Happy Birthday to You

Hi, this is Laura with a few masculine birthday cards. The best way to begin is to choose a color scheme based on patterned papers. I went with brown, green and cream for these cards.

I used Vanilla Bean Brown Card Stock and different sheets of Basic Grey, a limited edition designer paper from years back. This collection is called Sweet Threads and is a light colored fabric-like print with one bold green and brown design. I used this for each card and also used a laser cut mat on one of the cards that I had on hand.

To give the cards some depth I used two different embossing folders. One is a woodgrain from Sizzix and the other is sort of a framed border from Sizzix/Tim Holtz Alterations. I ran the brown card stock through the Big Shot. Right now there are a lot of manual die cutting machines on the market, and favorites become controversial. Some people prefer traditional die cutting while others embrace the new machines which are wider, automated, and emboss easily. I still have my ten-year-old (or more!) black Big Shot. With a few shims, I find I can do most of what the new machines do. Now I’m waiting for the machine to break… and then I have a tough decision on which brand and make to buy.

I love to use up a stack of patterned papers and this one was no different. So I selected five different patterns from the paper kit and layered them on the card front. The white edges detracted from the card so I did some inking. Typically I use ink daubers, but I purchased new sponges with fine bristles and inked the edges in brown ink.

One of the the sentiments is from an older Stampin’ Up stamp set. Sometimes I pull stamps from different stamp cases (and makers) and organize them by category. I pulled my birthday sentiment case for this. The Stampin’ Up cases are slim plastic cases with spines and cover reflecting the stamps. I had bought a few blank cases and used my label maker for the spine.  It sure beats looking through my whole collection of stamps!

I used a variety of embellishments on all the cards – from rhinestones to sequins.

I hope that you have enjoyed this project! Try using some elements such as layering patterned papers, doing some die cutting, or embossing. But most of all, have fun!