I started off the cards with he backgrounds, as I had recently been playing around with alcohol inks and become slightly obsessed I was looking for another excuse to create with them. So I pulled out Sunshine yellow, Mermaid and Indigo blue as well as gold metallic mixative 

I created three different panels using three different methods/ techniques of putting the alcohol ink on to the Yupo paper. Two of the panels I used the blending tool, one of which  did the strip technique where i just added the two colors to the foam pad of the tool with a bit of blending solution and then went across the paper with it, and the other i just dabbed the blending tool on the youpo with the same mixture of colors and solution.. The other two I put the ink directly onto the yupo paper, along with the mixative and blending solution.The techniques I picked up from watching Jennifer McGuire’s video’s on using alcohol inks.

 From there I prepared my panels with my antistatic powder tool and then went in and stamped the dinosaur images with versa fine black onyx ink, added clear embossing powder and heat set it. I stamped about three dinosaurs per background, to give me  more options to mix and match. I ended up fussy cutting the dinosaurs out and going around the edges with black marker 

 I stamped out  little party hats from a lawn fawn party animal set onto patterned paper and the skinny looking tree on to the alcohol inked paper and  fussy cut both of those elements out. I also stamped the two small trees on to the patterned yupo onto regular card stock as I fussy cut out the tops of the trees and inlayed onto the second stamped image and colored the rest of the tree with my markers.

The card base is 5¼ x 5¼ the black is 51/8  x 51/8  and the green is 5x5 and lastly the vellum layer is 4½ x 4½  

I die cut three large circles to create my scene on,  the two white circles where die cut  with the largest stitched circles from my MFT set and the black done with the another set from my stash..  I went on to die cut  the rest of  the elements for the card, I die cute the grass from both dark green card stock and glitter paper which I also used for the palm trees which was die cut using the beach scene die set. I also ran through the grass using the same circle dies this allowed for it all to fit nicely together. 

I decided since i had my machine out I would  emboss one  of the green square and the vellum square with birthday embossing folders just to add a little something extra.  To make the wording pop I added a little black soot distress ink. I also went in with my copic markers  and colored the palm tree leafs with a darker green just so it all didn't blend together.

 I stamped the sentiments onto  scrap pieces of cardstock and die cut using a mini banner from the hearts in a row die set.

 Finally i adhered everything mostly flat with only using a tiny bit of foam tape for one layer of the grass  so i could tuck the dinosaurs in and a little to pop the palm trees leafs in place. I added little finishing touches with white gell pen to each of the dinosaurs and added the hat, present and balloons to tie it together

(All products used are linked below)

I decided to finish off the inside of one of the cards with a little more  grass, stamped balloons which I colored with copics and another cute dinosaur.

I do hope you found inspirations, and that  I didn't bore you to much with my how too ( sorry if its too long want to make sure I get it all in there)

Please head on over and join the Challenge at the Cards In Envy Blog, I cant wait to see what you all create.

Have a wonderful Week

Nancy  :)