A Clean and Simple 21st Birthday Card with a Perfect Repeat Frame

I took the decision not to add 21 to the front of this card even though it was for a young man's special birthday.  I felt that the layout would be unbalanced if I did so.  Instead I stamped a message inside the card.  I used the Tim Holtz stamp platform to create the frame around the outside to get a perfectly even placement.

As I was using a 14.5cm x 14.5cm card blank, I cut my topper to 13.5cm x 13.5cm.  Before doing any stamping, I ensured that I had gone over the card with an antistatic pad, especially as I was intending to heat emboss white on white.  I added the sentiment from the Brilliant Work of Art stamp set from Claritystamp in the centre of the topper, stamping in Versamark ink and heat embossing in detail white powder.

To create the frame, I took four of the extra stamps which come with the set (palette, paint tube and the two brushes) and laid them onto the top edge of the card, over to the right hand side.  I then picked them up with the lid of my TH stamp platform.  Once I had stamped and heat embossed each time, I simply turned the card 90 degrees and repeated the process until the frame was complete.  This ensured a perfectly spaced frame.

I then brought out the images by blending Distress Oxides over the top (Picked Raspberry, Peacock Feathers and Cracked Pistachio).  Once happy with the blend, I used a dry paper towel to buff the colour off the embossed areas.

The topper was matted onto black card leaving a narrow border and added to the card blank.

To emphasize the sentiment and tie in with the black mat, I added a drop shadow using a black Posca pen.

Rather than printing a verse, I stamped Happy (Mini word chains 1&2), 21st (numbers) and Birthday (Mini word chains 3&4) directly into the card using Onyx Black Versafine ink.