Hi all. For my second post I want to feature the birthday card I  made for my daughter, Angelina in January. I've always tried to make her birthday extra special because it is January 3rd and sometimes it can get a little lost in the aftermath of Christmas and New Years. So I like to make a big deal of it even now that she's 25.
     I've made her cards before, but usually on a computer program. So this is her first handmade card. I  really wanted to make this year's card special something maybe a little more sophisticated.

I started with a strip of textured cardstock in a nice blush sort of pink 6in.×9in. folded in half.

     Next I took a piece of white lace, approximately 5in. long that had been left over from another project and with a larger-eyed sewing needle drew a piece of crochet cotton through the top edge of the lace.

Then tied the cotton tightly in a knot, gathering the lace into a ruffled circle.

Another thing that I did withthe lace circle after tying off the ends of the crochet cotton, was to stitch together the ends of the lace .

Then, I sifted through the 1/2l. tub of buttons that that my fantasticly talented mom gave me from her stash that she had collected over the years. Her way of encouraging my crafting while also getting rid of the excess buttons that she had accumulated. She always told me that if something isn't worn out, you can always find 'some' use for just about everything. I was looking for a faux pearl button to put in the middle of the lace circle and boy did I hit paydirt.

 I  then hand stitched the back of the button though the center of the circle and to the backside of it, creating a beautiful embellishment.

     Next, I cut a 13in. length of crochet cotton and tied a knot at one end. Then I strung about 12 in. with 2mm. acrylic faux pearls. Tip:  get faux pearls that are not too white or they won't look natural.  It sounds like a small detail, but it could really throw off your whole project.

     When I had 12in of the pearl strung . I tied the chrochet cotton together to make a  mini necklace.

     I then plotted out where I wanted to put my newly made embellishments. Then I cut out the gold 'Happy Birthday ' from an old card that I had saved and centered it at the top of the front of the card.

     I measured the lines for my lettering and marked them on the card 'very' lightly. Just dark enough to see.  I  always measure twice so I won't have to erase too much ot the lettering if I  do make a  mistake.

     Once I had the lines measures and check to make sure they're staight, then I started to sketch out my lettering to say  "Like Pearls and Fine Lace..."
     The next thing to do was measure the lines for the inside of the card. I  made 5 lines and made sure that they were straight and evenly spaced. After that I sketched out the words "You  get better with age. " . Then, "Love, Mom, Cuddles  & Tiki". (Cuddles is my dog and  Tiki is my boyfriend' cat who lives with usnow because he is in  Calgary working).
     After that I chose the pen for the main body of the text. I picked a milky pink so it would stand out,  without making it look too glammed up with glitter.

The only drawback to the milky ink is that you have to be careful to either not go back over any of your pens strokes or to go over them feather light because anything you've writing that has dried will come off very easily and plug up the ballpoint of your pen. And that just causes a bunch of colorful words to be muttered. LOL. But the soft powdery look it gives to the project and that effect is perfect for the sentiment.

Note:picture taken at an angle, that's whybrid the lettering looks crooked. )

Another good option for this type of card would be a pearl effect pen, just remember that you don't want it to be too white or it will stick out like a sore thumb. Just try to get the pearl beads and the button for the lace circle and the pen as closely as possible
     Next was the lettering of the card was from. I  did choose a little glitter here so I did this part with a classic Silver glitter pen. It was the perfect for here. It gives a little glitz without the glam. If you're not careful to choose a somewhat subdued shade or it could overshadow the nice classy look you've worked so hard to achieve.

     For a last minute touch of fun, I chose this cute little bouquet of balloons from the embellishments that I printed from Printmaster 2012 and used some little pieces of craft foam to mount the balloons.

     Of course you could also change the inside sentiment to something like...
   "You've got class", "You're a class act" or something like that.
     Now that I had all the lettering done it was time to get the hot glue gun out and glue on the pearls and lace circle. I would recommend using the hot glue gun, if not regular  glue won't give you the hold you're going to need. The glue gun will do the job quickly,  easily and with little or no mess.

     Last, I cut 4  small pieces of craft foam
for the balloons and used roll-on adhesive tape to stick the foam to the balloons and glued the balloons with the same adhesive tape to the card next to the lettering.
     Voila!

     I hope you enjoyed this card as much as I did. If you have any constructive criticism or any comments for me, please feel free to leave a comment below as long as they are not mean or nasty.
Till next time, bye bye and happy crafting.

Hi all. I'm  Susan and this is  my first plunge into the world of blogs. I have been a Crafty person ever since I can remember, a gift I inherited from my mom who is a wonderfully talented crafter and seamstress. .
I decided to start now because of a challenge on the Hear 2 Heart blogs.  The challenge was to make a Tuxedo-Black and White valentine without any of the usual colors we associate with Valentines.
So I thought a bit for awhile, how could you do it without looking cheesy or morbid? Abut twenty minutes later, while looking at a picture of one of my favorite animals orca whales, it hit me...orcas are perfect for this one. So I grabbed a piece of blank paper and my pencil and started ī to sketch. After a while I had this going.

When the sketching wad finished I had this.

So that was it, I  was hooked on this. The first thing I had to do was make cutting patterns for the whales and their markings because I  don't have my Cricut yet  (I ordered it on Friday )  so everything had to be hand cut. But by the time I had that done and all the pieces cut and laid in place it was looking pretty good.

 I used clear roll-on adhesive tape to put the pieces on. That was the easy part.

in pencil very, very lightly so it will be easy to erase after your letters are dry for this card I chose, "With enough love to fill an ocean." Then I carefully traced over them with a black gell pen.

The reason I use gel pens because they give a nice even, deep color. But, they do take a little time to dry.
 Then I decided to say, "Let's swim through ĺife together.".

 Once all the lettering was dry I used a white eraser to erase the lines and any other pencil marks by dabbing the eraser on the marks. When that was done all I had to do was sign my work. I stamped my homemade fish symbol stamp (it's like part of my signature) on the back, signed and dated it.
I couldn't enter the challenge because I didn't have any Close To My Heart supplies to use, but I did have a blast making this card. I hope you enjoy seeing how it was made.
Susan