Happy Birthday Sweet Christine!

IT'S A SURPRISE PARTY!!! So, grab a handful of confetti, a bright balloon and come along for a fun birthday blog hop to celebrate a special birthday for our dear friend, Christine Okken!  One thing about birthdays, is that you always hope to spend time with those you care about and that's why we're here!  At Flourishes, we're just one big family... so we just wanted to celebrate a wonderful day with one of our loved ones.

Even though we're a day early, we'd like to say...

HAPPY BIRTHDAY CHRISTINE!!!!!

Join along with members of the Flourishes family today and share some fabulous birthday inspirations, many happy celebratory birthday wishes and maybe even a slice of cyber cake.

Christine is one of those dear ladies who, even though we live hundreds of miles apart, we are as close as next door neighbors. We've only seen each other in real life a handful of times but gosh, it's like no time has passed at all between visits. She is such a sweet, thoughtful, caring, spiritual friend -- and I wouldn't trade her for anything! Christine - I hope you have the most blessed day and an even better year to come. Cheers to you dear friend!

On to my creation!

Christine is such an amazing card maker that making a card for HER? Oh my! I guess you could say I chickened out and kept my coloring to a minimum! :-)

I started with my Silhouette Cut File for Flourishes Spring Blossoms stamp set. After the shapes were cut, I took the small bracket pieces and stamped them using Tuxedo Black Memento Ink. Then, I colored it all up with Copic markers. (See below for the color collections that I used!) I then used the Flourishes Perfectly Pierced Victorian Oval die. While the die was still on, I did sponge on some Spun Sugar Distress Ink to cast a soft glow. I then took the Sentimental Favorites stamp set and stamped the Happy Birthday sentiment using Tuxedo Black ink. I matted up my image thanks to the Spellbinders Labels Seventeen and some scraps that I had with the True Friends paper pack and one of the new papers from Echo Park in the Style Essentials paper pack -- love all the designs in this pack! Add a little chevron ribbon, a little bling and.. ta da! done!

Here's a close up! You can see I did add a little glitz to the center of the flowers thanks to a little glitter glue!

And that, my friends is it! I have a perky and fun birthday card for an extra special lady in one of my favorite color pairings -- pink and green!

In honor of Christine's birthday celebration, we're giving away a special birthday present or two of our own!  Hidden among the Design Team's blogs today is a Mystery Blogger. Comment on her blog and you could be chosen as one of our birthday prize winners! The more you comment, the better your chances of winning. As well as one lucky commenter, we're having a birthday challenge too!

THE OFFICIAL RULES:  

• Simply create a NEW birthday themed card or project. 
• Entries need to be in by Friday November 1st at 6 PM EST.
• Those entries using Flourishes stamps will be counted for 2 prize ballots!
• You must link your creation in our InLinkz Widgit to be counted.
• You must have a link to our challenge in your blog post or gallery post.  Please feel free to use our Birthday Graphic too!
• If you upload to SCS please use the keyword FLLCWISH
• We'll announce the winners on Saturday on the Flourishes blog on Saturday November 2nd, so check back then to find out if you are a winner!

Hop along with our Flourishes family today.  Don't forget to leave some love for our fabulous designers today for a chance to win...

Aleksandra Mihelič
Allison Cope
Cheryl Lea
Deborah Anton
Dina Kowal
Heather Jensen
Jenny Gropp
Julie Koerber --- you are HERE!
Kathy Jones
Maki Jones
Meredith MacRitchie
Naomi Gong
Stacy Morgan
Silke Ledlow
Tosha Leyendekker

Don't forget to stop by Christine's blog, HERE, and send her some birthday wishes too! Thanks so much for stopping by! I'll see you back here soon! :-)

~Julie

SUPPLIES:

InLinkz.com