Shadow box card for man

My brother will soon be 98 years old, I so wanted to make him a special birthday card.  Since I find shadow box cards special, I decided to make one for him.  I learned this technique from Jennifer McGuire.  I used a variety of dies for this card.

Front of card

Inside shadow box

Back of card

Balloon birthday

I had to change gears from Christmas cards to birthday cards  This card combines a House Mouse stamp with some balloon dies.

Holly Christmas cards

For some reason, I have been motivated to make Christmas cards, using holly.  As I grew up, the holly trees were so much a part of the holidays that it reminds me of happier times.  This large background die is by Taylored Expressions.

I mounted the holly die on red cardstock and wanted to add some red holly berries.  My first attempt was to use my old Liquid Pearls, which resulted in a big blog near the upper left corner.  Since this didn't work for me, I changed to a Viva Pearl Pen.  This worked a bit better, but I still felt it lacked something.  I added the die cut Merry Christmas by Tim Holtz (Sizzix).

I made the other cards with little gems that were tedious to place, but added a bit of sparkle.  I mounted this piece onto a white card base.  Both of these cards are the same color cardstock, but my lighting makes them look different