Happy Birthday Squares

Congratulations to this week's Featured Stamper, Colleen!

I chose this card as my inspiration:

LIST: Colours (red, blue, kraft, white) Techniques - die cut, stamping Elements (pinwheel of overlapping squares, frames on the squares, red button, sentiment banner, small flowers

INCLUDE: blue as main colour, pinwheel of squares, birthday theme, 

MODIFY: technique (stenciling), colours (added yellow, green, purple, gold), frame around the whole thing, not each square

EXCLUDE: kraft, sentiment banner, button

SPIN: square card, gold accents

I started with the 4 Square Shadow  and Stylized Four Petals stencils and Stone Blue ink. The layered stencil effect gave me a pattern on the blue squares, similar to my inspiration. Then I turned the 4 Square Shadow stencil 90 degrees and blended 4 other colours, overlapping to get some pretty blends.

Then I played around for a long time, trying to figure out how to best finish the card. The inspiration card has a homey, rustic, quilt-like feel, but my pinwheel was giving me more of a mid-century/mod vibe, so in the end I just went with that and changed the feel. I grabbed my current favourite birthday die (Penny Black), a little star from a Nativity Star set from Studio Light and a frame, and put it all on a card base that I had blended Cove Blue ink onto. My frame is larger than my circle, so you can see the Cove Blue peeking out around the inner focal panel.