SEM July Sketch Challenge and a Special Thank you!

Hello my friends... Happy day!

Scrapping Everyday Miracles is a blog I really love.  They have great challenges that are very tied to one of the things I love more about scrapbooking... which is you can scrap about ordinary things and document your life...  with all your blessings and things that are not things... you know what I mean?  I really love to scrapbook about special days, and birthdays and so on... but also about the table we've had for so many years, or the feeling I've got when I was sick...  and the blessing to have a house... the acceptance of less positive things you have to live with, and so on.

But anyway... They have a sketch challenge going on and I thought it was cool to participate since it's been a while that I don't contribute to their challenges.  You can find about it here:   July Sketch Challenge, and following is the inspiration sketch:

Ok... putting that aside, I have to tell you that I received all these goodies from friend Tameko.    She's a real artist and I know her from Friday Friends with Flair at Unity Stamp Co. since she usually participates and I do too.... You can know more about her here:  Creating my Peace.

I left a comment on her blog a couple of weeks ago, and I resulted the winner... Isn't it cool to receive these kind of surprises by mail?  I bet every scrapper loves to be surprised with crafty goodies.  Thank you Tameko...  

So...  that was the introduction...  SEM Sketch Challenge + New goodies + need to make a bday card for my boss =  Scrapbooking time...

I made this card for SEM Sketch Challenge using the new goodies that Tameko sent to me.

Loved this concept of circled borders and sentiments from Justrite brand, combined with different images or sentiments in the center...  plus I used Spellbinders and one of other stamps from Inkadinkado she sent. 

The circle at center is popped out in all its layers...  not only because I wanted it to be the main one, but because it is also a twist mandatory for the challenge.  The leaves at left, which I cut from patterned paper, are also popped up with foam.

I decided not to paint the flowers in this image because the card was going to be colorful already and did not want to over-color it...  so I just applied some Glossy Accents in the center of the flowers and added purple glitter.  Love it!

In the sketch there is a proposed sentiment at the bottom left corner, but since I used other sentiments throughout the whole design, I included the "Happy Birthday" wish/sentiment inside the card.

At the end I inked a bit the white background to provide some unity to all the elements...

Hope you all liked it...  My boss' bday is today but she's on vacation so she won't see the card until Monday the 29th.  Hope she likes it then.

Tks for the comments.