You can never have too many birthday cards ready to send, right? That’s certainly the stance that I take, and in my circle of friends and family, there are a LOT of summer birthdays. Whether stamping is your jam or you’re more into die cutting, I’ve got one of each to inspire your next craft session.
Both of the cards feature the Essentials by Ellen Cake stamp set designed by Julie Ebersole. I have to say, I love everything about this set! It’s got outline and solid images so that you can add as much color as you like, and the font and script pairing for the sentiments is exactly what I’ve been looking for. The words are small enough to tuck onto a mini slimline, but also work on larger cards. Perfection, I tell ya!
For the first card, a mini slimline, I started by picking out my colors. I went with Pinkfresh Studio inks in Candy Violet, Soft Lilac, Apricot, Clementine, Lemon Whip, Marigold, and a teensy touch of Sparking Rose for the cherry on the cupcake. I also grabbed my Essentials by Ellen Organic Elements stamp set (also designed by Julie Ebersole – the woman has my heart!), and got to work with my stamping.
Using the abstract square shape from the Organic Elements set, I created a zig-zag with the lighter colors of ink – Lemon Whip, Apricot and Soft Lilac. Next, I used detail black ink to stamp the cupcake, ice cream and cake images, as well as the sentiment. I didn’t want to risk any ink colors running into each other (even though Pinkfresh inks do dry super fast), so I waited a few minutes before going in one more time with the solid images to fill in the color.
I could have stopped here, but things were looking a little… flat? Lackluster? Whatever the term, the design wasn’t quite there yet. I decided to use the sprinkles stamp from the Cake set, as well as a few other small images from the Organic Elements stamp set to add some fun accents in each third of the card. Next, I went in with my embossing pen to fill in some areas that I wanted to add glitter to, and heat embossed those with Clear Sparkle embossing powder from WOW. Annnnnd finally, to finish things off, a few sparkling clear sequins. This is a CELEBRATION, after all!
Alrighty, moving on to the second card. I’ve had the Pretty Pink Posh Clay Sprinkles in ‘Cupcake’ in my little embellishments organizer for AGES, and figured if there’s ever been a time to use them, this is it! I began by heat embossing the cake image from the Cake stamp set on acetate with white embossing powder, and this became the window for my shaker card.
Next, I used the coordinating Cake die to cut the silhouette into a trimmed white cardstock panel. Initially when I had the idea for this shaker card, I wasn’t sure if it there would be enough space between the edge of the embossed image and the die cut silhouette to see the embossed outline clearly, but it ended up working out even better than I expected. I stamped ‘it’s all about the sprinkles” directly under the cake silhouette, adhered my acetate in place underneath, then foam taped the heck out of the panel to make the space that would securely hold the sprinkles.
To ensure that the white embossing could be seen, I decided to quickly ink blend a light blue panel for the background using a little bit of Concord and 9th ink in Aqua Sky. I used that to seal up the back of the shaker, then mounted the entire thing onto my white A2 card base. Oh, and because it truly IS all about the sprinkles, I added a few little glittery accents with an embossing pen and WOW Metallic Platinum Sparkle embossing powder.
I hope these two designs have inspired you to make a few handmade birthday cards for your friends and family. Thanks so much for stopping by!
