Happy Birthday Ben .....

....  Good morning, and a quick warning that this is a photo heavy post!  Today our son, Ben, is 18 years old!  He is, according to the law in the UK, an adult, but he'll always be my little boy - well strictly big boy!!!  Here's the card I made for Ben, and that he has hopefully received today:

Stamps: Uniko Studio - Round in Circles; Stampin' Up! - Delightful Dozen; My Favourite Things - Document It Hello My Name Is, Textile Rectangles
Inks: SU - Baked Brown Sugar, Baja Breeze, Coastal Cabana, Midnight Muse
Dies: Die-namics - High Rise Numbers
Accessories: White Lustre Card; SU Card - Baked Brown Sugar; Kanban DP - Industriana; WMS - Twine; SU Marker - Baja Breeze

I used a couple of challenges to make this card.  The colours are from Colour Q - cQc#221 the last challenge they did in 2013 and which I couldn't play along with, but I think they are just perfect for a guy card.  The layout is from the new FUSION challenge - FUSION#1.

I was going to make a Steampunk, layered card, but ended up with this rather clean and graphic card instead!  I do still have an element of Steampunk in the backing paper from Kanban - the colour is a dark Baja Breeze.  To make the centre panel, I stamped the sentiment at the bottom and then decided where to put the number which die cut and then layered in the brown numbers.  I stamped some distressed circles above and the dotty circle below.  I completed the panel with some twine and then adhere the panel with dimensional tape.  For the inside I made a mat layer of the rivet backing paper and stamped more circles randomly around the edge of the white card.  I finished with a fun birthday greeting.

It was really lovely to see Ben when we were back in the UK at Christmas.  I'm convinced he's taller, but he says not.  He has, however, grown his hair and dyed it black.  A few photos of the changing looks of Ben:

Christmas 2013 - Ben,  almost 18 years old!

1996 - 2 months

 Christmas 1996 - 11½ months old - one of my favourite photos of Ben

 May 2000 - 4½ years old

 September 2007 - 11½ years old

November 2012 - 16¾ years old

If you've made it this far - well done!  I think it's probably only me who is interested in how Ben has changed, but I thought I'd share anyway!!  That's all for now.  See you soon.