Birthday Card

Hi! Have you missed me lately. Well didn't mean to stay away too long but I have been busy unpacking, organizing and decorating my new apartment.. I still don't have my playroom done in fact I have to crawl over boxes sometimes in order to get what I want and a lot of supplies are not unpacked yet. I have done some playing but this is the first card I've made since July. :-(

The other reason I have not been crafting is that the outdoors has been beckoning me. There is a park near by with all kinds of paved and unpaved trails to explore. There is a network of pedestrian trails that the dogs and I have been exploring. I know all too soon it will be Winter and then I will want to stay inside and craft.

Seems like a lot of people I know have birthdays in September. Of course we know what their parents were doing during the holidays. ;-) So I really need to get busy and make some birthday cards. To motivate me the Silhouette Store happened to have a free cupcake file. On Wednesday it will be available for their regular price. Here is the card I made with it.

The card base is from a Christmas kit file from the the Silhouette Store. I went ahead and filled the card base in with a pattern I already had on my computer. I love that I don't have to have loads of designer paper to create cards. Also I love since I can fill in just the shape I don't have to waste ink printing out a whole sheet.

The cupcake and candle were part of the free file. I un-grouped the file and filled in the cake part with yellow sand a free pattern that came with the software. Because things look different on my computer than printed I was not sure how it was going to print. It came out perfect. For the frosting I used the color option to color.. I un-grouped all the sprinkles and also filled those in with color. Then regrouped and told the software to not cut them out. On the Silhouette Blog a card was shown using vellum for the overlay. I liked that but alas I have no idea where my vellum is at the moment. However, in the scrap box I found a piece which was perfect size. :-) For the candle I decided to leave it white but went ahead and colored in the flame with a gel pen.

The sentiment shape was also part of the card kit. My dear friend Alice sent me a package full of all kinds of goodies. One of the things was some metal embossing folders. After playing with them I discovered I do have to use shims to get a crisper emboss. This was a folder that is part of a Birthday set.

Because they are metal I did not know how inking the folder was going to turn out. The first one I did I did not like as it was too blotchy and dark. I  thought I had wiped  all the ink off of both sides. However there was still some left. I like how soft it turned out with some flecks on the letters. I wanted the letters to show up better so I first chalked over them with yellow chalk. I didn't really like that and then spied my color pencils. I like this a lot better. I went ahead and took a silver gel pen to edge the shape.

Other than looking at the photo I see where I should have put the sentiment down just a little bit lower I like how this card turned out. I'm sure the recipient will like the card.  I'm sure also that Cameron my Cameo was happy to be working once again.

O.K. I'm off to see if I can make a faux Gelli plate for printing my own paper. I have made gelatin plates in the past but they take up space in the refrigerator and don't last longer than a couple of weeks When I used to make gelatin air fresheners I would put a swish of Vodka in them as a preservative. I did find a recipe using glycerin with the gelatin but I don't have any. If this works I will share the recipe. The Vodka could probably be replaced with rubbing alcohol. However, right now I don't have a bottle of that but do have Vodka.

Wishing you Happy Frugal Crafting till we meet again. Enjoy what is left of Summer!