My Husband Celebrates His Birthday!

My husband celebrates his birthday today, and I wanted to make a special card that if you knew my husband, and then saw the card, you'd know right away that card was meant for him.   I was excited to see a stamp set in the 2016 Sale-A-Bration flyer this year named, Sky is the Limit.  I couldn't wait to add it to my stamping stockpile, and, of course, I knew just who would get the first card made with it for his birthday!

My husband received his private pilot's license when he was in his twenties and even owned a small plane with his father for several years until job promotions and transfers no longer made it possible for us to keep it.  But, he still loves to pilot his own craft, and he would probably love to buy another plane now that he is retired.

As it turns out the new Stampin' Up 2016 Occasions mini catalog has several products that fit into my aeronautical card theme.  There is a Sunburst die that looks very interesting, and I have had the chance to use it twice at two cardmaking events that I have attended.  I would like to add it to my collection, but I have not done so.  It would have been the perfect die for the card I had in mind for John, but I decided not to let that stand in my way.  Over the last several years, I have made several sunburst ray cards that were handmade, and I thought why not, it should work just as well, if not better than die.

I wanted my ray papers to have a sky theme to go along with the biplane stamp I planned to use, so I used the night sky constellation and the world map papers that are in the Going Places paper stack.  I needed at least two more patterns or types of paper, but I did not see anything else that jumped out at me, so I decided to make my own paper by stamping a Compass Rose onto black cardstock with White Craft Ink.  For my fourth paper, I decided to use an antique gold glitter paper.

As my card evolved, my sun got changed into a sentiment sun by under-layering the sentiment with gold glitter paper, plus layered over some vellum clouds as well.  I heat embossed my biplane in black, fussy-cut it out, and double popped it up to overlap the sentiment sun edge just a bit.  I added a trio of  black and metallic gold gems on the lower right corner to finish off my card front.  I'm pretty pleased with my homemade sunburst ray card, and I think it will please my hubbie as well!

Below shows the inside coordinating design and little birthday verse with a "flying" theme that I made for my husband's card.

Recipe:  SU products:  Cardstock--Basic Black, Naturals Ivory (retired), White Vellum, Going Places dsp stack (2016 Occasions); Ink--Craft White; Stamps--Sky is the Limit (2016 SAB), Going Global  (2016 Occ.); Punches--2" Scallop, 1-3/4" Circle; Embossing Powder--Black.  Other: Darice Glitter Silk-Kings Crown; Recollections Black Pearls; Studio 112 Gold Metallic Gems.