Mr Cardmaker is an Anniversary Guy

Twenty-one years today.  That's how long I've been with my DP, Charlie.  Last year, for the Big Twenty, we went to PARIS!!!  Ooh, la la, fo' sho'!!  This year, after moving to Michigan, and all the MIL health drama (which always comes with EXPENSE, don'tcha know), we are staying home and having a nice dinner out.  Can't wait!  

We are not big gifts-for-anniversaries people, although I did get a lovely bunch of irises this morning.  I made him a card (as you do).

It looks like this--

So, while in Paris last year, I picked up these SWEET little Moulin Rouge windmill paperclip things while at Montmartre.  I THOUGHT I had gotten Eiffel Tower ones.  I planned this card to have a nice wire Eiffel Tower clip on it.  THAT'S why I have the cityscape right there with the natural environment.....Bleh.
Anyway, he got the idea, and he really liked this card.  It TOTALLY reminded him of Paris, which is what I was going for, so I guess it all worked out in the end.

This windmill moulin actually started out not so ROUGE, and not nearly so sparkly.  It actually started out as a plain, paperclip colored moulin.  I went after it with my R29 Lipstick Red Copic marker, which I dried with my heat tool.  Then I pounced my Versamark pad onto it and covered it with my holographic embossing powder, which I reheated to make it stick.  Warning--I DID get some red ink on my Versamark pad during this.  Hopefully, it won't transfer.

So, to make the card, I started with a base of PTI orange zest cardstock.  Added a layer of a sort of rust colored cs, then a piece of My Mind's Eye Out of the Blue DP.  I like the sky and the balloons!
I used an old script background stamp with some SU crumbcake ink to "french" it up a bit.
I punched a circle of yellow dp scrap to make a sun, using a Studio G $1 stamp, and red and orange inks.
I used Jillibean Soup's You Move Me set to get the skyline.  I sort of twisted this stamp around when I put it on my acrylic block, in order to get a wavy line.  I fussy cut it out and then adhered it to a piece of DP (with the trees ) that I hand cut into a wavy line.  Before I attached the to one another, I die cut some grass from some Old Olive (SU) dsp, and pieced that around the edge.  after putting all that together, I popped it off the surface with some foam tape.  Then I added the paper clip.

The sentiment is from Papertrey Ink.  I also curved it as I attached it to my acrylic block, so I could follow the shape of my sun.  That took care of the outside.

I wrote a lovely personal message on the inside.  I can't show you all of that.  What I can show you is the rest of the sentiment and what I did with it.

It looks like this--WAY magnified.

This was about 2"x3" in real life.  The sentiment is, again, PTI, but the "happy anniversary" is by Stampin' Up.
I used the same papers and background stamp, but I also fussy cut balloons out from the BACK of the DP used for the background, and I used an A*Muse Studio cloud duo die to cut out a cloud.  I used the die to trace around in order to make the outline around the die cut, so it would look a bit more like the clouds on the dp (see the front of the card).  I recreated the hill and the grass, and mounted it on a scrap of dotted paper.

So, that's my card.  Hope you like it.

PS--I have a light box now!  I am hoping it will greatly improve the quality of my card pics.  I made it myself, from a storage bin, some clip lamps, a poster board, and some white fabric. 

Thanks for stopping by!
All Best-
Richard