Gabby-L is my niece's daughter. I guess that makes me her great aunt or grand aunt or something like that. I don't want to really figure it out because however you cut it, it makes me sound OLD so I just say that she's my niece's daughter. Her name is Gabrielle but when she was born her big sister couldn't pronounce it. It came out as Gabby-L and Gabby-L it still is.
She just turned one and this is the card that I made for her. It is a very simple layout that I've used hundreds of times, like here . .
To make it a little more special I added a few changes.
The first was to use Groovy Guava textured card stock for the main layer. This really doesn't seem like a big deal but when you look at the finished card the texture gives it something extra.
Then, after I stamped the saying on the card I used my aquapainter and Groovy Guava ink re-fill to color around the words. I really like how it looks so you'll definitely be seeing more of this on my future cards. I also colored in the flame on the candle with my white gel pen and when that was dry I used my Yo-yo Yellow Marker to color it in.
To jazz up the plain white taffeta ribbon I took my Going Gray marker and colored a small circle in the center of the ribbon every 1/4" or so and as the ink bled into the ribbon it created little diamonds. Too cool huh?
I used the retired Cloud, Moon, Stars template and sponged the sky using Soft Sky ink and then used River Rock to sponge around his feet.
The final thing I did to jazz up the front of the card was to create some dimension on the main image. Here you can see how I used dimensionals to pop up the bird, the elephant's ear and the flower. If you wanted to really make it jump off the front of the card, you could pop out the whole elephant image also.
After I've taken the time to make the front of my cards look their best I don't want the person I'm making the card for to be disappointed when they open it so I always try to decorate the inside. It's a very simple step but I hope it shows how much I care about each of my cards and about the person I'm giving it to. Here I stamped the main image from the front onto the inside using only Groovy Guava ink and then stamped the saying over it with Basic Gray. I know that the image looks really dark but I took this picture just minutes after stamping it and it was still damp but when it dried completely it was just a few shades lighter than the card stock.
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For all of you that are subscribed to my newsletter look for a new, exclusive feature starting this month. I will be writing an article each month where I'll share some of my tips and tricks with you. None of this will be posted on my blog. If you haven't signed up then now is the time!! The sign up box is at the top of the left column.
The first article will be about ribbon and how I get a perfectly knotted ribbon every time!!
Have a wonderful day and happy stamping!!
~ Michelle
OK, I love your card--thanks for sharing. I also just signed up and am hoping I haven't missed the article on the ribbon you were going to do. If I have, can you please forward it to me now? I need all the help I can get with tying ribbons!
Thank you! I look forward to the updates and articles, etc.
Laurie
Posted by: Laurie | March 28, 2008 at 02:18 PM