Bling is always a good thing. I love using rhinestones, foiled and embossed cardstock and — messy as it may be — glitter.

A little glitter goes a long way. For this card, I accented the stamped image with green glitter, to make “Happy Birthday” pop. I also added a bit of shine with a green foiled cardstock, which might have been too much for this creation had I not layered a piece of solid-colored cardstock over it. I used a border punch to let some of the foiled paper peek through.

Adding glitter to something as detailed as a small, thin font requires two things: extra-fine glitter and a ballpoint glue pen. Be prepared for extra-fine glitter to get all over your workspace, like crafty fairy dust.

Here’s how to make it:

Make a card from a 5-by-10-inch piece of navy textured cardstock (such as Bazzill Basics cardstock in admiral). Stamp a birthday-words image (mine is birthday background by Stampabilities) in blue ink (such as Colorbox Petal Point pigment ink in royal blue, from the Enchantment collection) onto white cardstock. Trim the paper around the stamped image (with my stamp, it was trimmed to about 3 inches square).

Write over some of the image’s words (I chose “Happy Birthday”) with a glue pen (such as Sakura Quickie Glue), and apply green extra-fine glitter (I used Wow! extra-fine glitter in grass by American Crafts).

Cut a 5-by-1 1/2-inch piece of green-and-white patterened, foiled cardstock (such as from the Watercolor collection by Me & My Big Ideas) and adhere horizontally to the center of the card’s front.

Cut a 5-by-1 1/4-inch piece of light-blue textured cardstock, and punch a border just above the bottom length of this piece (I used the retro flower punch by EK Success). Adhere, centered, over the foiled cardstock.

Accent the punched border with light-blue gem rhinestones (mine are by Martha Stewart Crafts). Using dimensional adhesive, adhere the stamped cardstock close to the card’s right edge, centered over the punched and foiled papers.