I must apologise for the late arrival of today’s blog post. Today is obviously going to be one of those days where things take that much longer to get done. What’s frustrating is that my birthday card project was done and photographed yesterday. But I’ve not been nearly as efficient this morning. In my defence I’ve had long video chat with my daughter and twin 9-month old grandbabies, and taken the garbage to the end of the drive in the snow. One very enjoyable distraction and the other, not so much. So now without any further delay, here’s a children’s birthday card that ended up using three different stamp sets!

STAMP – MASK – STAMP

There’s something about the bear in the Count On Me Stamp Set that really appeals to me. In the image the bear is actually holding a heart but I wanted him to have a gift instead. I found the gift image in the Penguin Place Stamp Set. All I had to do was combine the two and that called for a little masking magic.

I began by preparing the pieces to stamp on, two layers of Basic White Card each 4″ x 5-1/4″ and a Basic White Medium Envelope.

Once those were ready I inked up the bear image using Cinnamon Cider ink. Next I had to use bits of sellotape to cover the heart portion of the stamp rubber. Then I stamped the bear in the bottom left corner of of the envelope front. With the sellotape covering the heart I now had a bear holding nothing. After removing the sellotape I reinked the stamp, covered the heart again and stamped onto one of the Basic White pieces. Then I repeated the process one final time to stamp on the second Basic White layer.

Now I needed to create a mask so I stamped the bear onto a Full-Adhesive Post It® Note. Then I cut out three layers of Post-Its all at once using Paper Snips. This time, instead of using sellotape to remove the heart from the image I simply cut it off.

With the masks cut I placed one over each bear on the Basic White layers and envelope. At last I was ready to add the gift image. This was a really simple process. Using Magenta Madness ink I stamped over the bear mask in roughly the same place as the missing heart. Then when I removed the masks it looked like the bear was holding the gift.

NO WATER WATER-COLOURING

Despite the ‘technical’ start to the project my plan was to give it a very child-like feel. So I opted to colour in the image and create a scene with Watercolor Pencils. However the ink used for the stamping would likely blur if I added water so I needed something else to ‘activate’ the pencil.

First I coloured each of the bears using a Cajun Craze pencil from the Watercolor Pencils Assortment 2. Then, having already given the stamping plenty of time to dry, I went over the pencil using a Blender Pen. The solution in the Blender Pen was just enough to darken the pencil and blend the lines a little.

Then I used Garden Green Watercolor Pencil to scribble an area for the ground on all three images. Now the bears no longer looked like they were levitating. Finally on one of the Basic White pieces I scribbled with Balmy Blue Watercolor Pencil to add the sky. However I decided not to use the Blender Pen on these areas of colouring.

It was time to start putting the card together and I began by using my Paper Trimmer to cut and score some Cinnamon Cider Card. I folded the card along the scored line and sharpened the crease with a Bone Folder to create the card base.

Then using Multipurpose Liquid Glue (Tombow) I fixed the completed scene layer onto the front of the card base. The second, Basic White, layer (without the sky) was then glued to the inside.

Finally for my sentiment I chose “Happy Happy Birthday” from the From All Of Us Stamp Set. I thought there was a lovely child-like quality to the font that would work well with the simple colouring on the card.

So using Cinnamon Cider ink I stamped the sentiment onto some Basic White Card. Then using the Regular Postage Stamp Punch I punched out the sentiment and two more blank pieces. Instead of using Stampin’ Dimensionals I glued the three punched pieces on top of each other before adding the assembled sentiment to the card front. With that my birthday card was complete.

I have to say I really love how this turned out. What do you think?

PRODUCT LIST

UPDATE 2022: Sadly the From All Of Us Stamp Set has been retired and is no longer available from Stampin’ Up! However you could easily substitute a birthday sentiment from another stamp set you have.