Happy Birthday Mom!

Today is my mom's birthday and I sent her this card:

Credits:

Let Them Eat Cake by [wm] squared designs

Suitcase and ticket from Around the World by Britt-ish Designs and Sahlin Studio

It's not my usual card and I had so much fun putting it together! ;)
I started off printing out the embellishments on presentation paper (I had some room left over as I was working on another project): at this point, I had't thought about what card I wanted to do so they just sat on my desk for a while. A few days later, when it was time to mail the card, I decided to design a card to print on a 5x7 glossy paper and add the embellishments on top of that, so I designed a funky card with my mom's picture and drawings made with my tablet. Since I'm pretty sure my mom doesn't want me to remind her she's turning 62, I also added a suitcase+ticket for her upcoming trip to visit me, because I knew she'd appreciate the detail.
Of course, since things never go as planned, for some reason my printer didn't do borderless so the card turned out smaller than it should have - thus the too big party hat and the white border of the card showing. ;) But I think it's still OK, if you don't know it (I hope).
I inked the edges of the elements with Tim Holtz's orange marmelade distress ink (I also wanted to buy the broken china, but can you believe my AC Moore only carried the orange marmelade?!? I hope it's a temporary thing and they're just reorganizing things..). I attached them with foam dots. I was afraid they would get squished in the mail, but even though I haven't asked my mom explicitly, she was enthusiastic about the card, so I suppose it arrived there in good shape.

I had a left over candle that didn't fit on the front, so I put it on the inside of the card.

I am really happy about trying out something different with this card! I asked DH if he liked the card, and he said he did. I then asked him (yeah.. usual mistake) if it looked different from the cards I usually make and he said he didn't see any difference.. :-/
I have been admiring all the art journal layouts in the galleries and I hope to have time to expore this technique more. While this card isn't an art journal, it certainly was inspired by it!