Milestone Birthdays

As much as I love and enjoy my hobby of making and sending birthday cards, being that I'm a very slow crafter, I can usually only manage to finish enough cards each year to send to close relatives and a few crafty friends. This year, however, several of the close friends I grew up with are celebrating milestone birthdays so I decided to challenge myself by trying my very best to make and send special milestone birthday cards to each. This card was the first of  the seven I hope to complete this year.

I used a quilted coverplate die from Honey Bee Stamps to create a stitched background and added a paper pieced Franklin teddy bear from Marjorie Ann Designs together with lots of flowers die cut from Spellbinders "Be Bold Blooms" die set. Tiny butterflies were cut from Memory Box "Butterfly Delights" die. Happy Birthday sentiment was hot foiled and die cut using Simon Hurley's "Birthday Sentiments" set.

On the inside, I used Karen Burniston's "Twist Flower Pop Up" die set again for the mechanism to animate a large center panel with another paper pieced teddy bear and a double tiered cake. I used  Marianne  Designs "Birthday Cake" die for the cake and a very old  QuicKutz "Studio" alphabet die set for the glittered gold "70".

After assembling the teddy bear, cake and flowers together, I scanned and imported the image into Make the Cut design program so I could create and cut a shadow layer for it.

I also put together a simple matching gift card holder to enclose with the card. 

Initially, I started jotting down all the measurements and instructions needed to recreate this pop up  card with the intention of  making six more of the same to send for all the milestone birthdays I mentioned. Though the overall design of this card seemed simple enough,  it took a bit longer than I expected to cut and assemble all the embellishments needed. Looks like I may have to come up with some alternative ideas for a card that will be quicker to complete.