Penny Black Hedgehog Gift Birthday Card

For this card, I stamped the main image on watercolor paper in Versafine Onyx Black ink using Penny Black's cute little hedgehogs from the Wonderful clear stamp set. The sentiment was stamped with the same ink on striped paper (sorry I don't remember which stamp set it's from). I hand cut the banner and its shadow. Tip: draw a small dot with pencil in the middle of the strip where you want the banner tail, then cut to it from each side. I popped it up with dimensional tape.

The main image was painted, watercolor style, with Tim Holtz Distress Markers. I mounted it on gold card stock, which I first ran through my Fiskars crimper to give it a corrugated look. I dyed the ribbon (Hug Snug seam binding) with Distress Stain in colors matching the gift in the image. I also used them in combination with Viva Decor Inka Gold to color the yellow/orange/red Petaloo CMC flowers. The large flower has some Christmas Red Stickles around the center. For the centers, I applied Adirondack Alcohol Ink to half pearls with a Q-tip so they would match the flower colors.

The white/gold flowers were cut using Sizzix Flowering Quince dies. The gold paint (near centers) is Silks Acrylic Glaze, which I picked up at Michaels. I love the translucent look it gives (although the effect is wasted in this case since there is nothing printed under the paint). I added a little yellow Flower Soft to the centers as pollen.

Below you can see more of the details in the flowers as well as some of the shimmer from the Viva Decor Inka Gold paint. The leaves were also die cut from one of my Sizzix flower sets. I tend to cut a bunch at one time so I have them for other projects. I painted them with Twinkling H2O watercolors. To finish the card, I made a couple loops with jute to tuck under the large flower.