Layered words and Glaze resist

I was intrigued by the Tim Holtz's July tag, but in a rebellious mood I decided to make a Birthday card instead of a tag.

As usual, if you want the (correct) step by step, you should get it direct from the master here, but I will share my experience below, good and bad!

My base is a 6x6 Kraft cardstock and after die-cutting it with a stitched square die, I distressed the sides with a pair of scissors and Walnut Distress ink.
Initially intending to thread through my top panel, like Tim,  I cut a slot around my word die-cut, but I had to change tack as you will see..

For my top panel I stamped an image from the Curiosity set (Andy Skinner for Stampendous) and applied Distress glaze over it to protect it from the subsequent layers.
Rather than just colouring the background with inks I decided to use a Distress Crayon technique, effectively mixing a 3rd technique in this one project!
First I coloured with a blue crayon then, with a damp baby wipe, I removed the colour through a wood grain stencil (Mini Stencil Set 10 by TH).
As before I distressed the cardstock all around the panel.

On to the Layered Words technique... Plan A was to die-cut the base cardstock with a "Birthday" die, however the word was quite unreadable, something I didn't realise until I had slotted my top panel inside.

Mmm... I pulled out my alphabet dies to emulate one of Tim's block words dies and a new piece of cardstock to cover the mistake. I also had to use ribbon to hide the holes and you can see from the photo that I only coloured the bit of the ribbon that will be on show.

To finish, I added a piece of ribbon with stitching detail and stamped and embossed 5 small hearts with WOW silver EP in lieu of brads.

Now do you think the recipient is going to think I'm implying that he is an Antique? I certainly hope so!

Thanks for coming by,
I am also entering the SSS Monday, SSS Wednesday, We Love To Create, WOW Embossing powders  challenges