Starting 2012 with a birthday card

Happy New Year Everyone!!  Hoping you all had a fantastic and safe New Year.  I'm watching the Rose parade and really enjoying it for the first time in a long time.  I hope that you all enjoy this last day of vacation and the start of a great year!  Today, for my first post of 2012, I have a birthday card to share.

This is actually my first creation for 2012.  I made a (not so CAS) birthday card Ifor my friend's niece.  She's turning 7 on Tuesday, but we always celebrate her birthday on New Year's day.  I had a lot of fun creating this card.  It's called a zig-zag card and I found this sometime ago just searching for different card tutorials.  I'm sure I've seen it on some of your blogs as it is a really cute way to add a 3D affect to any card. 

I did a swap of two of my favorite TGF images (Fleur & Holiday Anyas) to create this Anya.  Before stamping Holiday Anya on my paper I wiped away the holly branch with a wipie and drew in the lines for her hair and eyebrow.  I learned that technique from Amy from A Thousand Sheets of Paper and have used it a lot.  It works better than water on a paper towel.

As you can see I paper pieced her dress using the same dp (K&Company Olive tree kraft) that is on the card.  The card base is kraft cs (Recollections) that I distressed with vintage photo ink.  I also did it with the balloons, and the circles.  I used sakura & sun punches for the flowers in her hair.  The balloons are made from the C.C. Cutter balloon die, I cut out 7 to represent her turning 7.  I used a white pencil on the ballons and gold pieces of string that I recycled from some Lindt candy I got for Christmas.  The sentiment is from a retired TGF set and I added gold pearl pen dots underneath.

I wish I had taken a side view picture of the card so you can see how 3-D the balloons are.  The smaller balloons on the inner part of the card are adhered to the top part of the card and the other balloons on to the side panels.  The flowers are adhered with dimensional mounting tape with the middle one being the highest of the five.  I love how she turned out, and I hope to do more of her.  Who am I kidding I just love doing swaps!  hahaha!

Mahalo for stopping by and I hope you've all had a wonderful start to 2012.  Now it's back to the craft table to work on more cards..  lol!  Have a great day!!  :)

Hugs,
Leanne