I thought I had got into a good routine with baby Stan, managing to fit in a little crafting whilst he napped during the day.  Turns out he has other ideas and seems to have flipped his routine on its head.  Still, he does seem to be sleeping a little better at night now so I really can’t complain.

During one of his better days I managed to make this card:

I had the idea to use the smaller images from the stamp set as balloons when I first got it so when I saw the Muse this week at the Muse Challenge blog I knew what I wanted to do straight away.

I instantly fell in love with this gorgeous card made by Natasha Kara.  I love the story it tells and the level of detail Natasha has gone to to make this card extra special.

My images are from the Nursery Deco stamp set by Mama Elephant, stamped in Memento Tuxedo Black ink and coloured with Spectrum Noir pens.  I had to cut lots of little masks to make the cluster of balloons and drew in the strings and balloon ends with a micron pen.  I used a white gel pen to add highlights to the balloons and also added Wink of Stella to make them look like foil balloons.  I am shooting the photos at night at the moment and really struggling to get the lighting right so you can’t see the shimmer in the photos but it is so pretty in real life.

The border strips were actually inspired by the packaging from the stamp set.  In order to get the look I wanted I coloured strips of card with the Spectrum Noir pens and adhered them to a scrap piece of paper before trimming to size.  I am sure that there are easier ways of doing things but once I get an idea in my head…

I really had good fun creating this card, hope you like it!  Thank you for taking the time to read my post, please leave a comment and let me know what you think!  Cx