Dragon Birthday Card

My son, Adam, celebrated his 16th birthday on the 14th. We are having family over this Saturday to celebrate. I made this card for him:

I love how pictures make things look better. You can't see the flaws and mistakes:) Anyway, I searched for chinese characters for "Happy Birthday" and printed them out on the computer. I had to print them smaller to fit on the tag. That made them very difficult to cut out. Then I inked the tag using Peeled Paint and Vintage Photo Distress Inks and glued the characters to them. That was kind of time consuming. The dragon was done using a stencil, PK Glitz Wonderfilm and PK Glitz embossing powders. Since wonderfilm is double-sided adhesive, I stuck one side to white cardstock. For my first attempt I just stuck the whole stencil to the wonderfilm thinking I could just pull it back off when I was ready. I filled in the stencil with the Poppy Jasper and Honey EP Max embossing glitter. I discovered that wonderfilm is really sticky! I could barely get the stencil off. It caused the cardstock to bend and wrinkle. I covered the rest of the piece with Meadow embossing glitter and heat set everything. Because the cardstock was wrinkled, you could see the wrinkles through the glitter.

I tried a second time by leaving the slick surface on and taping the stencil to it. Then I took a craft knife and cut through the protective nonsticky surface, tracing the design of the stencil. I then had to peel each little piece off and cover it with the colors I wanted to use. This took a lot longer, but turned out alot better.

The base card is white cardstock that I colored around with colored pencil and blended with Gambit Mineral Spirits. I just used some paper that I had at home for the layers. I attached ribbon and the sentiment (which is also done with the pencils and blending technique). The sentiment was cut out using a punch from EK Success. Use It Tuesday wants you to use things that you have had for a while. Everything here is stuff that I've had for a long time. The background papers are from Creative Memories and I have had them for probably at least 5 years.

This card is going into the following challenges:
http://pollycraftchallengeblog.blogspot.com/2012/04/challenge-136-cute-critters-anita.html
http://craftybootschallenges.blogspot.com/2012/04/no-girls-allowed.html
http://paperplaytime.blogspot.com/2012/04/ch-72-say-it-with-sentiments-theme.html
http://sparklesforumchallenges.blogspot.com/2012/04/challenge-31-men-only.html
http://craftyourpassionchallenges.blogspot.com/2012/04/challenge-106-die-cuts-and-punches.html
http://seemsalittlesketchy.blogspot.com/2012/04/sketch-11-sponsored-by-squigglefly-and.html
http://useittuesday.blogspot.com/2012/04/challenge-29-anything-goes.html
http://joyfulstamper.blogspot.com/2012/04/inspire-me-fridays-54-anything-goes.html

HAVE A GREAT WEEKEND!!!