the Midas touch..?

Hi there everyone...today i've come over all Midas...and had a huge desire to emboss everything in gold!
As you can see i'm still bonkers about puzzle cards...and in fact i'm getting complaints from people who get regular non~puzzle cards now, too!!  This one is for my Mum who's Birthday is next week...

i find it very difficult to photograph gold embossing and make it look sparkly and as it does in real life...hopefully the close~up gives you a slightly better idea..?  if any of you have any tips out there for photographing shiny surfaces, i'd love to hear them...so please share them in the comments form!  Thanks :)

i've coloured the whole background in a couple of shades of Brilliance ink and then stamped the lovely heart shaped balloons several times in Teal Versafine.  if  you look closely you'll see that i've stamped it both ways up, and on the left of my puzzle i've made a border using just the tails.  {The stamp is from the Little Feet sheet by Paperbag Studios and is so useful...i love it!}

i then overstamped most of the images and embossed in gold, not inking my stamp between impressions so that some places take the embossing more than others.  i added a Happy Birthday stamp, also embossed and swiped my embossing pad all around the edges to give them a touch of the Midas too.  

all i have to do now is break it apart and pop it in an envelope...oh...and think of a present to go with it ;0)