Happy Birthday!!

We celebrated the Hubby's birthday in November 2006 but I only completed the layout below in December. This is my first non-Ty 12x12 layout ever (finally eh) and I guess it is fitting that it is of the Hubby. The Hubby's friend has already commented on how come there are no pictures of the Hubby in any of the layouts that have been posted, so to Mr. B5000 here it finally is. :-)

Materials: Textured Cardstock: Bazzill Basics Paper; Patterned Paper: The Paper Patch; Snaps: Making Memories; Photo Corners: Heidi Swapp for Advantus; "Happy Birthday" laser-cut title: Go West Studios; "The Big 30" die-cut title: Quickutz (Marisa font); Clear Embossing Ink: Ranger; Ultra Thick Embossing Enamel: Suze Weinberg; Rubber stamp: Hero Arts; Watermark Ink: Versamark by Tsukineko.

This was the layout that I mentioned in my previous blog regarding embossing small die-cut letters with Ultra Thick Embossing Enamel (UTEE). The results for the title "The Big 30" came out really great (painstakingly done and at the expense of the tip of my Quikstik). It was really glossy because I had to re-do the UTEE several times to cover bald spots. The "Happy Birthday" title was less so because I only did one layer of UTEE and the cardstock colour was pale yellow.

This layout also represents my first time at tearing paper. Yes, I think the general reaction would be..."WHAT the 1st time??!!" but hey I am more of a neat freak when it comes to my pages. I think family will be glad to know that I am letting go of this anal nature and that I am beginning to realize that a little imperfection is actually ok. I actually enjoyed tearing paper.

Quick tip for the day: When you tear paper, make sure that you pull the paper directly towards your body and not sideways as you will get a better textured tear that way. (Credit for this tip goes to my cousin LJ who learnt it in her class at Laine's in Singapore - Cheers!).

By the way, do check out LJ's blog at http://jazzscraps.blogspot.com.

My mom saw this layout and was so enticed by the picture I took of the cake (mango flan from the Sheraton Hotel) to the point that she asked me to order the same cake for my own birthday just a week or so ago. I didn't mind as the cake is delicious!!

I'm not sure if you can tell from the picture above but I experimented with watermark stamping on the red paper. I used a rubber stamp and Versamark's Watermark Ink. The effect was rather good actually but I got overzealous in my stamping and the crazy randomness of it did not turn out so well...the messiness of the stamping did not appeal to me at all.

All in all, this is not one of my neatest layouts but at least it got done.