Baby Lucia's Filigree First Birthday Card

Gosh, where did the last 12 months go?  I can't believe that it's my niece's first birthday this Sunday.  So, it is going to be a series of Baby Birthday blog-posts at the moment, we've had the Button Wall Art last week, now it's the Baby First Birthday Card, and there's the cake to come too!

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A Gaggle of Gift Tags using Tonic Studios Indulgence Pop Up Sentiments

This is a great little project for using up offcuts of card left over from your crafting projects, and I'll do a step-by-step on making these in a week or so.

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Diamond Wedding Anniversary

It's my parent's Diamond Wedding Anniversary in a month and I wanted to make a real show stopper.  This colour combination of platinum, greys and champagne is one of my favourites, and I think it's softer and more elegant than the traditional white and silver.

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Be Still My Pleated Heart Card!

Apologies for the pun title, but I think you will forgive me when you see how pretty the pleated background looks on this heart card (I hope so anyway!).

And it fits perfectly with the Valentine theme over at an Oldie But A Goodie Challenge this fortnight.  My "oldies" are my designer papers, card and gems, which I have combined with my brand new Indulgence Affections Dies from Tonic Studios. 

Card Recipe:

Paper and Card: Textured, Prima, Stardream
Tools: Tonic Studios Affections Square Heart Base, Affections Heart On Mother's Day, Pillow Box Die and Sentiments, Scallop Layering Squares, Grand Calibur 
Embellishments: flatback pearls and crystals

How to Create the Pleated Heart Focal Point

The focal point for this card is the pleated background to the central heart section. To achieve this, I first die cut and embossed my patterned paper using the following sequence:

1. Die cut and emboss outer two detail dies from Affections Square Heart Base (but not the edge dies), outer detail and inner heart edge dies from Affections Heart On Mother's Day
2. Remove dies and waste, then cut out the outer edge using the largest scallop layering square
3. Die cut a piece of pink stardream paper using the outer edge cutting die from the Affections Square Heart Base
4. Carefully position and adhere the patterned paper to the pink stardream backing paper.  Resit the inner heart edge die into the central section and die cut to create aperture.
5. Cut two 3.5 cm wide strips of coordinating 15cm patterned paper, score these every 0.6cm and concertina fold.  Adhere the two strips together.  Take the pink "waste" heart die cut from the aperture and coat generously with wet glue.  Push the centre of the concertina strips down onto the glue to form a rosette.  Place a light weight on top of rosette until glue has dried
6. Apply a thin line of wet glue to the reverse of the heart aperture on the topper and adhere to the rosette.  Apply a double depth of 3D foam tape around the edge of the reverse of topper and mount onto your card.
7. Decorate with flatback pearls and crystals, and add your die-cut sentiment

I've also subsequently filmed a step-by-step video tutorial on how to make this card from start to finish, just click on the picture below

Here's one last look at this card.....

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Fruit of the Vine Men's Card

My Dad spent a lot of his working life in the wine trade, so what could be more apt than this card for his birthday.  Cheers! 

Card Recipe:
Stamp: Stamps Happen Wine Collage
Colouring Mediums: Memento Black Ink, Promarker Pens, Flexmarkers,
Paper and Card: Creative Imaginations, Textured, Joanna Sheen's Elegance Satin
Tools: Tonic Studios Gothic Square Die Set, Tonic Studios Gothic Border Punch, Tonic Studios Verdant Vines Die, Corner Rounder, Grand Calibur
Embellishments: Raffia, Buttons, Twine, Glossy Accents
The main image is stamped with a Wine Collage stamp by Stamp Happens - it's actually an oblong, but I just chopped off one end to make it square shape as that's really what I needed for my card.

I coloured the image with Promarkers and washed the background with Flexmarkers (you just can't see that in the photo though). Finally, I used glossy accents over the glass bottles and wine glasses (again, really difficult to pick up in the photograph).

This stamped image has a very peculiar graphic in the bottom left corner, I have no idea what the artist meant if to be, so I just stuck my sentiment over it!

My corners are (appropriately) cut using Tonic Studios Verdant Vines corner dies to echo the wine feel of the card, and topped one off with this grapes on the vine button that I've had in my stash for years.

The wine papers are also old stash, from Creative Imaginations, I think that they work really well on this card.  

Some raffia and buttons tied through with twine add so additional accenting to the card.



I'd like to enter this card into the following challenge:
Moving Along with the Times - Birthday Boy











So here's one final look

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