Happy Birthday to My "Little" Boy & Lots of Layers at HCTB

Today is my eldest son Matt's birthday... he's not such a little boy; 32!!  Today is also the start of a new challenge over at Here Come The Boys, so I took the opportunity to make a card for one of my favourite people using the challenge theme -one of my favourite techniques.... Lots of Layers!

I made an easel card.... another "favourite", Craft Us Crazy has Favourite Things as their challenge so I'm entering there.  

Matt is mad keen on cars - always has been, it's a source of much ribbing from my husband as he's a "footy" fan; Matt says Stefan likes watching a load of guys running around a paddock chasing a bit of pigskin, to which my hubby retorts simply "vroom vroom"  

As soon as I saw this fantastic image (one of the Funny Giraffes set from The Paper Shelter) I just had to have it and get it on a card for Matt.  Stamping Sensations has Fur or Feather for their challenge, I'm in!  I changed the number on the front of the car to 32 to make it applicable to Matt's age.  I coloured with Copics, adding some extra shadows with pencils and gloss to the windshield and goggles.  I love bright colours, Copics are good for "bright", Oozak has Anything Goes with your favourite colour combo as does Corrosive Challenges so I'm entering there.

I've used the sketch from Cupcake Craft Challenges, I've missed the deadline for the challenge but I do like to acknowledge the source of a good sketch! 

 I thought the sentiment was soooo good, like so many of the fabby sentiments from TLC Creations. I attached it to a strip of card "tucked" under the strip along the front edge of the base, making it act as a stop for the front of the card.  Fab 'n' Funky Challenges has "What's Inside" for their challenge and Aud Sentiments Challenge is "Show Your Inner Sentiment" so I'm entering those.

The papers are from Kaisercraft's Konstruct collection and my stash.  The black panel behind the image is corrugated, the stripy paper is... not!  The brads are from my stash too, the black ones are nice and glittery.  Whimsy Inspirations Challenge is to Use Some Metal; brads are metal - I'm in :-)  All the layers are popped up on foam dots of different thicknesses which makes it a very 3D card indeed!

My Time to Craft has Men Only and Totally Gorjuss has For Your Men so I'm entering those challenges as well as the Charisma Cardz which has an Anything Goes theme.

Well that's it for today's card.  We had "breakfast pizzas" here today for Matt's birthday meal; as a starter we had little bits of sausage and sauce using cocktail forks (we always do, lol) ... my husband dropped one on the floor and our lovely Jack Russel Rocky grabbed it - husband grabbed hold of cocktail fork, handle broke off, Jack Russel swallows sausage AND FORK.  We joked about it for the rest of the meal but eventually rang the vet (insert emergency vet - it's Sunday!) who advised us to take him down.  We did, he had an X-Ray (= dollars) - requiring sedation (and therefore more dollars)  I'm thinking this is going into the hundreds now.  Vet comes back with, yes this is quite serious, he has to have it surgically removed as it could perforate his gut, we'll come back to you with an estimate (mmmm, ominous)  Comes back with the estimate $2800 to $3000, yup, THREE THOUSAND DOLLARS!!!!!!  What can you do, we love him and he's only six - young enough to make it worthwhile (apparently)  So, Rocky is in Hospital, we're waiting for the phone call to say he's come out of surgery and what time to pick him up tomorrow (oh yeah, and how much the balance will be, aaargh!!)  We're going to rename him the six million dollar dog - and we're binning the cocktail forks, even though we've had them longer than the kids!!  eta: Rocky has come through the surgery fine, he has a 7cm incision, aaaw.

It's our Anniversary tomorrow, hubby was going to go out this afternoon and get my card, it looks like this is the first year I won't have a card at breakfast - blame Rocky!!  I'll be back with the card I made for Stefan in a day or so (just need to go and finish it, lol)  Until then, Happy Crafting, Donna