Hanging with my Gnomies

I had a very strange thing happen to me this week.  Someone that I only know through an online community saw some of the cards that I had posted pictures of in a craft section of the community.  She sent me a not telling me how much she loved the cards and was wondering if I would make her a gnome card and she would pay for it.  "SAY WHAT?  You want to pay for one of my cards" was my reaction.  

After I got over my initial shock I offered to just make her the cards because I enjoy doing it, and knowing that it would be doing her a huge favour (her friends birthday is coming up and apparently her friend is nutso for gnome's) is all that I needed to know.

So I embarked on my task of making her a gnome card, with bright colours that had a birthday theme.  Not an easy task.  The bright colours, the gnomes were the easy part.  The birthday theme not so easy.

The gnome themed stamps that I have are from There She Goes, and all the silly gnomes are already holding something, or don't look to celebratory.  So trying to use the stamps but ditch shovels, and flowers, and potted plants that were a part of the stamp was challenging.

In this first card, the gnome is originally holding a shovel.  With some creative inking I managed to not get the shovel at all in my stamp and make it so the gnome looks like he is holding a bouquet of mushroom balloons.  I think I did a swell job on this one.

My second attempt I'm not so happy with.  The gnome was originally holding a potted plant.  I used another TSG stamp set, Make a Wish, and got rid of the plant and added in the cupcake.  My stamping and inking wasn't as successful, but still pretty decent.  I think I'm not as happy with this one as I don't like the layout or the colours I chose as much as the first.

So off I go to send my online buddy a few pictures.  Hopefully she likes either one of these, or its back to the drawing board (which is alright, its gotten the old creative juices flowing a bit)