Birthday Soup

April has several birthdays. This card is for my father-in-law. Meagan was actually born on his 50th birthday. I think he likes that. So here is the card I made for him. Blue is his favorite color so I used an assortment of shades of blue. I started with a blocking effect for the background. The largest block seemed to need something so I used the Flannel Plaid BG stamp in Versamark. The lower right section was stamped with the Crosshatch BG also in Versamark. I left the top right piece alone except for faux stitching and sponging the edges. The focal point is from Alphabet Soup. I used SU! Markers to color the stamp in three shades of blue and stamped onto Whisper White. I punched the corners with the ticket punch and mounted onto yet another shade of blue. I added some more faux stitching and also some silver brads in the corners. The focal image is popped up a bit with dimensionals. The blues used are: Bashful Blue, Brocade Blue, Night of Navy and Brilliant Blue. I honestly have a hard time with more masculine cards. I should work on that!
Next time I will share a scrapbook page. I'm going to be scrapping again on Friday, so I should have some more of those to show you. I'm not very good at photographing my 12 x 12 pages though. Any tips would be appreciated.