Cat Puzzle Birthday Card

 I love making puzzle cards using the Pink & Main puzzle die.  I hope my son doesn't get frustrated with this puzzle. (It's only 35 pieces.)  Because he has two cats in his household, I usually incorporate cats into his birthday cards. The big cat with glasses (Brutus/Monroe www.com)(reminds me of his cat) was stamped (with waterproof ink) onto medium weight watercolor paper.  Then I stamped the cat onto a piece of sticker paper to make a mask which will protect cat image when applying Hero Arts reactive dye.  I stamped the words and paw prints before adding the ink and spraying/splashing with water.  After removing the mask paper from the cat image, I colored in the cat with Copic pens, but I should have waited until the paper was dry because there was some ink bleeding. I flicked on some Liquitex gold ink to add more interest to the background. (The black specks were some paper pieces that somehow got into the photo...happily they are not permanent.)

The back puzzle was made by stamping the Whimsy cats and words onto a piece of printed card stock.  Then the image was colored in and the card stock piece was adhered to the front image using double stick tape.  The back to back images were then run through my Big Shot die cutting machine using the puzzle die.  I ran the card several times to be sure I got a clean cut. Next, I made a frame (see bottom photo) from black card stock (three layers on top and one for the bottom).  This frame should help my son contain the pieces while assembling the puzzles. I really hope my son is amused by this puzzle birthday card and doesn't toss it aside as a waste of time.  To be sure he can at least see the images and read the words, I am including a cheat sheet (photographs of assembled puzzles).  LOL!