Shaker Birthday Card for AHSC #166

I can't wait to share this fabulous sketch Michelle Stewart has given us to work with this week at Atlantic Hearts Sketch Challenge  #166.  Isn't it great?!?!  There are so many possibilities for this one but I needed a really special card for my sweet husband's birthday, which is July 5th.  Some people who have a birthday on or close to a holiday feel slighted but that's not the case for my guy.  He was adopted by a 50-year old couple who had never had children and lived on a farm, and other than numerous family dinners he didn't get to just "run around town" or hang out with kids his own age outside of school.  The exception, however, was the 4th of July:  both of the small towns nearest where he grew up had really big annual events either on the 4th or the weekend after, and my in-laws couldn't always keep up with their spirited and rambunctious son so these were the only times they just turned him loose, and this his how his "birthday season" began at an early age, lol.  In past years I have made him cards to celebrate his "season" but never one that really had a 4th of July theme, so that's what I went with this time.  Also, I really wanted to make a shaker card at long last, lol.

The details are a little long for this one so I will add those at the end.  I really do love this week's sketch and I want to encourage you to play along with us at AHSC (don't forget, you have until 9:55 pm Central time on Sunday evenings) or at least check out the other projects based on this fabulous sketch.  Also, we are recruiting for a few more design team members and you can check out the details concerning that or share your project by going to this post.

Thanks for stopping by and Happy 4th of July!!!
Annette


details:  For the base of the card I cut a 4 1/2" card base from Pomegranate CS and a 4 1/4" square from Whisper and layered them.  I cut a 4 x 2" panel of Sapphire CS and ran it through the confetti stars embossing folder and sanded the raised image so the stars stood out.  I cut another 4 x 2" piece of this striped paper for the bottom half; sorry, I don't know the brand BUT you could easily duplicate this card by using strips of CS and a star punch or the row of stars image from the Artistry Cricut cartridge (p. 41 of the booklet) or the cut out star on p.50.  I also added a piece of white and gold ribbon where the two panels met.
For the shaker part in the center of the card, I used the Art Philosophy cartridge for the gold glitter paper star (/layer/shift at 2 1/2") and then I cut the same image several times with white CS and hand trimmed out the swirls so I had just the outline shape.  I cut apart a damaged page protector and glued it to the back of the gold star, trimmed it down, and then glued the remaining white stars on layer by layer.  I took an off brand 1/4" star punch to some scraps of dollar store foil craft papers, dropped them "inside" the star, and backed it with a cut of the same star's base image so that the shaker had a solid back.  
I finished off the card by stamping and fussy cutting two images from the retired "Kaboom" stamp set (the June 2014 SOTM) in Whisper, Pomegranate, and black inks.  I had initially planned to use an off-brand gold ink for the "you're the bomb" image but the words didn't stand out quite well enough.  Luckily there was some gray in the striped paper and I realized I had used Whisper for the card base to complement that, so I was able to go with Whisper ink for to tie that color/image in.  This was a little more elaborate card than I usually do for my husband but he's especially excited for his birthday this year since he gets a 6-day weekend and we have several day trips and family get events planned, so I think he'll get a kick out of it.