Carrie's Custom Cards: Birthday Wishes Card

3 of my cousins have birthdays in February, so I've been busy making special birthday cards for each them. This one was especially fun to make because I used a new medium for the first time: Cosmic Shimmer Opal Polish. I embossed a 5X7 card front and then applied the opal polish to it, and it gave it a really lovely shimmer that's hard to see in the photos but is beautiful in real life. It has the look of pink pearls, and I can see myself trying out the opal polish with stencils next.

After creating the card base, I then die cut a 4.25X5.5 inch panel using a die I just ordered from Simon Says Stamp with the gift card I recently won in their weekly challenge. Thanks so much, Simon Says Stamp! I couldn't believe how quickly my order shipped and arrived! The die is by PinkFresh Studios and is called Stitches Background Essentials Die. If you look closely, it imprints lines of stitching into the paper. I popped that panel up with foam tape after adding a piece of pretty design paper and my stamped flower (from a retired Stampin' Up stamp and die bundle called Dahlia Days) and sentiment (stamped using SU!'s Framed Florets set and then die cut using a die from SU!'s Merriest Moments die set). I added a couple leaf die cuts (one from SU!'s Splendid Thoughts and one from SU!'s Framed Florets) cut out of white card stock I had covered with metallic gold duct tape for some shine.