It's Becca's Birthday Bash!

Let me start with HAPPY Birthday Becca!!  And then I'll say, if you aren't familiar with Becca, you should definitely visit her blog when we're done here... and you can find it right HERE!  Today I'm celebrating Becca's 30th Birthday by joining along in her Birthday Bash Blog Hop.  Check out that awesome inspiration photo!!!  So many beautiful images and ideas to choose from.  And here is what I came up with:

So it's probably obvious what my inspiration was... that beautiful colored woodgrain.  I got out my distress inks and started sponging it on and blending and I went from stressed out to ecstatic in about 20 minutes.  I am not expert with the distress inks, but I am learning and I am very happy with the way this background turned out.  I started with the woodgrain paper from the CTMH Happy Times packet which is a very light gray and I can't stop oogling this rainbow of woodgrain.  After I was all done, I sprayed it with some Ken Oliver Liquid Metals that I had mixed in water which gave it a nice shimmer that you may or may not see here, but it's really pretty in person.  And then I splattered on some water drops.

I'm also playing along with the Stamplorations Them and Sketch Challenge for July (theme is Stars and Stamps and I'm playing along with both Theme and Sketch this time), Stamplorations Never Ending Anything Goes Challenge, and the Stamplorations CASEplorations Challenge (it was the beautiful ink blending and water droplets that got me on this one).

So let me say... I "met" Becca during the Coffee Lovers Blog Hop and have been greatly inspired by her creations over the last couple years.  Soon after she had her Damsel of Distressed Blog Hop for Domestic Violence awareness and I joined in for that one too.  Not only is she so talented in the making of beautiful cards and mixed media artwork, but she also is a designer of stamps for Stamplorations, and I think I might have all of her sets... and this sentiment is from one of them... it's a beautiful group of sentiments called Strong Women.

Becca is a champion of the young professional where she lives and I've noticed she's pretty much just a champion of anyone who needs it...

Love those feather stamps from the Trendy Feathers 2 by Shery Russ set over at Stamplorations .. one of my favorites stamp sets when I need a cool embellishment for a page.. this time I stamped on gold vellum with versamark and heat embossed in white and cut them out.  This set makes beautiful cards all on its own as well.. but you know how I am... although some day I will give the CAS card a try again...

And a closer look at my yummy background... I do love it!

Thanks for stopping by and be sure to hop over to Becca's and say Happy Birthday and play along!!  What inspires you about her photo??

Here are some more of the inspiration I used for this one: