Sunday, November 10, 2019

Gamer's "Retro" Birthday Card


I really had fun putting together this Super Mario Bros. themed card for my son in law's birthday this year. I was inspired by the super cool and clever Super Mario Bros.wiper style card created by the very talented Frances Byrne of Stamp Owl's Studio blog earlier this year... I knew right away I would be CASEing her card to try and make one for my son in law. 

Since I don't own the neat Mario Bros. stamps that Frances used on her card, I decided to use paper pieced images for my card. I used downloadable svgs from ImmaCutYou Studios on Etsy to make cutting files for my paper pieced Mario game characters and elements. Nearly all the pieces were cut from white cardstock and colored in with Copic markers.

I started with the background sky for my card by blending Tim Holtz distress oxide inks (Broken Glass, Salty Ocean) over cloud shaped stencils. Hillside border was cut using Lawn Fawn's Stitched Hillside border die and inked with Mowed Lawn distress oxide ink. Then to make my card interactive, I used one of the wiper mechanisms from Mama Elephant's Wiper Surprise die.

When the right and left side of the card are pulled simultaneously...


... Mario jumps up from behind the grassy hillside!

On the backside I found and printed out a background scene from the original Super Mario game and backed it onto a piece of black cardstock  for a place to add my sentiment.

Then just for fun, I put together a little box made to look like the "mystery box" in the Super Mario game and filled it with lots of chocolate gold coins and even some REAL money... ha, ha!

1 comment:

Lynn said...

This is truly a clever and beautiful card. For the generation who grew up with Super Mario this is a perfect card. If I were as diligent as you, I would try to make one, too. I really admire your crafting and artistic skills. Thanks for sharing your creations with blogland!