Happy Birthday #60

A friend commissioned me to make a birthday card for her husband. He is a woodworker, so she wanted a woodworking theme of some sort. I couldn't find any woodworking imagery per se (e.g. tools) that really worked for a birthday card, so I incorporated other elements.

For design inspiration, I perused my Pinterest board I have saved birthday cards on. I found this one, & liked the overall layout & how the greeting ran vertically rather than horizontally. So I decided to go that route.

I began with the balloons. I die cut the large balloon with a "Nesting Balloons" die from Paper Rose from cherry wood veneer paper that I've had in my stash for years. I die cut "60" from the balloon with the "Little Numbers" from My Favorite Things (discontinued), as the recipient was turning 60. I also die cut the numbers from gold mirror cardstock. I backed the balloon with kraft cardstock, & inlaid the numbers. I made sure also to add the inside bits of the numbers that had been die cut from the wood paper. For the 2 cardstock balloons with a woodgrain pattern, I first die cut the balloons, and then stamped the woodgrain with a slightly darker color ink, using the "Tree Ring Background" stamp from Concord & 9th. I cut another balloon from a plaid paper from Recollections, & a fifth from an inky technique piece that's been sitting on my desk for ages. I tied a string around the neck of each balloon, and set them aside while I worked on the rest of the elements.

For the presents, I decided to make them look like blocks of different species of wood. For the maple block, I just used a scrap of cream cardstock. I "dyed" another cream cardstock scrap with Seedless Preserves Distress ink, going direct-to-paper, for a purpleheart block. For the walnut, I used Walnut Stain to color a scrap of brown cardstock, again with the direct-to-paper technique. After drying those with my heat gun, I stamped the woodgrain pattern on each with darker shades of ink, using the "Designer Woodgrain" stamp from Hero Arts. Finally I stamped the gifts onto my scraps, using Sweet 'n' Sassy Stamps' (now Creative Worship) "All Wrapped Up" (discontinued) for the 2 larger ones & Lawn Fawn's "Birthday Before 'n Afters" for the walnut block. I also stamped each gift box onto a scrap of a contrasting cardstock. I fussy cut the gifts, and then fussy cut the ribbons/bows from the plain cardstock pieces to glue on top. I also stamped the "maple" gift image onto a scrap of kraft cardstock & cut out just the tag. After I'd cut everything, I "painted" the edges with a black felt-tip pen to camouflage the paper core, & glued the ribbons & tag to their respective boxes.

I die cut the "happy" word from navy cardstock with the "Happy" die from Winnie & Walter (discontinued). I also cut it 5 more times from scraps of navy. After I embossed the first die cut with the "Woodgrain 3D" embossing folder from Honey Bee Stamps, I glued them all together for a stacked, chipboard-type word. I gold heat embossed the "birthday," from Altenew's "Birthday Builder" stamp set, on a scrap of Bazzill Icy Mint cardstock, and cut it into a label. I glued it over the descender in the "y," and added a few layers of cardstock to the end of the label that hung past the letter, just to keep it level when I glued it to the card.

I found a piece of tone-on-tone blue paper in an old patterned paper pad from Momenta. I thought it looked like a page from a notebook like a crafter would work out designs in, so it seemed serendipitously perfect. I cut it down for my background, & adhered it to a white 5x6" card base. I used liquid glue to adhere all my elements, running the balloon strings to end behind the presents. And that finished this card! It was a lot of work & took a lot of careful thought to follow the woodworking theme, but I really love how it came out in the end.

I'm entering this card in the following challenges:

Seize the Birthday Challenge #309: Anything Goes

Inkspirational Challenge #346: "Birthday"

Ellibelle's Corner: "I Spy with My Little Eye - Something to Celebrate"

The Paper Funday Challenge #78: "Anything Goes" (not playing the twist)