Festive Balloons

Balloons, especially brightly colored ones, are always great images for birthday cards. For the cards I'm sharing today, I used alcohol markers to color the image from the Festive Balloons stamp set (Simon Says Stamp) two different ways. I also used the stamps in the set to make two different backgrounds.

Card on the left: To make the background, I stamped the sentiments from the set multiple times across a white card base. Then I used a pen to doodle a border around the edges, skipping over the stamped words. For the focal image, I stamped the balloon bunch on white card stock and quickly colored it with alcohol markers. I purposely left white edges and didn't add any shading, so it's super simple. I die cut the colored image and two more pieces of blank card stock, glued them together, and added the stacked focal piece to the middle of the card front. I finished the card with a few silver sequins.

Card on the right: To make the background, I stamped the balloon image near the center of a white card base and then stamped the balloons several more times to fill in the white space around the central image. For the focal image, I made stripes of color on a separate piece of white card stock using the same color alcohol markers from the first card. Then I stamped the balloons over the color using black ink and cut them out with the coordinating die. I glued the colored image directly over the center image stamped on the card base. I used the Labelmaker Rainbows set (Waffle Flower Crafts) to add a sentiment and again finished with silver sequins.

I think the black-and-white backgrounds really let the balloons stand out on these cards. And it was fun revisiting different ways to make backgrounds, too. Thanks for stopping by!