Set of hexagon cards

This is a little set of cards that I have made for my Mum for her 60th birthday.  I have already made her birthday gift (a digital scrapbook album of her life from birth to 60 years - 91 pages in total!!) but she will be receiving that gift at her party which is a week before her actual birthday.  So I thought it would be nice to have something little to give her on her actual birthday so that she doesn't go empty-handed on the real day!

So Mum, if you're reading this, stop reading now please!

 First I made this cute little gift bag for the cards.  I cut the bag on my cricut machine using the Plantin Schoolbook cartridge.  I set it to 'fit to page' and it cut and was so easy to put together...I think it took about 1 minute!

I then measured what size my cards needed to be to fit into the bag (which was 3.5 x 5 inches).  I wished I had a 12x24 inch cricut mat so that I could make this bag a bit bigger...however, the smaller cards are still a nice size.

I cut out a HEAP of hexagons on my cricut machine using the Accent Essential cartridge and then just pieced the cards together.  I popped up the centres of the flowers with a pop dot just to give it a little bit of dimension.  I got the idea for the cards on Pinterest where I saw a very cute hexagon flower card.  Here is the link to the site if you would like to look.  I did a 'hexagon cards' search on pinterest and was blown away by how much inspiration there was!  So many clever people out there!

I tried to make the cards bright and cheerful and to fit a range of purposes.  Mostly I use birthday cards, so I gave half of the cards a birthday sentiment.  I think a set of handmade cards is a nice gift, and once you have an idea, it actually doesn't take too long to make them.

Now, what to do with the other 100 random hexagons that are strewn across the kitchen table????

Thanks for looking!

Rainbow Happy birthday cards

Some super-simple rainbow Happy birthday cards.  Love the simplicity of them and love that they can be used for male or female and any age.  I wish I could say that I came up with the design idea...but I didn't!  Full credit must go to a card I found here, made by Aga.  I can't remember if I found it on google or pinterest...but this is the link to her flicker account where you can see her card.  Love it!  Thanks for the inspiration!

I had fun playing with my different embossing folders.  For the last two cards I gently rubbed white ink over the embossing to make it stand out, I think I like the effect.  I am a bit disappointed that a couple of my embossing folders are smaller than 6x4 inches, it kind of spoiled the effect of the card to have the white strip along the side.  Oh well, will just have to make a mental note to buy the bigger embossing folders.

The 'Happy' letters were cut using Plantin Schoolbook cricut cartridge.  The 'birthday' stamp is by Kaisercraft.

The cards were nice and quick to make and good ones to make in bulk to keep in my stash.

Thanks for looking!

Birthday Sundaes challenge #35

The challenge this week at Birthday Sundaes is:

Challenge #35 Include a tree on your birthday card and a birthday sentiment.

This one sure required a bit of thought!

I thought I'd make a sidestep card after seeing some fabulous Halloween projects on Amy's blog, Amy's Crafting.  She made a few sidestep cards with a Halloween theme and they are just awesome!  You can see her different projects here, here, here and here!  Her cards were my inspiration when making this birthday card.  She pointed me in the direction of some great instructions for sidestep cards, which not only had easy step by step instructions, but also had photos for each step of the process to assist those of us who require something visual as well!  Thanks Amy!

I love the saying on my card, 'Growing up is for trees - stay young and have fun!'  Perfect for this birthday card.  I found the quote here.

Sidestep cards are fun to look at and quite easy to make.  They are lots of fun to embellish!  Here are some pictures to show some different angles of the card, so you can see how it looks and get an idea of how it is made:

This side view shows the ribbon that I attached to hold the card together - once you embellish a sidestep card they get pretty heavy and your card tends to do the splits and kind of flop down flat instead of standing up!  So I attached this ribbon to the inside to hold the card in position (it can't be seen from the front view).  This was a tip that was a part of the instructions (not something intelligent that I designed and thought of myself!)

Anyway, I love how this card turned out and I doubt that I would ever have thought to do a birthday card with a tree on it, so thanks for the great challenge Birthday Sundaes!  It's always good to be stretched with your creativity and think a bit differently to the way you usually do.  It also made me use a cartridge that I haven't touched in a while so that was a bonus too!

The tree was cut with Stretch Your Imagination cartridge.
The grass was cut from Plantin Schoolbook cartridge.
The bird is from Create a Critter (cut at 1 inch).
'Happy Birthday' sentiment is from Kaisercraft.
Stamped apple faces are Peachy Keen face stamps - everyday face assortment (never thought I'd ever need to use the tiny, tiny faces but now I have)!

On a different note, I was so thrilled this morning to look at the Card Patterns website and find my Reindeer card was chosen as one of their Super 6!!!  I could have cried I was so excited!  I loved that sketch and I think it's one that I'll use again.   Check out their website, the winning card by Fran is absolutely stunning.

Thanks for looking!