Up, Up and Away in my Beautiful Balloons.....

Hello everyone: I'm a little late with this post, I usually post early in the mornings but today, I've been super busy cleaning up my craft room and getting rid of stuff that was just cluttering it, (you know what I mean, right?)
Anyway, while I was cleaning the closet I spotted a rectangular box, skinny and tall, it was behind some bags of fabric and yarn, (that are already in the donation box for my 11 year old granddaughter's Art Club in school).  I grabbed this box and opened and inside were 5 rolls of beautiful, pastel colored Vellum, untouched and unopened, from Martha Stewart. There was also, 5 other rolls of Glassine paper in Red, Blue, Pink, Green and Orange, really pretty. But I digress.....The card I made today is for a couple of challenges, the Muse Challenge #155 and the CAS(E) this Sketch! which will close in about 16 hours, I already submitted a card, you can see it HERE if you'd like, it was posted on February 26th., I just wanted to give this challenge another try. Here is my card.

As many of you know, I adore the House Mouse mice, and this image is no exception, the only thing about it is that it belongs to a BIG stamp called "Fall Commuters", here is a picture of the whole stamp.

Can you find the little mouse I used? When I saw the Muse card I really loved it but, I didn't have an image that would really fit the challenge and then, I remember this stamp, so I grabbed it and, after a ton of washi tape for masking the rest of the mice, I isolated the one I wanted. After a couple of trials on scrap paper I was finally satisfied that all of the leaves and other mice were covered, I inked it up with Stazon Jet Black ink, removed the washi tape and,  holding my breath and hoping the Stamp-a-magig was not going to move, I stamped it onto my panel of Canson water color paper.

Phew!! the image came out perfect!!!

I sponged the sky with Broken China distress ink leaving some white spots to resemble clouds, then I sponged the bottom part with Peel Paint distress ink for the grass,  added some flowers and grass with some stamps from Purple Onion and Art Impressions, I colored my little mouse with the dark brown Prismacolor pencil and stamped the sign and the sentiment. 

Then, I grabbed my balloon dies and cut one with each color of Glassine paper, I love it, the paper is transparent and the balloons look real.

Using SU markers, I drew the string from each balloon to this little hands, the balloons are attached with a little piece of double sided tape.

Here is a picture of the finished inside.

The sentiment is from SU "Curly Cute" and the fireworks are from The Ton.

Here is the Muse card that inspired mine.

And the CAS(E) this Sketch! banner.

Thank you for stopping by, until next time, happy stamping.

Hugs from Maria.