Happy Birthday Super Hero

A couple of weeks ago I realised that a little neighbour's 7th Birthday wasn't too far off, so my in-house critic asked his Dad what his favourite 'things of the moment' were. Last year it was Spiderman, which was a challenge in itself - this year it's the Avengers film! Talk about a challenge and a half - one of those times you wish you never asked a question :(

Anyhow, I poodled around the internet looking for free downloads and, after truly spending almost a full day on it, this is the card I ended up with. The image governed the card from the word go and there was an awful lot of compromising along the way. Not least as the in-house critic kept on throwing in suggestions:

I used:

- 5" x 7" white card blank, tent style

- backing layer of silver card stock, trimmed to just slightly less than the size of the card front and glued in place

- then a slightly smaller layer of SU's 'Raspberry Ripple' card, trimmed to slightly smaller than the silver layer and glued in place

- the image was trimmed and mounted onto a backing of silver card - then kept to one side as I fiddle-faddled around with the rest of the card

- using snippets of silver card, backed with Stick-It adhesive sheet I cut the letters for the 'Taylor' panel using the Tattered Lace 'Anniversary - Classic' set of dies

- then the words were constructed onto a snippet of 'Raspberry Ripple' card and backed with a snippet of silver card. Tip for positioning letters when you don't want to risk using faint pencil lines, especially when the card itself is dark anyhow - use a strip of removable tape as a guide. I use the almost clear stuff but it's good enough to still see where you're going - and I've learnt the hard way over time to always press it onto whatever trousers or top I'm wearing first, just to get rid of any excess sticky - even removable tape can rip some card stock :(

- die cut the 'Happy Birthday' from silver card, again backed with Stick-It, using a new die by Paper Smooches called 'Birthday Words'

- then cut a number seven using a left over snippet of sticky backed silver card

- glued everything in place and just felt there were some gaps to fill so out came the box of confetti and sequins and I just added three silver stars to finish off

Almost went into total meltdown when I realised that the two stars on the 'Taylor' panel were just slightly out of alignment with one another and I'd stuck them in place using Glossy Accents so absolutely no hope of re-positioning them :( Isn't it always the way, if you're gonna do a boo-boo then you'll do it right at the last knockings! I know it's just a fraction, but it might as well have been a mile at that point in what had been a looooooooooong day!

The Paper Smooches 'Birthday Words' die set was 'enabled' by Jules when she used it on a card the other week. She used it 'inlaid' - which I actually think is more effective but I'm not unhappy with the way I used it. It comes with the Happy Birthday words plus two other celebratory words - and of course when I nipped off to buy one set, a second one fell into the basket for the Playground toy box so watch this space at some point in the future :)

Jane W made a really interesting point recently. With dies becoming more and more intricate we're almost creating our own peel offs when we back card with adhesive sheet and then cut fiddly dies. It look like Little Claire have twigged this and apparently they've got some really great peel offs in stock - who knows, perhaps peel offs are due to return into favour. Hop over to Jane's to see what I mean - HERE.

As it's another very important 7th Birthday this week, I'd like to enter this into the current 7th Birthday celebratory challenge over at Allsorts. Well done to Brenda and the team for all your hard work and wonderful inspiration!

And - I'm pleased to report that little Taylor was delighted with his card! He must have wonky eyes like me :)

Di 
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