Birthday Time

April is a busy time for birthdays in my family: it was my husbands birthday on the 13th, mine on the 16th (thanks to all the Outlawz girls that left me best wishes!), my cousins' husband on the 20th, my Aunty on the 24th and my cousin on the 30th.....so you'll be seeing a few cards.  This one is for my cousins' husband...does that make him my cousin-in-law?

This is a very straightforward card: I am usually most comfortable playing it safe with men's cards, especially if they're not in my immediate family (don't want to offend!)  This card is very safe indeed!

The image and the sentiment are from a sheet I got ages ago, it has all kinds of time references on it and I wish I could get more as it's really good for all sorts of masculine events, retirement etc.  I used some for my Dad's Father's Day card last year.  
I used the sketch from Eat Sleep Stamp for their sketchy Thursday challenge, I do love their sketches!
The black paper with the gold fleur de lis on is from Die Cuts With a View "Mariposa" collection.  The image is matted on textured card also from DCWV and popped up on foam dots, but of course.  The stripy paper is from Kaisercrafts Homemade collection, also matted on DCWV card, the ribbon is from my stash (I'll have to get more, it was yummy to work with!) Papertake Weekly has Spots n Stripes (either or both) this week, this card has the stripes!  
Cupcake Craft Challenges has "Lots of Layers", this card has seven (on the front!), that's pretty much "Lots", so I'm entering there.  Whoopsi Daisy has "Free and Easy", so I'm entering there, though I'm not sure if the printed graphic is "allowed", soon find out, lol.
I finished the inside of this card a little differently: all I did was put a square of the black paper in the centre of the card, cover about two thirds of it with vellum then covered the join with ribbon.  It solved the issue nicely of having somewhere to write on; even with a black patterned paper underneath you could see the message perfectly. I'll definitely use this idea again.
Well that's about it for this card, told you it was straightforward....it's all I had time for to be honest, as I got an iPad for my birthday and we got new iphones on Monday and it has taken all my time to set everything up - especially when you factor in losing all your contacts (and we run our own business, that's a lot of contacts!) and having to resurrect them (at which point you find all the rubbish you've kept in Outlook!).  My husbands   phone has all his photos back on, mine none.....and we've both lost all our music because we changed PC's a while back and I forgot to back up iTunes so my music library is lost and gone forever; I just can't get the energy up to re-rip (is that even a term?) it all.  Of course we bought a new all singing all dancing Media centre when we did the lounge up, but that only sings and dances AFTER you put the music into IT's library, so no help there! 
Well, phew, that was a bit of a rant!  I'll be back very soon with one of the (many) cards I've got on the go.  Until then, Happy Crafting, Dee