Happy Birthday, Kiara!

Aloha, all!

     Our youngest granddaughter, Kiara, is 8 years old today!  What fun we had visiting with her when she came to Hawaii last month!  While I really wish we could be around her and the rest of the family more often, it's definitely fun coming up with an idea for a sweet birthday card for this sweetest little girl!

     When I started out to make this card, I knew I wanted something delicate and even a bit frilly.  I started looking through my Stampin' Up! Stamp Sets and almost immediately spotted this cute little cupcake in the Best of Birthdays Stamp Set.  (You know, of course, that this and all the "Best of" sets will no longer be available after March 31st??! It's still not too late to buy it!).

     This is such a darling little stamp and I thought it would look great on a small layered element on a card.  But as I tried to envision the overall card design in my head, I kept coming up with ideas that would cause the image not to be the highlight of the design.  I wondered how it would look all by itself in the middle of a card front – and it did look quite nice, indeed, especially on the lightly colored Pink Pirouette Cardstock.  But then my inner Layering Diva crept out and wondered how it would look inside one of the Designer Frames Embossing Folder designs.  Ah, delightful!  A card with just that in the middle had a bit more character than just having a stamp on the cardstock. 

     The Layering Diva pinched me again, and out came the Framed Tulips Embossing Folder.  I ran a separate 4-1/4" x 5-1/2" piece of the same Pink Pirouette Cardstock through the embossing folder, and trimmed the cardstock down to the edges of the embossed frame.  I layered that onto the cardbase, then layered the oval frame, which I'd hand-trimmed, onto the center of the card.  Awesome!

     To give the image some color, I used Pink Pirouette Stampin' Write Marker to color in the base of the cupcake.  Yes, it's the same color as the cardstock, but it still shows up just a bit darker on the cardstock.  I colored in the frosting with my White Gel Pen, and then used a Rose Red Stampin' Write Marker to color in the teensie little heart.  So cute!

     OK – I've run out of adjectives to describe this card – but I'm sure you can see that's it's perfect for an 11-year old young lady.  And I had so much fun making it.  It went into the mail earlier this week, and I'm sure she has it by now.  I hope she enjoys getting it as much as I enjoyed making it!

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