Horse birthday card

Hello there

I need to make a card which is for a 13 year old girl who loves horses. I knew there was a horse on the Create a Critter cartridge, so I went to get that and I've just looked at a video on youtube, which has encouraged me to get going basically. It's by a lady called Tracy, so please check out her video here to see what you think.  I do love the doodling around the card and particularly the white pen marks to highlight the tail and mane. I want to use the horse shoe cut that's on the cartridge and I don't think I'll include the bandana but other than that, I'm not completely sure where it'll take me. I often just need something like that video to set me off on a track.

The horse is cut at 4inches. I embossed him with the Divine Swirls embossing folder and then sanded him a bit, since I'd used a card from the distress collection of Coredinations. The red background is cut from Ornamental Iron 2- it's the base shadow function of gate8a on page 30- size is 5. The background paper is gingham effect from K&Co, which I think fits in with the rural type setting. Maggie decided that she liked the bandana, so there it is.

I absolutely love the difference the doodling makes, in particular to the horse; it brings him to life! I've made him dimensional as well by raising him up with glue.

The banner across the back I wanted to have texture, so it could almost be like a bale of hay. The handmade paper I used for the sentiment fits in perfectly as it makes the stamped image slightly soaked in and completely in keeping with the card.

Don't you think the nose section looks like a smiley face?!

 Once it dried, I decided I needed that much more 'roughness', so I distressed the edges with my scissors.

The horse shoes were cut at 3/4in I think it was.

If nothing else, it might get a giggle out of the recipient
or Maggie'll be appalled and tell me to ditch it

Inside the card, I used the card left from the horse die-cut as a template, put some worn lipstick ink onto my craft mat with a few drops of water and dabbed some cotton wool and painted into the template. I'm not convinced it's a great look but it was fun experimenting.





The envelope was distressed with worn lipstick and a few left over horseshoes came in very handy to decorate.

For the record, there's also a very nice looking horse image on the Carousel cartridge, which I also have. I might try doing something with that for my next horsey card.

I'm going to bed a happy girl.

Take care out there