Two Birthday Cards

This past weekend, my mom turned 81 years young! My brother & SIL were able to come down and help us celebrate. I created these cards for Mama, including one from our 3 cats.

I totally CASEd this card from one that Darlene DeVries did recently for Live Love Cards. In fact, it was seeing her card that made me get the "Owl" die from Taylored Expressions. Mama & I both love owls, so I figured this would be a great card for her!

I die cut the owl pieces from scraps of cardstock. I used "regular" colors for the body, eyes, beaks, & feet; but made their bellies rainbow hues. After cutting all the pieces (and managing not to lose any!), I glued everything together to create 5 owls. A fine-tip applicator bottle & cross-lock tweezers come in VERY handy for operations like this! :)

For the fence, I stamped the Altenew "Wood Pallet Background" onto Strathmore Smooth Bristol paper with Hero Arts Wet Cement ink. I then blended Brushed Corduroy Distress ink over the panel. I also stamped & inked a thin strip for the cross piece, glued it in place, and stamped the nails with Hero Arts Charcoal ink.

I cut another piece of bristol for the sky, and inked with Tumbled Glass & My Favorite Things' "Mini Cloud Edges" stencil. I adhered that & the fence panel to my white A2 card base. Then I glued the owls in place, and stamped the letters to spell "happy" on their bellies with Essentials by Ellen's "Basic Alpha" stamps & Versafine Onyx Black ink. I also glued down a balloon I'd die cut with a Lawn Fawn "Party Balloons" die, tied a thread around the bottom of the balloon, and glued the other end, plus a bow I'd tied with another piece of thread, to the one owl's wing.

Finally, I die cut the "birthday" from My Favorite Things' "Cause for Celebration" set from black cardstock, and glued it in place on the fence. I coated that & the balloon with clear Spectrum Noir shimmer pen, and followed that with Glossy Accents on both pieces.

I got the inspiration for my second card from this one by Amy Yang for My Favorite Things' blog. Because I was using digital images, I began by creating a blank "canvas" in Photoshop. I used that to size several kitty images from Bugaboo Stamps, and then printed them onto white cardstock. I colored them with my Prismacolor pencils, and fussy cut them out.

I used 140 lb. watercolor paper for both my frames & grass panels. I first cut a piece to A2 size, and inked it with Distress inks in Broken China & Peacock Feathers, letting the color fade towards the top of the panel. I spritzed it with water from my Distress Sprayer, let that sit for a few seconds, then blotted it dry. I cut the 3 frames from that panel, going from largest to smallest, with a craft knife & metal ruler. I inked more watercolor paper with Twisted Citron & Mowed Lawn Distress inks, distressed with water, and die cut them with the "Grassy Hillside Borders" from Lawn Fawn. I stamped the "Happy Birthday," from My Favorite Things' "Big Birthday Sentiments" set on the top of the largest frame, with Versafine Onyx Black ink.

To assemble my card, I placed the frames on my card base, one inside the other, to determine where my background panel needed to go. After gluing one of the grass pieces to the background panel, I adhered it to my card base. I glued another grass panel to my innermost frame piece, and popped the whole thing up with one layer of foam tape. I proceeded in this manner for the middle & outer frames, adding another layer of foam tape each time, so that my outer frame has 3 layers.

Inside of cats' card

I used a combination of liquid glue & foam tape to adhere my kitties in place in my little scene. For the inside, I created a 5.25x4" canvas in Photoshop, and positioned "Bosko" from Jane's Doodles in the lower left corner. (Bosko is one of Mama's favorite characters among all my images, so I try to include him on the cats' card to her every birthday!) I created the greeting and signatures, and even drew a little paw print beside each cat's name, using the Custom Shape tool in Photoshop. I printed that out onto white cardstock, & adhered it to the inside of the card. I can easily say, she got a kick out of these cards!

I'm entering these cards in the following challenges:

Dies R Us #82: "Life's Events"

613 Avenue Create: "Anything Goes"

Incy Wincy Designs: "Let's Celebrate"