All occasion card with a banner and yellow balloon

I have had a request of a few cards from a friend of mine so I got started and made quite a few.  I am now just getting to blogging them all.  She requested a variety of cards with greetings on the side so she can add them as they are needed for the specific occasion.  I really enjoyed the creative process and used some new techniques.  

For this card I started with an A2 envelope and made a purple card to fit inside.  I trimmed this fun background (Morgue File) to size and then started on a banner.  I have always wanted to make one of these!  I found some purple baker's twine and cut a length that would cross my card.  I rifled through my stash of purple papers and took out a few that coordinated with my background.  I trimmed them to 3/4", folded over the ends and then glued them in place on my twine.  I managed to get five little banners in the width of my card.  After they were dry I added it to my background by adhering the ends to the back using double sided tape.  I did add tiny pieces of double sided tape behind each banner to get it to have the sort of curve I wanted.  I added faux stitching to the edges using a fine tipped black marker.  I attached my background and banner to my card front. 

Next, I worked on my balloon.  I do have a balloon punch but it is not large enough to contrast nicely on this size of card so I downloaded a digital one from CLKER.  I used Photo Elements to change the knot and to change the colour to gray.  I sized it like I wanted it in Corel Draw and printed several onto white cardstock in both gray and black.  Next, I fussy cut them out on the line or just inside to eliminate the printed line.  Worked really well!!  The ones with gray lines were better than those with black lines.  For any that still had a residue of the line I used the edge of my exacto knife blade at a shallow angle to remove any toner left on the edge.  I painted the balloon for this card using two coats of yellow watercolour  and added a highlight using a white gel pen.  After it was dry, I went over it with a clear glitter gel pen.  Very nice!!  I tied a length of backer's twine to the knot of the balloon and adhered it to my card front using 3D foam tape.  I positioned my twine ends where I wanted them and used a bit of glue on the twine to get them to stick where I wanted them.  Worked well.  It was fun to make a banner and they are so easy to make with scraps!!  I am happy to be able to print balloons any size I want now and colour them any colour as well so that was worth doing.  Have not used baker's twine in quite a while so this was a really fun card to make!!         Therese