Happy Birthday to a Beautiful Friend

  

A good friend of ours has a birthday this weekend. She always appreciates my cards, so I tend to make them really special. The "Beautiful Pop-up Book Card" tutorial by Sam Calcott at Mixed Up Craft inspired this card.

I first created a 5x7" card base from heavyweight white cardstock. I cut a piece of script patterned paper to 4-1/2x6-1/2", and matted it with pink, leaving a 1/8" border, then adhered it to the card base. I used Altenew's "Vintage Roses" stamp set & coordinating dies for the flowers and leaves. Our friend lives in Tyler, TX, which is designated the Rose Capital of America, so that guided my choice of flowers.

I created the greeting for the front in Photoshop, & printed it onto parchment paper. I die cut that with a Spellbinders "Decorative Labels One" die (discontinued). It kind of got lost on the script paper, since there is not much color difference, so I die cut a mat from pink with a Spellbinders "Labels One" die (discontinued), that coordinates with the decorative label. I adhered those together, and mounted them to my card front. Finally, I glued the roses & leaves in place around the greeting.

Inside of card

The recipient is a church choir director, so I decided to make this "book" card a music book. I found royalty-free sheet music online, and downloaded it. I printed out the first 6 pages, and scanned them into my computer. I opened each page in Photoshop, & sized them so they would fit on the book pages, following the measurements in the tutorial. I then printed them onto parchment paper, & cut them to size.

 

I matted each music page with pink, & adhered them to the inside pages that I'd cut from white cardstock. I also added the end papers to the inside covers of the card. I created the mechanism as per the tutorial, and inserted my pages.

 

I die cut the "happy birthday" from black glitter paper, using the "Celebration Words: Script" die set from Sizzix by Tim Holtz. I added that to another "Decorative Labels One" die cut, that I'd cut from a double layer of Essentials by Ellen 40 lb. vellum. (The vellum helps mute the background sheet music, to make the greeting more legible, without totally obscuring the notes.) To finish, I added a couple more roses & leaves in opposite corners of the greeting. I made a matching envelope as well. Since there is a bit of bulk to this card, I couldn't really use a "flat" envelope, so I made one that's a bit more like an envelope-shaped box.

I'm entering this card in the following challenges:

Through the Craft Room Door: "Anything Goes"

Simon Says Stamp's Monday Challenge: "Inspired by an Artist" (design & flower accents inspired by Sam Calcott)

Die Cut Divas June Challenge: "Birthdays"

Dies R Us Challenge #170: "Anything Goes Using any Brand of Die that DRU Sells" (Sizzix & Spellbinders dies used)