a beary birthday

a beary birthday, a photo by eatzycath on Flickr.

I love the incredibly cute range of Popcorn the Bear stamps from Crafter's Companion - why? because the stamps are big (around 4 to 5 inches), so they fill up a card perfectly and the size makes it so easy to color .....

This is the first of my Popcorn the Bear cards - the cute bear with balloons come from the Smile stamp set.

* the bear stamp was stamped twice on white cardstock, and then stamped again on a piece of white paper

* the stamped piece on the thinner white paper was then cut out, and used as a mask over the stamped piece on the cardstock

* the background was then stamped using Hero Arts - Newspaper Background wood-mounted stamp (one of my favourite background stamps)

* the whole image was then colored on the cardstock with the stamped newspaper-background

* only the balloons were colored on the second image stamped on the white cardstock - then cut out and affixed over the main image with foam tape

* edges of the white cardstock was then distressed and inked before affixing to the blue polka-dotted pattern paper (also inked around the edges) and then affixed to the orange card base

* birthday sentiment was stamped on orange cardstock, cut and affixed - final touch, a stripy ribbon in matching colors!