A Tangled Birthday Card

After trying Alena Light's "Zefirki" pattern recently, I realized that it would be a pretty design to use on a birthday card that I was planning to make. Below is the first tile that I drew when trying out the pattern. You can see that I embellished the design elements in a couple of different ways. You can get Alena's step-out HERE at Pattern-Collections.com.

UPDATE: The Pattern-Collections website has shut down. Click HERE to view this pattern.

I had a lot of fun drawing the first tile so I tried out some more variations on the tile below:

I knew that I wanted to use some of those designs on the birthday card but I didn't want to leave the background blank. I also didn't want to use anything too busy so I had to find a background pattern that wouldn't overpower the main designs. I looked through my collection of patterns and "Raindotty" seemed the perfect choice. You'll find "Raindotty" HERE.

To help separate the main design elements from the background pattern, I thought perhaps I should draw auras around each of them. Here is my sample tile with auras:

Just to be sure that I wouldn't like it the elements better without the auras, I drew another sample without them. Note that I also colored the design with bolder colors this time.

 I thought it looked nice but, just to be sure, I added another element to the tile that did have an aura around it. I drew the aura as close to the edges of the element as possible this time. I liked the look of that so that's how I drew them on the final tile for the birthday card.

Below is the finished tile that I glued to the front of the card. 

I printed the text on the inside of the card with my printer before cropping it to size. Before doing that, I drew one more element which I left unshaded and uncolored. This one was scanned and printed on the back of the card along with the text. That way I could do the hand coloring and shading directly on the card. Here is the element that I used on the back of the card:

This is the front of the card with the original tile glued on:

Here you can see the inside with the card opened up flat:

Below is the front and back of the card with it opened up flat:

I think you can see that I accented parts of the design with a metallic gold gel pen. What you can't see is where I've also added clear glitter here and there to add some sparkle to the card.