3 Birthday Cards

My friend and very lovely loyal customer, Rhonda ordered 4 more cards from me last week and needed 2 of them by the end of this week, so I completed those 2 yesterday. I still have 2 more patriotic ones to make, but for now I got her 2 requested b-day cards done, a ladies card and a guys card.

the cool thing about the guys card is that I was able to make 2 "similar" cards with 2 1/2 sheets of cardstock! Well, ok, TECHNICALLY, it was 3 1/2 sheets, BUT, I say 2 1/2 because the 3rd sheet ended up being cut down to scraps because I ripped both halves of TWICE so it was scrapped. so, in the end, the ACTUAL cards were truly made with only 2 1/2 sheets of CS. that would be, 1 sheet of deco for the fronts and inside (it was double sided so I got to use the whole 12x12 sheet, 2 fronts and 2 insides (with opposite side of the cs), and then 1 sheet of plain colored cardstock for the card base, and then half of a sheet of cardstock for the white on the inside! :)

Anyhow, here are the sneak peeks, clickety click click below to see the rest of the images (and SHORT descriptions--I'm trying to get better at doing shorter descriptions so you aren't sitting here all day reading my posts! LOL I'd seriously blabber on all day if I could! haha)

Male B-day 1 (given to Rhonda for her order):

Ladies B-day card (For Rhonda's order)

2nd 'similar' card I made, that I kept for myself to give to someone for their bday (not sure who yet, maybe my daddy, I dunno!)

So for this first card, I used my SU! sail away stamp and just stamped it in some memento black ink.
 The deco cardstock was cut down to fit the size of my card and then I distressed it with my edge distresser.

 For the image, I colored the water. I stamped some of my SU! not quite navy onto an acrylic block and then used my aqua brush to "watercolor" the water. I made it darker in some places to give the affect that real water would have being darker in some places.
for the image and it's mat I used my SU! spiral bound punch to make it look like the picture was ripped out of a notebook. I like that because the pic already looks "sketched" so in the end I LOVE how that ended up turning out! I wrapped some brown/white bakers twine around the image and tied it in a knot.
I didn't have any LARGE black brads, so I took some light yellow ones and colored them with 2 layers with my sharpie.
funny story, haha! dummy me didn't open a window when coloring wiht my sharpie... in a HOT room that was not smart to do. I ended up needing to take a break for a few minutes cause the smell of the sharpie really got to me. LOL

 for the inside, I used the sentiment from the SU! happy harmony set, and then used the shell and weed image from my inkadinkado down by the seaside set. :)

For this ladies birthday card.... OMGosh, this one was FUN!!!! I used a deco sheet of cs from a mat stack and cut it down to fit the height of my card (6 inches tall--4.5 inches wide-approx). I used another deco sheet and cut to go the width of my card. with the left over from the pink, I used my 1.5 in. circle punch and cut 2 circles then cut those circles in half and attached them to the strip of cs. I was able to easily conceal the 'line' by adding ribbon across there. Now, I am NOT the best at tying bows. every now and then I get LUCKY and get it right on the first try, if I'm lucky enough, on the 2nd or third try. but sadly, this bow was tied and untied about 40 times LITERALLY. 15 minutes of sitting there fussing with it, I seriously almost scrapped the whole damn card! LOL but I said, I can't give up! and I kept at it :) though the bow isn't perfect, it is nice enough! handmade isn't supposed to be perfect anyways!!

I used half of a doily cut from the SU! doily die on shimmery light gray bazzill cardstock (but you can't tell the shimmer in the pic :( ick!)

 The crocheted flowers, sadly, as asked, are NOT made by me! :( a friend made them and gave them to me as a gift. I hope to one day learn to make them! I added a green gem brad to tie in with the ribbon. it does match perfectly, just not in the photo. the clip is from the around the block birthday clip set. I added it but wasn't able to see the word 'celebrate' so I cut a tiny piece of white cs and slipped it in behind the clip on top of the cardstock.
I thought the card was a bit plain so I decided to add some gems here and there on the background cs. as soon as I laid the gems out (before I adhered them wtih glossy accents), I was like YES!!!! this card is DONE!

 then I said, damn, it's not, I gotta do the inside, HAHA! so here is the inside :)
the flower is stamped from the Basicgrey Lace and Rose set (this set is SO beautiful and it was my first time using it though I've had it for about a year! it got buried!) I used 2 different pigment inks for that image.
the sentiment is from the paper company 'playful expressions' set and the happy birthday is from the SU! Happiest Birthday Wishes, set 2 of 2 set.
I added some gems to carry over the theme from the front of the card :)

For the 2nd of the male b-day cards...
as you can see I made it very similar to the other card, just a couple 'subtle' differences. First, the image is different. this is a sailboat from the SU! ships ahoy set.

 I did the same thing with the water, did the watercolor technique that I love to use, and then I used the brown/white bakers twine here as well. i also used the SU! spiral punch on the edge (as opposed to on the top) and I did the same thing, colored some brads (yeah, I colored all 8 brads, with sharpies, in a HOT room with NO ventilation, all at the same time! haha)

 the inside is also the same as the other card. weeds and shells from the down by the sea set from inkadinkado. sentiment from the SU! happy harmony set and the birthday image from the SU! teeny tiny wishes set. :)

Well, that's my 3 cards that I did yesterday (5/18/12) I hope you enjoyed looking :)
Keep on Craftin' and please, be kind to one another!
~Melisa Marie