18th Birthday Celebrations

For my nephew’s 18th birthday, I made a box card to double up as a money-gift card.

I also covered a tealight in co-ordinating paper to look like a birthday cake. I made a special receptacle for it so we could turn it on easily.

… and here it is lit…

Hope you enjoy my sharing of cards and if you’d like any help or how-to’s please contact me.

Double Cascade Card

I made my daughter a double cascade card for her birthday this year. I’d seen many on blogs and Pinterest which inspired me to give it a go.

This is the card I made:

And these are the materials and steps I took to make this card:

• 2 sheets A4 black card for base
• 1 sheet A4 black card for scalloped circle, letters, bees and name cutout front band
• 4 sheets A4 patterned co-ordinating 120gsm paper/card (in this case from Kim Broedelet’s “Sprinkles” digital scrapbooking kit – striped pattern and cupcakes pattern
• 1 sheet of A4 glossy card printed with the confetti pattern from Kim’s “Sprinkles” kit (I used this for the cupcake case I created with Brother CanvasWorkspace and my ScanNCut SDX1200). I also printed a band of this paper to place behind the name cutout.
• Print a small square of the green solid digital paper from Kim’s “Sprinkles” kit , to create the folds in the cupcake case.
• Print a small square of the peach solid digital paper from the same kit to create the icing on the cupcake.
• Print an even smaller square of the bright pink solid digital paper from the same kit to create the cherry. All the pieces for the cupcake can be placed on the cutting mat to be cut together.
• Sakura Gelly Roll pens to outline the black letters and add glitter to bees.
• Any other embellishments (like the felt gift/flowers on the front) you’d like to use.

Instructions for the base:

• Take 2 A4 sheets of black card (at least 220gsm). If you are using textured card, you will need to ensure that they are folded and cut so that when they are put together, the texture is in the same plain.
• Mark a pencil line at the halfway down the left hand edge of one piece of card and the right hand edge of the other (to ensure we keep the textures on the same side).
• Cut from the top corner on one edge of the card to the pencil mark on the other so you end up with 2 “truncated” triangles.
• Score each one in half at 14.85cm to create a fold.
• At 7.425cm from the left and right edges of one piece of card, make a light pencil mark up from the bottom to the top angled edge (you can erase these later).
• Now measure 9.1cm up the longer line and make a pencil mark and 6.35cm up the shorter line (halfway points). Cut from the bottom straight edge of the card up to this mark. Now repeat the process but from the top angled edge of the card and cut down to this mark. These cuts will enable the 2 card halves to be slotted together.

Here is what I printed and cutout in readiness for assembly:

All the patterned paper pieces are cut 2mm smaller so when glued in position on the black card, it created a black border.

In addition to this, I also cutout all the letters I needed (font “Cairo”) and used my trusty old Cuttlebug and bee dies to cut out black bees. I used co-ordinating colours of Sakura Gelly Roll pens to outline the black letters.

Sorry, I forgot to take any photographs before the card was assembled fully.

Here you can see how it slots together

On the reverse I added 2 rectangles of white 120gsm paper to personalise my greeting.

I added 2 rectangles of white 120gsm paper to personalise my greeting. You can see my mistake here… I should have glued the black scalloped circle under my patterned paper… but hey-ho! There are no mistakes in crafting as everything is individual (that’s my excuse anyway!).

Here’s my completed card:

You can add as many embellishments as you like. I like to create cards in an un-fussy, clean way and live by the motto “less is more”!

If you would like any futher information or clarity, please do not hesitate to contact me.