A child’s birthday card

My gorgeous Goddaughter Laura will be 5 on the 29th. I was honoured to meet her when she was four days old and I have adored her ever since. His Lordship who is terrified of children (that’s got to change by November) also adores her; she’s got such a determined, stubborn, funny little character.

Laura loves bright colours, pink and shiny things. She always seems to opt for mismatched but fun combinations, so that was where my inspiration for her card came from. General child friendly fun chaos.

I bought the sequined sequin card from Create and Craft recently, then stared at it when it arrived thinking it’s so pretty and shiny but what on earth am I going to use it for? Laura!

The murky weather we’re experiencing is making it almost impossible to get any hint of the shine of this card on a photo, I apologise.

What you need:

• Sequined sequin card (I can’t remember its actual name, I’m sorry, but that really is an apt description)
• Tonic Studios Simply Patterns paper pad
• DL card blank
• Free bear stamp from March 2017’s Making Cards Magazine
• Letter and number dies (I used my Scan’N’Cut)
• Colouring pencils/pens
• Optional: rosette scoring board. Mine came free with this month’s Papercraft Inspirations magazine, but I used to use a general purpose score board

How to:

1. Stamp the bear and colour him in. I used a pink glitter gel pen for his T-shirt – you’ll notice a general shiny theme to this card. Fussy cut around the bear.
2. Cut the letters of the name from a sheet of sequined sequin card of your choosing. My letters were 255mm tall. I chose one which would clash with the rest of the papers – much darker and reds and greens – because of Laura’s penchant for clashing. Keep them to the side.
3. Cut the age you need from a different sheet of the sequined sequin card. I used a pink base to tie back in with my colour scheme. I made mine much bigger than my letters at 555mm tall. Keep this to one side.
4. Choose a patterned paper which will be your back layer and your rosette. I opted for one with pink hexagons on. Cut a piece 91x 203mm, then cut out of the middle of this two strips measuring 30x180mm.
5. Make a rosette: take the two strips and score at regular intervals, using your rosette scoring board if using. Mountain and valley fold along all the scored lines, then use a strong adhesive (I used super sticky red tape) to attach the two strips into a circle. Squash your circle flat; I tend to put a piece of 3d foam tape on the reverse to hold it long enough to stick. Fill the hole in the centre with hot glue (it seems to hold best). If I wasn’t going to put a number over, I would usually hide the hole with a gem or a button.
6. Using hot glue or wet glue, stick your number from step 3 onto your rosette, roughly central, but making sure to disguise the hole in the middle of the rosette.
7. Cut a piece of a second patterned paper to 85x195mm and layer this on top of the piece of larger patterned paper from step 4. Stick the two onto the front of your card blank. Trying to fight the hollowed out bottom layer onto the front on its own is really faffy, but the second layer lends it support.
8. Stick your rosette in the middle of the top third of the card front. Stick the letters forming the name as you wish – Laura fit almost exactly across the middle, but a longer name would need a bit more manipulation.
9. Finally stick your bear in the middle of the bottom third of the card front et voila, finished.