Happy First Birthday!

My Grand Nephew just celebrated his first birthday. As I prepared to make his card, I was coming up with zero inspiration. You see, I have another Grand Nephew who celebrated his first birthday in February. I didn't want to make the same card yet I'm a little lacking in the juvenile boy stamp department. Anyway, two days before the party, my niece called and told me she was making a puppy cake. A light bulb went on in my head and this is the card I created:

To start, I cut out one of the adorable pups from a scrap of Basic Grey June Bug I had left over from a layout I created in a class designed by Kelly Goree. (I'll share that layout later this week.) Next, I cut a dog house out on my Cricut and stamped it with the Hero Arts Woodgrain stamp. (I think that is one of my favorite stamps because it is so versatile!) I added the banner and Happy Birthday sentiment from Papertrey Ink's Fly Away set. The banner is actually inverted so I had to affix the sentiment stamp to my block accordingly. I love how you can "mold" an acrylic stamp to fit your needs! After finishing the dog house I stamped the clouds on white card stock. For the grass, I scalloped two strips of patterned paper plus a strip of green card stock that I stamped with stripes.

When I put all of the pieces together on a 4.25 x 5.5 card, my scene seemed too crowded so I opted for a 5x7-inch card instead. To ground my scene, I stamped a scrap of kraft card stock with the dots and scalloped the top edge. For a finishing touch, I used the sun from the Elements Stickers. Since it was hanging off the edge, I adhered it to scrap cardstock and cut it out before putting it on the card. The "1" is actually a white Thickers that I inked red to match my card. I used craft ink for the best results.

Hope you enjoyed your day, Paul!

Supplies:

Card Stock: Stampi'n Up! (Kraft, Wild Wasabi); Papertrey Ink (Stamper's Select White, Pure Poppy, Enchanted Evening)

Stamps: Hero Arts (Clouds, Designer Woodgrain, Stripes; Technique Tuesday (Swiss Dot)

Ink: Versa Mark; Stampin' Up! (Brilliant Blue, Real Red); Ranger (Jet Black)

Patterned Paper: Basic Grey (June Bug)

Stickers: American Crafts (Thickers); Basic Grey (June Bug Elements)

Tools: Cricut (Puppy Love), Fiskars Border Punch (Scallop); EK Success (Corner Rounder)