When I sat down to make today’s masculine birthday card I really had no idea what I was going to do. So I began with my box of A2 card bases that I cut, score and fold in advance to save time. Since having a week where almost all my projects were blue I’ve been consciously avoiding that colour. So instead I selected three random shades of brown; Early Espresso, Pecan Pie and Cajun Craze. What a great combination! The decision to add the embossed stripes came about much later.

SHADES OF BROWN

Having decided that I loved the three shades of brown together I obviously only needed one card base. So I settled on Early Espresso before pulling out my Pecan Pie and Cajun Craze card scraps. To compliment these warm colours I opted for Very Vanilla for the envelope and stamping layers.

Looking through my stamp sets I decided to have another play with the Bird’s Eye View Stamp Set. However today all I wanted was a good-sized bird, without complicating things with branches, leaves or glasses. Having chosen the image I stamped him four times using Early Espresso ink. First onto the front of the Very Vanilla Medium Envelope. Then in the bottom right corner of a 4″ x 5-1/4″ piece of Very Vanilla Card. Next from my card scraps I picked out a 3″ x 3″ piece of Very Vanilla Card and stamped the bird in the bottom right corner of that. Finally I stamped the bird one last time on another scrap of Very Vanilla Card.

To colour the four images I decided to keep it simple and use just the Pecan Pie Stampin’ Blends alcohol markers. I used the dark one on the beak and over the shading on the bird’s body and wing before going over the images with the light marker.

Before putting away the Early Espresso ink pad I decided to stamp a sentiment above the bird on the 3″ x 3″ piece of Very Vanilla Card. I found the perfect “Happy Birthday” in the Go To Greetings Stamp Set (the middle-sized one of the three in that set).

Then I thought it would be fun to layer the bird’s wing so I stamped that part of the bird again onto a scrap of Very Vanilla Card. After colouring the wing to match the others I cut it out using my Paper Snips, before cutting the entire bird (minus his legs) from the Very Vanilla card scrap. Once that was done I set everything aside while I got to work on the background layers.

STRIPES AND LAYERS

In among my Pecan Pie scraps I found one that was 3-3/4″ wide and trimmed it to 3-3/4″ high. Then using Multipurpose Liquid Glue (Tombow)I attached it onto the card base, 1/2″ from the bottom edge.

Now all I needed was some Cajun Craze Card and the very first thing I found was a strip that was 1-3/4″ x 6″. So I automatically cut to down to 5-1/2″ and laid it on top of the Pecan Pie layer. While I liked the colours I decided it was just a little boring. So that’s when I began looking through my embossing folders and realised that there was one I’ve never used. Today the rustic lines from the Stripes & Splatters 3D Embossing Folders pack would finally appear on a project!

After embossing the stripes onto my piece of Cajun Craze Card I glued it to the card base 5/8″ from the crease. Then using Stampin’ Dimensionals I added the stamped Very Vanilla layer, followed by the fussy-cut bird body and then the separate wing.

To finish I added a row of three Rustic Metallic Adhesive-backed Dots just above the Very Vanilla layer and my card was complete.

PRODUCT LIST

For a card using the ‘splatters’ part of the Stripes & Splatters 3D Embossing Folders see my blog post Irresistible vellum.