Little Reese Turns One!

One of my little nephew's is turning one-year old this month.  Reese has an older nine-year old brother, for whom I have always made birthday cards, so Reese gets to become one of my permanent birthday card recipients as well.  See the finished card I chose for him below:

Ingredients:  Cardstocks: Bazzill--Tapioca (yellow), Aruba (aqua).  Stampin' Up--Very Vanilla.  Patterned paper: My Mind's Eye--Be Loved/ Fond Flowers.  Magnolia stamp: Edwin the Bug Catcher.  Spellbinders: Labels Eight.  Punches: Zutter Corner Rounder; EK Scallop-LG Corner (modifed to rounded corners).  Progresso Koh-I-Noor Woodless Colored pencils with mineral spirits.  Recollections: Gold rhinestones.  Ribbon: 5/8" Offray Chocolate Double Satin.  Distressing: Colorbox Chestnut Roan.  Computer-made sentiment.  Size: 5" x 7".

Story + Tidbits

Reese's card is one that I actually made during a 2010 card tutorial class on woodless pencil coloring and cardmaking skills!  The class and card designs were created by my sister, Heidi Gonzales, who owned a scrapbook store at the time.  Take a look at the wonder coloring textures that she taught us in coloring his shirt.  

Yikes, I just realized this card is way older than its recipient by over five years!  Now, don't think I have never given this card away because I hate the card, but rather, the reason is that I loved this Magnolia stamped little Edwin the Bug Catcher so much that I hated to part with him.  He also represents the last card I have of my first attempts to color using the woodless colored pencils and Gamsol for blending and setting the colors, a coloring technique I used before I jumped to Copic marker coloring.

Another reason I still had it in my possession was because I really considered it a "little boy card," and I waited so long to give it up that eventually all my nephew's grew too old for it.  With the birth of Reese last year, I decided this was the time to part with it, and to Reese it would belong even though he still a bit young for bug catching.  But, you will note that the verse ties in bug catching that will surely be in his future.

When making my card, I tweaked the design just a bit by making it larger, from a 4-1/4" x 5-1/2" size to 5" x 7" size.  In addition, I used a different and larger die set behind Edwin and added a few more rhinestones to the front ribbon.  The inside is completely my own creation from paper to verse.