Anything Goes at Card Mania Challenges

There's a new challenge starting today over at Card Mania Challenges... it's my last challenge as Guest Designer... I've thoroughly enjoyed my stint as Guest, though I've made more "sudden death" offerings for this Guest spot than any other I've ever had... due mainly to my patchy "personal time availability" during my recovery from the hip replacement, then Christmas arriving with unseemly haste; so I hope it wasn't too tiresome for Ani and the crew at Card Mania... thanks for having me :-)  Anyway here's my "Anything Goes" card :-)

I've made a card to welcome a baby girl, as it was nearly 2am when I photographed it I had to use my photo tent, it is a little "softer" looking IRL.

As Di's Digs is one of the sponsor's this time around I used Di's soooo sweet "Little Mouse on the Moon" image, available here, Creatalicious Challenges has New Beginnings for their challenge, so I'm entering there. 

I coloured with Prismacolor pencils this time around... not a Copic in sight!!  I did add some Sakura Glaze pen to the stars, of course you can't see it in the pic, but refrained from adding sparkle as I thought the gold foil highlights on the designer paper (which, again, you can't see in the pic, sigh) was enough, with all this designer paper, I'll be entering Crafty Hazelnut's Patterned Paper Challenge for sure!

The current Sketch Saturday sketch was perfect for the look I wanted... I just "squashed" it in a bit :-)  
The base of the card is a beautiful salmon pink pearl card, the background layer was cut with my new (I've been itching to open these for weeks!) Spellbinders Majestic Labels 25 dies... in fact ALL the layers were cut with dies from this set!
I cut the background paper (all the paper is from Kaisercraft's Sweet Nothings pad) in a rectangle, then used the largest die in the set to cut the filigree border/layer; while it was still in the die I cut around the edge by hand to give it a very small edge, matching it to the rectangle of course.  I used the same paper to cut the next layer with the next die down in the set, then cut the image panel with the next smallest die, distressed the edges with some gold pigment ink, stuck it to the fancy mat and mounted that on to some foam pads to lift it from the background... giving it some real dimension... as always it's better in real life!
I cut the "Congratulations" using a Spellbinders die with gold foil card.. I had to 'peel' some of the backing paper off the gold card first... it just would NOT cut through it and come cleanly out of the die, even though it's got ejection foam in it (which incidentally I'll HAVE to get for these "Majestic" dies, it took me longer to pick the die cut out of the die and clean all the bits out than it did to make the card up, lol)

The inside of the card is finished with "more of the same"(without backing the largest filigree rectangle up with designer paper, or lifting the jotting panel up on foam, it's amazing the difference it made having the card base show through instead) with the Baby Girl being Cottage Cutz dies, alas you can't see the lovely subtle gold foil in the DP in this pic either... the one reason I really prefer to use natural lighting whenever I can!  and the distressing and die cuts are GOLD, not the strange green colour they appear in the pics, lol.
This slimline photo does at least prove it IS gold  :-))
Anyway, that's all there is to my simple little Anything Goes card, the sweet image lush papers and fab dies do all the work for me, I hope you agree.  There's a lot of "Anything Goes" challenges running at the moment, I'm entering the ones at: Through the Craftroom Door, Corrosive Challenge, Sparkles Monthly Challenge, The Paper Shelter, Divas by Design, Simon Says Challenge, Art by Miran, Sweet  Stampin', That Craft Place, Little Miss Muffet, The Crazy Challenge and Hiding in my Craft Room which has Anything Goes as long as it's NOT Christmas :-))
Pop over to the Card Mania Challenge blog and check out the rest of the team's inspiration, what a wealth of talent!  Hope you get a chance to enter the challenge, no excuse with the ever-popular Anything Goes theme... and the great prize on offer from Di's Digis of course.
I'll be back very soon... I want to get some of my "unblogged" Christmas cards out there while they're still relevant, then maybe make a start on "that" draft pile :-)  Until then, Happy Crafting, Donna