Long dog greetings

One of my adult nieces has a dachshund who is the joy of her life. What could be more appropriate for her than a birthday card featuring a long brown dog?

I wish I had saved my notes on what I used, but in a rush to clean up before leaving for the cottage, I threw them away. This will be a test of my memory. 

The card a 12" strip of white card stock folded into thirds. The height of the card is 5.5 inches.

The body of the dog began as 1" strip of brown paper but after I decided to shade the dog with the lighter paper, I narrowed that strip a bit. The legs and neck were cut with the Word Window Punch from Stampin' Up. The head is a heart punch, the eyes and nose were from the Owl Builder with the nose trimmed down a bit. The feet are wings from the Bird Builder with the poinitest part trimmed off. The ears used the wing part of that punch also. I don't remember which circle punch I used on the tail, but I punched the paper once to get a circle (saved for another use) and then punched over that area again to get a crescent shaped tail. The pup's brow looked too furrowed with just a heart shaped face so there is part of a circle behind the heart for the top of his head.

The Happy Birthday is from the Big Day stamp set, the martini is from Happy Hour and I used Word Window and Modern Label for the message under the dog's belly that reads "Have a teeny wienie Martini".

I struggled with wondering if the background was too plain and the fear of overdoing it and junking it up. I used a brown marker to make a stitching line around the card and called it quits. The birthday girl was happy and that is what mattered.