Happy Birthday, My Friend

This is the card I recently sent out to a new blogging pal, Patti Lee, of Creations By Patti. She is a multi-talented, super creative lady who makes the most beautiful cards and incredible projects ever. She never ceases to amaze me with what she comes up with! If you enjoy 3 dimensional paper crafts and things with an Asian flair, you will find so much to "ooh!" and "aah!" about at her blog.

I knew I wanted to do Patti's card in red (her favorite color) and with an Asian flavor. I found a pretty good source for free Chinese/Japanese characters online at The Japanese Connection, and chose to import the character for "friend" to Inkscape. Then I used SCAL and my Cricut to cut it out of Currency Gold cardstock.

To cut the circular window and frame, I used a circle and scalloped circle Nestabilities. For an added touch, I cut two identical frames, one in gold and one in red. On the red frame, I used a Fiskars hand held punch to punch tiny hearts on each scallop, then layered it over the gold frame so it would show through. I first saw this idea done on some super cute cards at Kreative Korner By Kelly. Such an easy and simple idea, but I love how it really adds a special something! (Thanks, Kelly!)

The two cute little girls peering from above the frame is an image from Whipper Snapper Designs. Colored them with Copics, cut out just their heads and arms, then used foam tape to pop them up over the frame.

Inside the card I layered red foil and gold cardstock cut with the Nestabilities Label Four dies and centered my character for "friend" so it would peek out the front window. Sentiments were cut using the Opposites Attract Font cartridge and then it was done!

Don't you just love it when you're able to use a lot of your tools to create a card? I used at least ten different tools to create this one. Ah, yes... justification for buying all that stuff I "really need"!