Whoo's wishing you a Happy Birthday

My son absolutely loves owls so at times I'm drawn to images of owls.  His preference is for realistic looking owls - not steampunk or cartoon or such like so this is one that I made with him in mind:

The card is for the sketch challenge at Meljens Designs Studio:
http://meljensdesignsdt.blogspot.co.nz/2012/10/challenge-131-sketch-challenge.html


This image is called Fuzzy Owl and comes from Meljens Designs Studio.  The image behind is from The Graphics Fairy.  The sentiment comes from Create with TLC. 

The colour scheme kind of evolved with this card.  It wasn't what I originally thought I'd do but when I looked at the sketch I had this idea of printing the sentiment directly onto a piece of cardstock and fitting it as the bottom piece of the sketch.  But then it looked too white... I could have changed the card colour but I didn't think of that at the time.  So, out come the Distress Ink pads and my shaving brush.  I stippled some Vintage Photo over the piece of card.  That got me thinking of vintage, so decided to peruse The Graphics Fairy for a suitable vintage looking image of an owl.  Didn't quite have as much of a vintage feel as I wanted so stippled this one too!  I then found some grosgrain ribbon to tie in with this colour scheme.

Really pleased with how this turned out and not a backing paper in sight!  I'm getting better at creating cards without feeling the need to stick backing papers everywhere.

PS - This is a note for anyone from Meljens. I love the idea of the Tic Tac Toe game but I'm not on Facebook so have to miss out.  Any chance of doing the odd one with these challenges for those of us not on Facebook (I don't think I'm the only one who doesn't like Facebook)?  Quite happy having the sketch challenges too - this one has been great.