Cactus Birthday

I've had the last couple off days of work with the intention of doing some stamping for fun and wouldn't you know it, I had no mojo!  Always the way!  Anyway, I managed to squeeze out one card that meets a few challenges.  I'm so happy to be playing along at The Paper Players this week.  Due to the time difference and the timings of the challenges, I only get the chance to play along when I'm not working.  I combined that challenge with the inspiration pic at Inspired by All the Little Things and Seize the Birthday.  Ironically, the Toppings option is Water and I've chosen cacti for my card :)  Fair to say, I'm not playing along with the Toppings this week!

I definitely wanted to use my Sweet Succulents set so colored up some of the images before putting my mind to how I was going to use the sketch.  After to-ing and fro-ing several times, I decided to stick with neutral panels for the background and sentiment so the succulents pop off the page.  I die-cut panels using Slate, Smoke and Fog cardstock and the Horizontal Stitched Strips dies.  The sentiment was white embossed on a stitched flag.

The cacti in the grey pot is adhered directly to the card base and the brown potted one is popped up on foam tape.  Both cacti have been painted with clear Wink of Stella for some shimmer.

And, more for my own reference, I've taken a photo of the Copic markers I used.  That way, if I want to re-create the look, at least I'll know what colors I used!

Thanks for visiting.

Products used:

Stamps:  Sweet Succulents (MFT)
Ink:  Black Licorice Hybrid, Versamark
Cardstock:  White, Smoke, Slate, Fog, Black, X-Press It
Dies:  Sweet Succulents, Horizontal Stitched Strips, Stitched Fishtail Flag Stax (MFT)
Accessories:  Copics, White EP, Wink of Stella

Cheers
Karren

Edited to Add:  This card got a shout out at Paper Players and Inspired By.