FS680 - Happy Birthday

Congratulations to this week's FeaturedStamper, Niki (niki1)

I chose this card as my inspiration:

I focused on Niki's:
-grid
-botanical theme

I changed:
-flowers to leaves
-reduced the grid to one row
-no ribbon or embellishment

Niki's card was made with the colour of her August birthstone - peridot. My birthday is in May, so I went with emerald and focused more on leaves than flowers.

I started by cutting 2 each of the 2 leaves from Essentials by Ellen Bold Blossom dies. I used Zig Clean Color Real Brush Markers to colour them green. Instead of a water brush, I used a Nuvo Aqua Shimmer pen in Gloss.

I created my positive/negative grid with squares from the centres of the smaller Instant Photo Frame from Essentials by Ellen.

I stacked up the two larger leaves so that my centre leaf would be the same thickness as the outer leaves which were single die cuts on top of the squares.

I stamped my sentiment from That Thing You Did, and thought I was done. But it needed something else.

I created a matching mat with the same Zig markers and shimmer pen (just around the edges!) and then put it under my white panel.