Recently, my parents were driving up to visit my uncle and wanted something special for his birthday. Between work, planning a road trip with my sisters, and starting this blog – I had very little time to put something together before Mom and Dad left.
For my cardstock colors, I picked shades of blue for a clean, masculine card. I chose Simon Says Stamp Seaglass, Papertrey Ink Indigo, and Tonic Studios Imperial Blue. For the base I used Neenah Solar White pre-scored card.
Along with Lawn Fawn cardstock, Simon Says, Papertrey Ink, Neenah, and Tonic are my favorite, most used cardstock brands. I especially love the samplers from PTI – you can try out a wide variety of colors and re-order your favorite shades. The mirror card from Tonic Studios is also really fun to pull in. It gives such a cheerful look but is sturdy enough you could use it as a base if you wanted.
Recently I started trying out Bazzill cardstock from the Card Shoppe line. There are some really interesting shades, but the 8.5″x11″ is a bit harder to find. I mostly get mine from scrapbook.com. The Bazzill cardstock in Licorice Twist is one of my favorites.
Interactive Shaker Card
I’ve also been eager to try more interactive cards so a shaker birthday card seemed like a good place to start. Initially, I used the Lawn Fawn Party Balloons but the effect was more appropriate for a kid’s birthday card. Instead, I pulled in the Spellbinders deco alpha set from the Large Die of the Month (July 2018). That turned out to be the perfect size for my shaker element.
For the clear window in the shaker, I actually use scraps from laminating sheets. I save larger pieces from when I laminate dashboards for my TN. I always raid my scraps box when starting projects like this. For the sequins, I just picked out a few different Darice sequins from my stash and randomly placed them in each letter.
After creating the shaker, I tried out a bunch of different sentiment stamps but each one left the card looking unbalanced.
Lawn Fawn Line Border Dies
Since I wanted the H-A-P-P-Y shaker to be the focus, I needed something clean and simple for the balancing element on the front. Luckily, as I was flipping through my sentiments I pulled out my Lawn Fawn dies. The birthday line border was perfect! I definitely splurged a bit picking up so many Lawn Fawn line border dies – but it has turned out to be worth the money.
The line border greetings are neither too large nor too small. Plus, they are basic enough to work with a variety of looks. The happy birthday line border is definitely my most used out of this collection. However, I have a card sketched out using the ‘you’re sweet’ die that I’m looking forward to making soon.
Finishing Up
I wanted to finish the card quickly so I used 3 layers of foam tape to lift the front off of the base. Since my parents were handing the card to my uncle I didn’t really worry about the weight. But, if I had more time or were going to mail the card, I would’ve used fun foam to make it lighter.
I really do like how this card turned out. It’s celebratory & cheerful but the clean lines and simple mats keeps it masculine as well. The shaker was also fun to put together (and very quick too!).
