Handmade texture plate...plus Recycling and Celebrating

Here are two homemade texture plates I made

 using recycled cardboard and some Spackle I purchased at the hardware store a while back.  I let it dry over night. 

What I like about trying new things is that I usually learn something. I learned that having blank space between the texture elements works much better. When I tried printing the one on the left I didn't good a impression. I mainly got blobs of paint.  

Gelli Plate wrapping paper is fun and easy to make.  I started with a large piece of recycled paper.  I gelli printed it using the homemade texture plate on the right.

The Happy Birthday is from Hero Arts.

The was  large piece of paper folded in half.  I made a quick envelope out of the printed paper and popped in the birthday gift.  

The background for the card is a leftover paper napkin from my birthday party.  I think the pattern is so fun.  The candles were made with an embossing fold. I cut three of them out and mounted on the yellow.  The birthday words are by Stampin Up.