Happy Birthday, Quin!

Aloha, all!

     My grandson, Quintin, had a big milestone birthday yesterday.  On August 27th, my oldest grandson turned into a teenager!  According to his parents, they feel as if they've had a teenager in the household for most of the summer at least.  But officially, he was 13 yesterday. 

     So a nice Birthday Card was in order.  Given when I put the card in the mail, he should have had it in plenty of time for the celebration.  He received his grandma and grandpa birthday gifts earlier this summer – before school ended, in fact! – when he asked for some costumes related to his current favorite characters.  No, not Halloween costumes – costumes that he could wear whenever he felt like it!  As he called and asked for them politely and in person, how could we refuse!  But getting back to the card, there was still a little something extra tucked inside!

     The stamped image on this card is from this year's Stampin' Up! Ronald McDonald House Charities set, Tag It.  Those of us who attended the Stampin' Up! Convention this year all received this set as one of our Convention goodies.  I had no idea what this little critter on the stamp was, and I'm still not entirely certain.  My first thought was, "lizard."  Then I've read "iguana" and "salamander."  Whatever he is, he's got a cute little tongue/whistle and it seemed perfect for my grandson, one of whose pets is a Bearded Dragon.  So you heard it here first – a Bearded Dragon (well, probably not, but maybe close).

     To make this card really special, I once again decided to use the Stampin' Up! Sizzix Labels Collection Framelits to make the card base.  Then I got carried away (I've been doing a lot of that lately!) and tried out most of the framelit sizes in the set.  To make it more interesting, I taped a piece of Raspberry Ripple Designer Series Paper from the Birthday Basics DSP set to a piece from the Crisp Cantaloupe Paper Stack set.  I did this by putting the edges of the papers together on my work table and running a piece of transparent tape along the back.  Then I ran the taped pieces of paper through the Sizzix Big Shot with the various framelits.

     For coloring the stamp, I used my Old Olive Stamp Pad to ink up the entire design and stamp it on the piece that would be my center layer.  Then I stamped the top part of the image on scraps of Whisper White Card Stock using Raspberry Ripple, Crisp Cantaloupe and Coastal Cabana.  (I added the Coastal Cabana for just a little bit of another color on the card.)  I cut each of the balloons out and adhered them to the main image with Mini Glue Dots.  For the final accent, I stamped the greeting onto yet another piece of scrap paper and cut in into a rectangle that I notched at both ends and layered onto the image.

     The final accent (which I used in my last post, too!) was one of the Old Olive Simply Styled Embellishments from the Stampin' Up! Holiday Catalog.  That's the neat little Old Olive bow on the cute miniature paper clip.  You've just got to have some ribbon on a Birthday Card!

     Once again, Happy Birthday, Quin!  You're a great grandson and I'm looking forward to seeing you in October on our trip from Hawaii to the U. S. Mainland!