set in Island Indigo and then punched it out with the coordinating Petite Curly Label punch (both the punch and the stamp set are items that you can earn for FREE during Sale-a-Bration).  I mounted that with a Stampin' Dimensional onto a square of Pool Party polka dot paper from the Patterns DSP stack and framed it in with some Island Indigo card stock that is textured with the perfect polka dot embossing folder and punched with the Curly Label Punch.  I love how the Petite Curly Label Punch and the Curly Label Punch stack together so nicely.  I layered that onto a bit of white card stock to help it stand out more on the card.  My card base is Island Indigo and has a layer of white and a layer of Pool Party striped DSP (from the Patterns DSP stack) mounted on top.  I made the strip across the card with Island Indigo Patterns DSP layered on white and layered onto Island Indigo.  To finish off my card, I stamped the "make a wish" stamp from the Sweet Essentials stamp set in Island Indigo right onto the striped DSP.  While this card does use a fair amount of layeres, I like the clean lines and gender-neutral-ness of the card.  Sometimes I struggle to come up with a card that isn't too girly and doesn't use ribbons and bows.  I love the cool crisp colors that this Dynamic Duo shows off.  I'm really going to miss these two colors when they retire later this year--guess I'd better stock up on some card stock :)