Wednesday, January 19, 2011

Birthday card for a Friend

     Today's card is a more typical card for me. It's for my friend Gywn. Typically when I make a card for a friend I try to tie it to that person. I don't make many general cards. In this case the image will be a penguin, because Gwyn has often considered that her symbol. She uses the word penguin to tell people how to pronounce her name, so that they don't mispronounce it Gwen. So it's convenient that she has a January birthday. Let me show you the card and then I'll tell you how I made it.


     I used the penguin from the Cricut Create A Critter cartridge. I cut the penguin with the layers at
2 1/4 inches on my Cricut Expression. I used the Gypsy to lay the whole card out first to make sure the words would fit in the space of an A2 card. After I had all of the penguin layers set out, I choose the phrase, "chillin'" from the same cartridge. I sized it at 2.5 inches wide and it was cut out of the DCWV Holiday Collection Christmas Stack. I realized it would be too similar to the background paper and since it was already the shadow cut, I made a second cut out of black and sized it 1.45 inches high. The original cut was 1.35 inches high, so I went up one tenth of an inch to make  the background cut. Due to the fact that the cuts are curved, it's not really a shadow, but I placed it so that it shadows as if the light were below it. I used the Cricut cart Lyrical Letters to type out "on your Birthday" at 1 inch high on the Gypsy and then welded the letters of each word except for the B. I tried the letters smaller, but the smaller letters didn't cut well, esp. welded. The orange cardstock is from Cord'inations. the rest was scraps, so I'm not sure. I used a pearl gem to dot the "i".  I used the Cuttlebug Divine Swirls folder to emboss the background layer with my Big Shot. I embellished the "chillin'" with Diamond Stickles, even adding icicles. here is a close-up.


     I had meant to try the icicles before the card was put together, in case they didn't work out, but as usual, I forgot my smart idea and had the whole thing put together first. Still, I tried my icicle idea and was happy with the way they turned out. On the inside, I matted 2 pieces of patterned paper from DCWV Holiday Collection Christmas Stack  (one at 5 1/4 x 4 and the other 5 X 3 3/4) and added the birthday wishes which I had done on my computer using Print Shop. The fonts I used were Snowcaps by Simply the Best Fonts and SNF Jester Play by ScrapNfonts. Snowcaps is a free font and SNF Jester Play is currently $5, but they often have sales and I think I got it for $1 or $2. I then added  a cute penguin dimensional sticker from Recollections and an epoxy bubble icon from Craft Essentials. What would I have done different? I had meant to tear some white paper to look like a snowy base for the penguin on the front to stand on to ground him, but forgot. I probably would have used Stickles on that as well. Otherwise, I'm pretty happy with the way this card turned out.
     I've been asked by a friend to do a card for a 100th birthday. Time to put my thinking cap on. If anyone has any ideas, please chime in. Thanks for looking in.

1 comment:

Judy Romero said...

Love the ice, dripping off of the "chilling"