Belated Birthday Candles

It's Design Team Challenge time with my teammates at Gourmet Rubber Stamps.  This month, we were challenged to use a stamp in a way different than it was originally intended.  Yikes!  I normally have no problem thinking outside the box....until I'm challenged to do so, that is.  Then I can't think of a thing!  I finally hit on this idea while I was working on a belated birthday card for someone.

To keep my card masculine, I used just the inner frame from the Cupcakes and Candles set, along with the sentiment.  I stamped the candles repeatedly, and colored them with my Spectrum Noir pens (check out this great tutorial on creating a candle-glow effect!). My out-of-the-box stamp idea on this card is those three little tabs at the top of the card.  Do you recognize them?  They are the neckties from the Daddy-O set, folded over!

The patterned paper I used, Echo Park's This & That, is on sale over at i {heart} papers!  While you are there, check out the selection of Gourmet Rubber Stamps they carry - you can get the sets I used on this card, and so many other fabby ones!

Check out my teammates' blogs to see how they used their stamps in creative ways for this challenge: