A Lovely Daughter's Birthday!

We celebrated my daughter, Michele's, birthday yesterday so we could all gather as an entire family to mark her special day.  Michele's request for the day was that it be casual and relaxing.  A simple day of lounging on the deck, pizzas to munch, favorite beverages to quench our thirst, family games (both board and lawn games) to play, and banana split extravaganzas, including all the toppings imaginable as a finale.  With these notable facts in mind, I came up with just what I wanted to do for her birthday card.  A card depicting a banana split!

I found just the right digital image I wanted to use, and as I did earlier this month for my friend's card, I grouped all four images together into one, using PaintShop Pro.  I sized all my images to their appropriate sizes and then grouped them.  As before, it took a bit of work with the images as they were all different dpis and sizes and rotations.

My next step was to decide on the papers for the card.  I decided to use a technique called Angled Background, which I have not used in over a year and one-half (last on my husband's birthday card published Feb. 2, 2014).  I found a pretty little flowered paper by Echo Park in reds, pinks, greens and a tiny bit of yellow.  I decided that this would be the piece to build from and found four other papers to blend with it.  I chose two shades of cardstocks by Stampin' Up: Strawberry Slush for the cardbase and Gumball Green for the next layer.  For my third layer under my angled background papers, I used a red glitter paper.

Knowing the paper colors made it easy to then choose the Copic Markers to use on my banana split digital image.  I used a bit of Crystal Effects on the cherries and some puffy white Flower Soft on the whip cream.  I'm pretty happy with the way it all turned out, and I think Michele will be thrilled!

One of my signature cardmaking styles is to always create an inside decoration to coordinate with the outside design and complete a little verse that fits the occasion for the card being given.  Michele's card is, of course, no exception; therefore, my final step was to do just that.  It is finally completely done and ready for your inspection. . .see below:

Recipe:  Cardstocks: Stampin' Up - Strawberry Slush, Gumball Green (both retired), Red Glimmer.  Pattern papers: Echo Park - This & That/ Wooden Nickel Red Floral, Hello Spring Floral (back) ; My Minds Eye - Find Your Wings/ Up & Away (back), Nostalgia/ Scallop Paper.  Digital images (online freebies).  Spellbinders dies: Ovals, Lacey Ovals, Circles, Scallop Circles.  EK punch: Scallop Photo Corner.  Copics Markers.  Stampin' Up Pearls: copic colored.  Stash: Ribbon, Lace.  Homemade "flower soft" w/ styrofoam shavings. Computer-made sentiment and inside verse.  Font: Gisele Script/ Bold.  Technique: Angled Background strips.  Size: 5-1/2" x 6".

Birthday Groundhog!

My husband is a Groundhog baby!   I've been thinking about making him a birthday card since I started making cards five years ago that depicted a groundhog on his card, but did not have an image to use.  I have a subscription to Elizabeth Dulema's Coloring Pages, which is free.  I get a free image once a month in her newsletter along with information about her children's books as well.  Finally, this year she sent a groundhog image, and he was too cute!  I decided then and there it would definitely have to be the theme of John's card this year!  

I dove in ready to make John's card a few days ago.  I cleaned up Mr. Groundhog a bit in PaintShop Pro and dropped him into Microsoft Word to resize him to fit the oval Spellbinder dies that I decided to use for his frame.  I found some papers I wanted to use, and colored Mr. Groundhog with my Copics to coordinate with these papers.  I decided on the navy glitter paper for his frame, but it was there my mojo came to a standstill.  I mulled it over for several hours, trying this and that, and finally went to bed.  

Sometime, in the middle of the night, I woke up thinking about a video I had seen a few weeks ago of Ashley Newell's "Angled Background" technique that she recently published through Papertrey Ink.  I turned on my light and fiddled with the papers on my craft table to see what I thought.  I was indecisive and too groggy to make much sense of it, and I thought I'd better wait for the morning.  In the light of the day, it seemed like just the right thing, and viola, here he is:

And, following is the finished inside to coordinate with the outside, and the little Groundhog Day poem for John.  I hope he like his card.

Recipe:  Stampin' Up papers:  Night of Navy cs, Gumball Green cs, Print Poetry dsp, Subtles dsp stack, In-Color 2012-14 dsp stack; Jillibean: Macho Macho Soup/ 2 Parts Boy (chevron); Core'dinations Glitter cs: Ball Gown.  Elizabeth Dulemba digi.  Copic Markers.  Spellbinders Ovals SM, Deckled Ovals LG.  EK Scalloped Photo Corner punch.  Stash:  Ribbons, Button, Scrapper's Floss.