Card for a BIG Baby?!?

We have a new challenge starting today over at Here Come The Boys... we want you to make a project for a "Tiddly Peep".  I have chosen to make a card celebrating the birth of a baby boy (don't forget it's Here Come The BOYS), but I think this image would work just as well for a Tiddly Peeps birthday.

I got this gorgeous Crissy Armstrong image from Squigglefly absolutely AGES ago - you can get it in rubber at Whimsy Stamps... I don't know why I was so nervous about colouring it up, I just was!  In the end I decided to flex my new found love of Prismacolor pencils to give a softer look... mainly as I'm no good at the pastel look, particularly with Copics :-)  Not that the elephant ended up that pastel either, when I look at it.
I love the soft blue on my papers (Kaisercrafts Lullaby collection and DCWV Animal Crackers) and card from American Crafts, and while I don't have a favourite colour (I really do like most colours) this is my fave shade of blue so I'm entering the Sundays with Crissy challenge; Favourite Colours.
The Deep Ocean Challenge theme is "Inspired by a Song", I have to say Baby Elephant Walk was going through my head the whole time I was making this - (in fact it's going through my head again, arghh) so I'm entering there too!
Once again I've used the sketch from Sweet Sketch Wednesday... once again it's a fabby Sketch, lol.
As I wanted to add some bling to this card, without making it too feminine, I used lovely sparkly paper from Merci (I think) as the background for the image panel.  It went with the glittered leaves on my vertical strip and I added Diamond Stickles to the edge of the sentiment circle too. The sentiment is from Hobby Palais, but I don't think you can get it any more, I changed the colour to blue in Word, it was cut using Nestabilities Standard Circles and matted onto one of my new Impress Flower dies.  Some flat backed pearls finished it off. Totally Gorjuss has Bling as their challenge, so I'm entering there.
Now you may have noticed the stitching on this card... it's the first time I've done "proper" stitching on a card and would you believe it, I can't find one challenge that has "stitching", lol.  Well, at least I've tried something new and I will do it again - dragging the machine out took ten times as long as the actual stitching, but what the hey!
I used paper from the front on the inside, don't I always, and used the same Martha Stewart border punch on the edges of the strips as I did on the vertical panel on the front.  The pearls are on a string - I've had them in my stash for TEN years at least....at WasteNot Want Not Wednesdays Lisa always has us using our neglected stash; ten years is pretty neglected so I'm in (though my lovely hitherto unused stamp would have got me in anyway, lol)
Fairy Fun Fridays, Oozak and Stamptacular Sunday all have Anything Goes challenges at the moment so I'll be entering there too.

Well that's it for my card for the Tiddly Peeps Challenge, why don't you pop over to the Here Come The Boys blog and check out the rest of the Teams projects, there's some cuteness, that's for sure.  We've got a great prize going, a bag of charms like the one on the left (courtesy of Woo), and you know you always need a "male" themed card so why not get one done for a Tiddly Peep in your life and enter the challenge?

Until next time, Happy Crafting, Donna