Bloom And Grow Napkin Birthday Card

Wow! September has just begun and this is already my second post. Hopefully I can post more regularly in the near future.

I was looking through my stash of cards for a birthday card and realized that all I have is generic cards which  I personalize when I add a sentiment before sending. I have made birthday cards for someone special but a lot of times I have a friend who wants a birthday card and wants it now. Lol! Since they buy a lot of my crafting goodies when we go shopping I like to keep them happy. O.K I can hear some of you saying about now would she just quit her rambling and get on with it.

Here is the birthday card I just finished today. (Click to enlarge)

The gingham background that is stamped on is actually a beverage napkin. I found these at Michaels in both yellow and green gingham in a sale bin.  I got out of storage my iron and cleaned it off. Ummm it was rather dusty as I seldom iron anymore. I grabbed a roll of generic plastic wrap. LOL! It was left over from the days when I would demo Press and Seal and the company would send me a generic roll to show customers the difference. LOL! Every time I would demo they would send me a new roll of the generic. I know I know I'm getting sidetracked again.

Place your card base on a piece of paper. You don't want to ruin with melted plastic whatever you use to iron on. I cut a piece of plastic wrap just a little larger than my card base and placed it on the front of the folded card base. Of course if you wanted the napkin on the front and back you wouldn't fold it. Then I placed my napkin which I had separated so it was single ply on the front. I suppose you could just cover a section but it would be a little more trickier when it came to fusing the napkin on. Place a piece of paper on top. The first time I messed up but luckily it was easy to peel the napkin off and start over. Do not start by pressing with the iron. Ummm it sort of moves your napkin. Set your iron to wool and when it has heated up place it down and let sit for a couple of seconds. Then move your iron. Keep moving your iron until you have covered the whole area with your napkin. Then you can go ahead and press to make sure that the napkin is down good and tight.

If you are going to stamp on the napkin you can do it before the fusing. For me it worked better doing it afterwards. I played with my inks and decided to go with the teal Stazon. It did not show as well on the green napkin. I tried heat embossing but for some reason ended up with brown spots which depending on the look you are after may be all right. I want to try with the white layer to see if I get them. Could be there was some sort of residue on the top layer. By the way if you are having a party using a solvent or permanent ink you can stamp on the napkins and not have to worry about the ink transferring as people use them.

I have not tried my colored pencils yet on a stamped image on a napkin. I did think it would be fun to use my liquid pearls on the heart on the watering can.  I don't think I did too bad considering it was my first time using it for something other than faux pearls.I thought of using Stickles on the butterfly but was afraid of messing up.

The flourish was left over from another project. I sprayed adhesive on it and sprinkled fine silver glitter. I welded the phrase in Studio.  I had seen a birthday card with flowers and the sentiment and thought it would be perfect for this one.The font is Lucida Calligraphy. I love this font but with certain letters like the M and W it requires some point editing to get them to cut out without tearing. Especially when they are this tiny. I decided to try my Folkart holograph extreme glitter paint. I gave them two light coats. I was surprised that they ended up having a pink cast and don't know if the gray card stock I used had anything to do with that. I spray the back side of words this tiny with adhesive glue or run them through my adhesive machine.

Have I inspired you to check out those bins with napkins and use them? I definitely will be looking at buying more napkins. Especially since there are all kinds of interesting ones out there. 

That's all for now folks. Thank you for stopping by and leaving me some love. Do come back to see what I have up my sleeve next. Wishing you Happy Frugal Crafting till we meet again.