Aloha, all!
Next week is our son's birthday, and I have to get a card into the mail before I Ieave for the Stampin' Up! Convention. So here I am in the middle of all my convention travel preparation making a birthday card! And, of course, I had to continue to use my new Designer Series Paper (DSP) sets so I can show them all off for you AND actually use them before they retire next year.
I had ordered up a pack of the Birthday Basics Designer Series Paper just so I'd have it for my summer and fall 2013 birthdays. And there are LOTS of them! So I'm sure I'll have a chance to show off more of the sheets of the DSP set as the next few months go by. For today's card, I used as the background a sheet that is full of birthday balloons. But there's a story about this sheet. I just could not get my head around the diagonal design of this sheet of DSP. I think I actually got dizzy when I tried to envision it on the front of a greeting card! So I turned the sheet so that the balloon pattern was vertical and cut the background sheet in that direction. I really like it that way! I'm sure I can find something to do with the small pieces that resulted from this awkward cutting of paper.
Now about the layout. I decided I did not have enough time to be figuring out my own layout, so I went looking for sketch challenges online. Once again, I found Mary Jo Price-Williams' blog with her Monday Lunchtime sketch.
I knew right where to go for a small little stamp that would fit nicely in a 1" Square Punch – the "Gift" stamp from the Best of Birthdays Stamp Set. Then I picked up most of the colors in the DSP sheet both to stamp and to make mats with the Postage Stamp Punch. The colors were Gumball Green, Bermuda Bay, Raspberry Ripple, and Crisp Cantaloupe (the strip across the middle of the card). For the greeting, I found a nice, small "Happy Birthday" stamp in the Hostess Stamp Set, Postage Collection. I punched that with the 1" square punch and matted it with another sheet of the DSP set punched with the Postage Stamp punch. To give it a bit of texture, I added four Bermuda Bay Candy Dots in each corner.
To accent the DSP, I made a mat of Raspberry Ripple Card Stock, punched on the right edge with the Scallop Edge Border Punch. I then mounted the whole design on a card base of Bermuda Bay Card Stock.
We all know I love to tie my cards together with some ribbon. No bow this time as I wanted to give this a bit of a masculine look. So I just added a strip of Raspberry Ripple Stitched Satin Ribbon – perfect with this card and layout!
Now I just have to remember to get this in the mail before I leave!
.
What a fun happy card, hope you are having a great time at convention! Lucky you! Thanks so much for playing along with my sketch challenge this week!