Two Celebrate Their 10th Anniversary!

My youngest son and his wife celebrated their tenth anniversary in late July. . .it's difficult to believe ten whole years have gone by.  It was time to make them a special card to note their special day.  This year I decided on what I call a slightly vintage card style.  I love the vintagey look as long as it isn't way over the top, so my vintage-like cards tend to be low key.  Take a look at what I came up with below:

Ingredients:  Stampin' Up cardstock: Pool Party, Basic Black.  Pattern paper: stash.  Cottage Cutz Expressions word dies.  Bird Silhouette: Silhouette Graphics (PaintShop Pro modified).  Wilton 4-inch Doily.  Prima flower.  Hug Snug: seam binding ribbon (hand bleach/ crumpled).  Computer-made verse.  Size: 4-3/4" x 6".

The Story & Other Tidbits

Following is an explanation on the making of this card as I do not think the picture makes it totally clear.  Just a note to start: each of the layers are approximately 3/8" smaller than the layer below it both in width and height, and I sized and cut all layers prior to assembly.

To start, I cut my aqua cardbase to 4-3/4" x 6" and adhered the smaller black mat layer to it.  Next, I cut the chevron block patterned paper along its zigzag pattern so that it would be shorter than the aqua damask patterned paper that I planned to use as a layer below it.  I adhered these two patterns together so that 1/3 of the damask was exposed above the chevron blocks and 2/3 of the damask would show below.  I then positioned my half doily on the left of this patterned set, folding over a bit of the raw edge to the underside of the papers, and adhered the doily to the patterned set.  I was now ready to pop-up this set of patterned papers onto the black mat layer.  Once all four layers are adhered and popped-up adding the final touches to finish the card can begin! 

I positioned and adhered my black cardstock, happy anniversary die-cut toward the bottom right as shown.  I tied two pieces of the pink crinkled seam binding ribbon into a bow and adhered with a bit of hot glue.  Next, I attached my leaves with mini glue dots, and affixed my rose with a bit of hot glue.  

The final piece for my card front was to make my black silhouette bird family.  I cropped my family from a Googled jpeg-image filled with numerous silhouetted bird types, choosing exactly which birds I wanted to use.  I dropped my cropped image into PaintShop Pro and modified my bird family a bit.  There were two babies in the nest, and I decided I only wanted one, so using the software's tools, I erased one baby and made the nest smaller.  Next, I moved the Mama and Daddy birds closer to the baby's nest and shorten the branches on both side, eliminating a few leaves.  My last step was to save my new jpeg-image and then copy/paste it into a Word document to re-size for my card.  I printed it on white cardstock and fussy-cut it out to adhere to my card front.  

My last step as is traditional in my cardmaking was to finish the inside so that it complimented my card front.  I found the John Keats quote on line, which I love.  I also decided to incorporate my bird family to the inside as well.  I copy/pasted the verse into a Word document, sizing it to fit, and I found the perfect fonts to add the closing happy anniversary sentiment along with my son and daughter-in-law's names.  My bird family was also copy/pasted several inches below the verse.   Once I printed my Word document, I cut it to fit inside the card, distressed the edges, and adhered it inside the card.  I fussy-cut more of the chevron block patterned paper to decorate my verse at the top and bottom.  I think Mark and Ginger will really like their handmade card from Mom along with a dinner certificate for a night out.