Happy Birthday

May Flaum's Camp Scrap 2015 started this past Wednesday. I've been looking forward to this for weeks now! May always delivers tons of content, and never disappoints in either quantity or, more importantly, quality. One of the lessons in this first week was on grid layouts. While I was not thinking of that when I started die cutting the elements for my card, the circular die cuts reminded me of Operation Write Home's Sketch #229, which basically is a grid layout. And that reminded me of May's lesson. Even though she applied it to a scrapbook layout, it works equally well for cards!

I began by die cutting my elements using the smallest die from Spellbinders' "Angle Approach" Cut-Fold-Tuck set. These dies work best with double-sided paper, so I pulled 2 such patterns from my scrap stash. Thankfully, I had just enough to cut 3 pieces from each pattern! I also die cut 6 circles from orange cardstock, with a Spellbinders "Standard Circles SM" die. After running my patterned die cuts through my Xyron Creative Station, to apply a layer of adhesive to the backs, I adhered them to the orange circles.

For the greeting, I used one from the "Wish Big" stamp set from the Essentials by Ellen line. I stamped it 3 times, in a line, on cream cardstock using Hero Arts Navy mid-tone shadow ink. Then I cut that into a strip, making sure to center the middle portion of the greeting.

I cut another piece of patterned paper from my scrap stash for the background, then adhered the circles to that. For the mat, I inked the edges of a piece of white cardstock with the navy ink. Finally, I adhered my background and greeting strip to the mat, and mounted that on an A2-size card base. This card will be going in my final box to Operation Write Home.