Aloha, all!
Last month I had two special birthday cards to make. Today I’d like to share the card that I made for my now 13-year old grandson. I think that teenage boys are just the hardest group of people in the world for whom to figure out a card design. But this young man lives in a household that has had many chickens over the years. I’ll share one of the stories I remember from many years ago about this kid and the chickens. Check it out at the end of this article. For now, I’m focusing on this card.
Chickens Are a Thing?
In the Stampin’ Up! world, this set of chickens first made its appearance a couple of years back in a Sale-a-bration brochure. So of course every demonstrator in Stampin’ Up! probably ended up with a copy of the Hey Chick Stamp Set. Yes, I’m included in that. Do you know how many times I used it? Zero. Not that I didn’t think they were the cutest chicks ever (well, one was a bit on the weird side). But I just never got around to it.
Last year back came not only the Hey Chick Stamp Set, but the new – and still current! – Hey Birthday Chick Stamp Set. When I saw that as I scanned my stamp sets, I knew I had to go with this for the new teenager.
The Give It a Whirl Dies Really Make This Card
If you haven’t seen anything done with the Give It A Whirl Dies set, then you might wonder about the three slightly different cards at the top of the article. The only thing that’s different about the three is what’s in the circle on the left. Look over at the right side of each card and you’ll see the cogs of a wheel. There’s a little embossed arrow right next to it that invites you to spin the wheel around. Well, move it slowly. Spin doesn’t quite work here. Nonetheless, it’s a fun interactive feature of this card.
I have three different stamped images that show up in the window as it turns on its little brad axis. I love it when I can do things like this with a card. And I can’t be the only one. It’s such fun to have something that’s not just to look at and put down on a table.
To make things a bit more interesting, I added some sprinkles that are included in the stamp set so that they show up in between the main images. That’s why you see little dots and squiggles around the edges of those images.
I Had Fun With the Inside of the Card, Too!
The little chick with the funny feathers leaning into that birthday cupcake is a remake of one of the chicks in the original Hey Chick! Stamp Set. I think he’s a lot cuter in this set. And there are those sprinkles again.
Let’s Not Forget the Rest of the Card
When I was deciding what colors I wanted to make the chickens in this card, Cajun Craze came right to mind. So out came the Cajun Craze Stampin’ Blends alcohol markers. Not wanting to get into too many colors, I decided the chick, the balloon and the cupcake would all be yellow. So the Daffodil Delight Stampin’ Blends joined the Cajun Craze.
What, then, was I going to make the background for the front of the card? When I first thought of some kind of green, I went looking at the Stampin’ Up! catalogs to see what kind of a Designer Series Paper in green I could find. As I was about to give up and just use one of the sheets from the basic colors papers, I spotted the Mossy Meadow Gingham print in the Heartwarming Hugs Paper Set. Yes, it’s a Christmas set of papers. But where on this gingham design do you see “Christmas,” or even “Holiday.” Nowhere! So it became the key layer in this card.
After that, making the card base out of Cajun Craze Cardstock was a no-brainer. And just for giggles, I used just a touch of a Mossy Meadow Stampin’ Blend on the little chick’s birthday hat.
Now for the story. Carson was many years younger than he is today when this happened. The family had a new batch of baby chicks that one day would be providing the family with their very onw eggs. One day he walked into the house very distraught, crying to his mother that he “tried to give the chickens a bath and made one of them dead.” His mother, our daughter, was laughing hysterically when she told us this story a day or two later (without her son nearby to hear her). How could I not give him a card with chickens on it for his 13th birthday!?
Happy Stamping!
