Mom's Birthday Roundup & Explosion Card

So before getting sidelined with the flu, we celebrated my mom's 70th birthday a few days early last Wednesday.

She'd been wanting to go see Anything Goes on Broadway - so I thought it would be a great way to celebrate her day!  She and I took the train in to NYC and ate lunch at a very nice restaurant next to the theater.

We made our way to the theater and waited in line:

 And then got to our seats!

It was a really fun show!  I don't know why we don't go down to Broadway more often because it's so close for us!

After the show we walked back to the station and got on the train to go home.  We had planned to surprise her at a restaurant with a few friends and family, but we ended up getting there an hour early - so we had to do some trickery to get her guests upstairs to dining room without her seeing them while we were waiting in the bar.

But...it worked out, she was very surprised and here's a quick shot of everyone at the table

After cake, I was FINALLY able to give her the explosion box card I made for her about two months ago! I was so excited!

Here's the outside:

And here are some shots of the inside:

It was difficult for me to get really great shots of the card, but I had so much fun making it! For the box, I used a tutorial by Lisa Cook, and I found a lot of inspiration from the SCS Explosion Box Gallery.   I made the flowers following THIS video. 

For the butterflies, I embossed 6 Studio G butterflies and colored them in with Distress Inks.  Then used flower wire for their antennas.  I sandwiched the butterflies between a small stripe of acetate which I then adhered to the bottom of the box, so they would float above when the box opened. 

I used Verve stamps for the sentiment and Sizzix dies for the "70" and created a glittery candle.  I also punched small flowers to cover up the acetate on the bottom.

This looks really great in person. I hope you can get the gist of the card.  We'll bring it to our craft fair and take orders to make more of these if anyone is interested.

Thanks for your visit!