Monday, August 17, 2015

Swimming Birthday Card


Hello, Friends!

My cousin's daughter who calls me, "Aunt Angela" has a birthday soon.  I love to make my "niece" and "nephew" (since neither her mom or I have any siblings) customized cards.   Her mom told me a while ago that her favorite activity is swimming and that her favorite colors were orange and blue.  I was glad I had some time, because I had to give this some thought!  I knew the colors wouldn't be a problem, but I'd have to figure out how to make a girl swimming in the pool.

I knew the only stamp set I had close to a girl swimming was the retired My Favorite Things Pure Innocence stamp set, "Sprinkler Girl."  I bought it because the little girl featured in my card is running through the sprinkler, which was a great activity when I was a child!  I can still remember lining up with all the neighborhood kids in the corner of the yard and taking turns running through the sprinkler in our bathing suits!  Those were the good old days....

I'm so thankful for those memories, not just because they are fun, but also, because of them, I had a girl in a bathing suit stamp!!  When I inked it up, I just left out the sprinkler.  I stamped it once and colored it with Copic markers.  I made sure she had a tan since she was out in the sun and tried to give her curly hair, like my niece.  I colored the flower in her hair to match her swimming suit and put some Glossy Accents on it so the flower would show up a little bit more.  

I also stamped part of the girl one more time on my orange Doodlebug flowered paper, to give her a designer bathing suit.  This also provided the matching paper for the frame.  I used an orange marker to give the bathing suit some shading.  

After some thought, I figured out if I used blue vellum for the water, you'd be able to see the girl through it enough to see she was in the pool.  I used my Doodlebug paper that looked like water waves for the background paper for the pool, cutting it out along the waves.  Then, I laid the vellum right on top of it, and cut out the vellum so it matched the wave paper.   My Favorite Things Cloud Cover-up Die provided the clouds in the sky.  I use that die all the time!  It's so versatile for much more than just a card background.  

Then, using a light blue for the card base to also be the sky, I put everything together.  First, I adhered the wave paper.  Then I put down the vellum, putting adhesive where the frame would hide it, so there weren't any ugly glue spots on it.  Then, I added the frame and the clouds.  I slipped the little girl, which I fussy cut out(!) so one arm hung out over the water, so it looked like she was swimming.  I didn't put any adhesive on her, so my niece could stand the girl up in the pool, or leave her swimming.  She's old enough now, that I know she could carefully move the swimmer without doing any damage to the card.  

The card was cute, but it just looked plain.  I thought about adding birthday balloons, but nobody has balloons in the pool with them!  After a couple of hours, it finally dawned on me that I could add a banner with "Happy Birthday" on it on the top of the frame.  

Paper Smooches came to the rescue.  I die-cut and stamped the banner and added the happy birthday phrase inside.  Thanks to the MISTI, this was done in just a couple of minutes.  I colored the banner orange to match the rest of the card, put die-cut fun foam behind it instead of my usual foam tape (which I couldn't find), stuck it all down and the outside of my card was complete.


Inside the card, with the help of Paper Smooches sentiments and alphabets, I stamped this message.  I drew some waves in the letter "L" and I was done!  Again, the MISTI made stamping the message which was three separate words and five letters with a punctuation mark so easy.  Everything was centered and lined up straight.  This would have NEVER happened without the MISTI's help!

Hopefully, my niece will like her card as much as liked making it for her.  She is so sweet and I cannot wait until my back is better so I can spend some time with her family!

Happy Stamping!


I used the following products to make this card:

Sprinkler Girl Pure Innocence Stamp Set by My Favorite Things
Grafitti, Alphadot, Streamers and Sentiment Sampler Stamp Sets by Paper Smooches
Tuxedo Black Memento Ink by Tsukineko
Copic Markers
White Pure Luxury Card Stock by Gina K
Bashful Blue Card Stock by Stampin' Up
Sunkissed 6 x 6 Paper Pad by Doodlebug
Blue 8 1/2" x 11" Vellum from Hobby Lobby
White Foam Sheet from JoAnn
Streamers Wise Dies by Paper Smooches
Cloud Cover Up and Rectangle Frames Die-namics by My Favorite Things
MISTI by My Sweet Petunia
Glossy Accents by Ranger



2 comments:

Teresa Doyle said...

Very clever Angela. You have done a fabulous job and I am sure she will love her special card.

Kim Heggins said...

You are just so stinkin' clever! I love your sweet little lady treading water in her stylish yellow bathing suit and those curls are as adorable as can be. Sweet card!

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