Birthday Cards & Tags

Oh, man. You're going to love this one. The set, I mean... not the card. But hopefully the card, too. But really... the set. And the dies. The dies... be still my heart. But first... the card...

Today all the Papertrey Ink girls are coming at you with a little post featuring two of this month's new stamp sets... Big Birthday Wishes and 2011 Birthday Tags. And Big Birthday Wishes coordinates with what is possibly my favorite non-stamp PTI product *ever*... a collection of dies called By the Numbers. Oh. Good. Grief. If you love typography... this set and coordinating dies are for you. If you could care less about typography but like making super cute cards, pages, tags, accents for your home decor, etc... this set and dies are for you. I mean... look at it... nice and big. In the perfect font. Sigh. Love. I die cut the "2" right on my card front by sticking the die to the card with double stick tape. I just used a tiny piece and stuck it in the widest part of the "2" before I placed the die on the card. A little rub on the cardstock will keep it in place while you run it through your cutting machine and it will pull easily off the die when you're done. And it will be perfectly placed on your card. I so love that. I combined the "happy birthday" sentiment from 2011 Birthday Tags and the "you" single word from Big Birthday Wishes to make my own little "Happy Birthday 2 You" phrase. I stamped the words on a strip of vellum and embossed them in white so that they stand out from the Soft Stone card. {Soft Stone and White with a pop of color... you can't go wrong with that one, people; I swear.} There are so many phrases in Big Birthday Wishes that you can incorporate the numbers into... but I also love that there is a "happy" stamp and a "birthday" stamp that are included separately in the set so that you can just use the phrases and skip the numbers sometimes, too. I was thinking of my niece's birthday when I made this card... she'll be turning 2 soon so when I thought of this phrase I thought it would be the perfect way to ensure that Auntie Jess's card gets included in the baby book for this year :) And lookie... I used the Edgers die to make a cutie glittered label edge to ground the sentiment. So simple to use for either the edge of a card or to make little die cut accents. I wanted to finish out the inside of the card, too, so I added a longer phrase from Big Birthday Wishes. I think it looks so pretty layered over the Fillable Frames #12 stamp. Don't forget that you don't always have to fit your sentiment inside the frame... longer phrases look pretty, too! Whenever I make a really special card... or maybe a card that is going along with just a small gift or a gift card... I love to wrap it all up with a pretty bag "envelope" and ribbon to make it extra special. I tucked my card and a few headbands in one of PTI's glassine bags and then wrapped it all up with some ribbon that I stitched together myself! Oh, my heck... not gonna lie... I'n loving the ribbon! I stitched them together with a bit of trepidation because I just had no idea how that was going to go... I was wondering if I would need some type of thin backing. But I just went slowly and had no problems! I did try to hold and slightly pull the ribbons along with one hand (I trained them between my middle finger and index finger} and used my other hand in the same way to feed them as they went through the machine. Pulling it a bit as it went (which is generally a no-no in sewing) seemed to keep it from getting too slippery under the needle, etc. I added a little scalloped and embossed tag to finish everything up. Love that there are a few blank tags so that you can add in one of the sentiments from the set or whatever else... so versatile. I'm off to check out the birthday goodness that the other Papertrey Ink gals came up with! Betsy Veldman Erin Lincoln Maile Belles Lisa Johnson Dawn McVey Debbie Olson Heather Nichols Melissa Phillilps Michelle Wooderson Niki Estes Nichole Heady Later, friends! {Happy Birthday 2 You} card & tag CS - Soft Stone, Harvest Gold, Simply Chartreuse Stamps - Big Birthday Wishes & 2011 Birthday Tags (both to be released 1/15/11) Ink - VersaMark, Fresh Snow, New Leaf, Raspberry Fizz Dies - By the Numbers Collection, Edgers #1 (both to be released 1/15/11) Impression Plates - By the Numbers (to be released 1/15/11) Ribbon - Aqua Mist Luxe Satin, Simply Chartreuse Swiss Dots, Rustic Button Twine Buttons - New Leaf, Hibiscus Burst, Aqua Mist, Harvest Gold Other - glassine bag, Prisma glitter, white Filigree Detail embossing powder