Stretching my Card(making) Abilities....

Hi All! This weekend is the birthday of one of my daughter's best friends. My daughter made a tote bag for her friend and then asked me if I would be willing to make a card for her. "Of course," I said. And could it be nautical themed. "No problem," I said. And then I sat down to make a feminine, nautical-themed birthday card for a 13 year-old girl. [Insert the sound of a lonely cricket chirping in the erie silence here.] Yeah. Well. This was not as easy as I thought it would be.

So I went online for inspiration. My first (and last) stop was the Cardabilities blog. Any time I need a layered, feminine card sketch, that's where I go first, and they certainly didn't disappoint this time.

Here's the sketch:

Those pennants were all I needed to see. Here's my take:

The base of the card is cut to 4 1/4 x 5 1/2 inches from Outdoor Denim cardstock and layered with Kraft cardstock cut a quarter of an inch smaller than the base. The patterned paper is from the Tommy Collection, which retired sometime ago. I only have scraps left, but that's all I needed. The doily is from my stash. I used Outdoor Denim chevron ribbon (also retired) for the bow and added a little anchor charm from the Journey Charms pack. The sentiment is from the Happy Everything Operation Smile stamp set (a portion of the proceeds goes to Operation Smile), and is stamped in Cranberry ink on White Daisy cardstock. I popped the sentiment up with dimensional adhesive and then popped the layer up using craft foam. (Here is an excellent blog post and video on the benefits of using craft foam.) Finally, I finished the front of the card off with some pearl bling from my stash. (Pearls....oysters...ocean... Keepin' it nautical even in the bling!) 

Here are a couple of close-ups of the details:

And here is a look at the inside of the card:

The sentiments are also from the Happy Everything stamp set and are stamped in Cranberry and Outdoor Denim inks on White Daisy cardstock.

And here's one more look at the front:

So there you have it. A feminine, nautical-themed birthday card for a 13 year-old young lady. Whew! That definitely stretched my card ability! ;-)

Until later then....