Kind Koala for The Paper Players

Happy Sunday! I'm glad you stopped by to check out my latest card for The Paper Players challenge. This week is a Clean-and-Simple Child's Birthday theme challenge from LeAnne. I was a little scared when I first read this challenge for a couple of reasons. First, my supplies of children related stamps is almost nonexistent and second, clean-and-simple is always a challenge. My only good option was to alter the Kind Koala stamp and combine it with a balloon stamp to give it a different purpose. Thinking I had stumbled onto an original idea I did a quick Google search and found the talented Brian King had beat me to it. That's okay, my card looks completely different. The patterned paper is from the discontinued Sunshine & Sprinkles dsp and I colored the Koala with Cool Gray Copic markers. Do you consider paper pieced balloons simple? I wasn't sure, so I did it anyway. To get the stamps to line up I stamped a masked portion of the balloon image onto the white cardstock. Then I stamped a masked portion of the Koala stamp onto a different piece of cardstock which was then fussy-cut and aligned under the balloons. The string was drawn on and then I stamped the birthday wishes at the bottom. It wasn't hard but it was time consuming and I really like how it turned out. Isn't the Koala cute with balloons? Since I spent so much time on this card I'm also entering it into the Seize the Birthday Anything Goes Birthday Challenge.

Need some more inspiration? Check out the marvelous clean-and-simple cards The Paper Players design team created! We can't wait to see your card in the gallery! The challenge is open until Noon (PST)  on Friday, August 22nd. Enjoy the rest of your day!

Koala and sentiment by Stampin' Up! and Balloons by Stampabilities.