Simply Soft Birthday

Couple of things to share with you today.  Last night we had a family dinner to celebrate Nikki's birthday (future DIL).  I asked Nikki a few weeks ago, what she wanted for her birthday dinner and one of things she picked was my Dark Chocolate Ganache Torte for dessert.  I've been making this for several years now.  I had a similar dessert at Milestones (a chain of restaurants in the Vancouver area) ... and I thought, "I can make this".  So I developed this recipe and it's been my favorite "go to" dessert for guests.  It's easy to make and delicious.  I'm including a picture of a slice of torte from last night (drizzled with Caramel Sauce) and I've added the recipe to my Baking section of this blog.  Hope you'll give it a try!

Dark Chocolate Ganache Torte

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On to the card for today ... this is for today's Sketch Challenge (SC378) from SCS.  I went outside of my comfort zone and added more pattern than I'm used to.  I see wonderful cards on SCS with lots of mixes of patterns and they are amazing.  For some reason, when I mix patterns, they just look ridiculous ... how does that happen??!!  Anyways, I gave it another try today and I'm happy with how it turned out.  Hope you like.

Sketch Challenge SCS378:

"Simply Soft Birthday"

Stamps:  Simply Soft, Vintage Labels (SU!); clay pot (Rubber-Art Stamps)
Paper:  Soft Suede, watercolor, Autumn Traditions DP (retired), Everyday Enchantment DP (SU!)
Ink:  StazOn, Pumpkin Pie, Tangerine Tango, Old Olive; Basic Black Stampin' Write marker
Accessories & Tools:  Blender Pen, white gel pen, post-it note for masking, small oval punch, medium oval punch, sponge, sticky strips, adhesives, and dimensionals

I started by stamping my clay pot in Stazon Black ink onto watercolor paper.  I stamped the clay pot again onto a post-it note with the top of the pot on the sticky part of the note.  I cut out the post-it note pot and used it as a mask.  I stamped the flower branch from Simply Soft stamp set above the pot in StazOn Black ink and then removed the mask.  I used my Black marker to add in the rim of the pot behind the flower branch.

Next I colored the flower branch using my blender pen and swiping it across my stamp pads.  I used Pumpkin Pie for all the blossoms, adding two coats to intensify the color (making sure the paper was dry before adding the second coat).  I then added Tangerine Tango ink in the same way, using the blender pen and adding two coats to the base of the blossoms.  I used Old Olive for the branches and leaves.  I used the white gel pen to add a few dots of white to the blossoms to lighten them.

I colored the pot in the same way with my blender pen and Soft Suede ink.

I mounted all the layers of cardstock and DP as per the sketch, sponging Soft Suede ink around the outer edges of the Soft Suede card base and Soft Suede frame on the main panel and sentiment.  This just gives more depth to the card.

The main panel and sentiment are popped up on dimensionals to add even more depth.