A Trio of Birthday Cards with My Favorite Things

Hello everyone! I am thrilled to be back with some new projects featuring products from MFT’s September release. Despite being a cardmaker, I am always finding myself with a shortage of birthday cards when I need them (I hate having to run out and buy a birthday card when I have a ton of finished cards sitting in my stash!) I was so inspired by the Bundle of Balloons stamps and Die-Namics that I ended up creating a trio of birthday cards, which made both me and my dwindling birthday card stash very happy!

I recently came across an image of a hedgehog wearing a birthday hat on Instagram, and it has now become a firm belief of mine that hedgehogs should wear party hats at all times. LOL So for my first card, I created a birthday parade of little hedgehogs from the new Woodland Friends stamp set. After stamping the hedgies in light ink, I colored them with Copic markers for a no-line coloring look and masked them off. I hand-drew a wavy line to delineate the ground on stamp masking paper, using this to ink blend grass using Twisted Citron and Mowed Lawn Distress Oxide Inks. After it was dry, I masked off the ground and created additional masks using my Stitched Cloud Die-Namics and balloons from the Bundle of Balloons Die-Namics for the sky. I ink blended the sky using Tumbled Glass Distress Oxide Ink, removed the masks, and used the negative balloon masks to ink blend the balloons with Picked Raspberry, Carved Pumpkin, Mustard Seed, Tumbled Glass and Shaded Lilac Distress Inks. I stamped the “Happy Birthday” sentiment from the Birdie Brown Greetings Galore stamp set and embossed it in gold.

After the ink blending and stamping was done, all there wa left to do was to give the hedgies their little party hats! I cut little cone shapes out of my MFT Plaid Patterns paper pack, giving them each a little plaid hat topped with a pom pom. I added gold stitching around the hats to give them a little extra pop, stitched around the edge of the panel I cut using my Stitched Rectangle Die-Namics, and the card was done!

I was still on a party hat kick, so I decided to create a second card using all of the Woodland Friends critters.

After stamping the animals out and coloring them with Copics, I die cut them with the coordinating Woodland Friends Die-Namics and gave them party hats made with the same Plaid Patterns paper. I cut out grass with a die from the Stitched Scallop Basic Edges 2 Die-Namics set and ink blended it using the same technique as the first card, adding some green stitching along the stitch lines. I used Tumbled Glass Distress Oxide Ink and the MFT Cloud Stencil to create a sky. I die cut the balloons from the Bundle of Balloons Die-Namics and the word “happy” from the Birthday Boy and Girl Die-Namics (I used the word “Birthday,” altering the letter “r” to make a “p”). I stamped the word “Birthday” from the Birdie Brown Greetings Galore set on the grass to finish the sentiment. All that was left to do was assemble my scene, adding some silver thread for the balloon cords. I love this little forest-y party!

The last card was inspired by the fabulous Stephanie Klauck, who has one of my favorite, rainbow-iest Instagram profiles ever. This card came together so beautifully using the Bundle of Balloons Die-Namics (again, ink blended with Distress Oxide Inks) and the End of the Rainbow Die-Namics.

After ink blending a sky with the Cloud Stencil and Tumbled Glass Distress Oxide Ink, I ink blended the rainbow stripes with more Oxide Inks and stitched them using coordinating thread. I also stitched the outlines of the clouds with white thread and stamped the sentiment on the largest cloud. I then assembled my scene, again adding silver thread as balloon cords and Pretty Pink Posh sparkling clear sequins.