Cherry on Top Birthday Balloons Card

Hello everyone I hope you have all been enjoying your weekend so far. I managed to snatch a quick hour between chores and swimming lessons to make a quick card today for a couple of challenges:

Before I share today's card I would like to say thank you to the team over at Stamp Ink Paper, and in particular Sandy, who chose my white wedding card as a winner in their 'love' themed challenge last week (if you missed it, you can see that card here) - it's always great to be recognised for one's creative efforts! This week the team have a sketch to play with and since I chose to feature balloons on my card it's also perfect for a link up with the Global Design Project who have these as their theme this week and The Friday Mashup, where the theme is birthdays (with the optional mashup of stencils - I'm coming back for this one!) We have so many balloon-related products currently; I chose to use an annual catalogue mainstay, the Cherry On Top Designer Series Paper Pack, as the inspiration for today's card:

I just love the bright little balloons on this paper pattern so I decided to cover my whole card front with the paper. I added a frame to my sentiment from the 'Birthday Blooms' stamp set (the swirly sentiment reminds me of the balloon strings!) which I cut with my Big Shot and Tags and Labels Framelits - these are on this week's Wednesday Weekly Deals if you want to grab them at a bargain price! For my embellishment, I chose to echo the balloons and cloud pattern of the paper and punched a cloud in Whisper White with my Tree Builder Punch and a trio of balloons with my punch from the Party Punch Pack, which I added some silver metallic thread string to, which I loosely tied together. I added in a thin banner of Cucumber Crush to complete the sketch. I just love the bright and happy colours of this card - and balloons are the perfect way to celebrate a birthday, whether young or old.

For those of you who like a visual summary, here's something new that I will be featuring in my blog posts - a labelled photograph of the key products required to make today's card: 

These images are perfect for pinning to give you a visual reference of the supplies needed to re-create this card which can be useful if you want to come back to it at a later date. I will be pinning these to my new 'How To - Tips and Techniques' Board on Pinterest too, which you can find here.

I hope you like today's card; I'll be back with another card for tomorrow's new challenge over at The Paper Players. I'm hosting this week so you won't want to miss it! Until then, happy stampin'!

Stampin' Up! Supplies Used:

Cherry On Top Designer Series Paper Stack	Party Punch Pack	Tags & Labels Framelits Dies	Big Shot	Birthday Blooms Clear-Mount Stamp Set
Tree Builder Punch	Whisper White A4 Cardstock	Cherry On Top A4 Cardstock Assortment Pack	Crushed Curry A4 Cardstock	Bermuda Bay Classic Stampin' Pad
Silver Metallic Thread