Olivia's 6th Birthday

Our little grand daughter Olivia (aka Livi) had her 6th Birthday recently. Of the two little girlies, she's the more tomboy inclined of the pair of them. I knew she was crackers about dinosaurs from our visit there the other month and planned to make her card along that theme. But, it turns out that she loves 'Toothless the dragon' even more - so plans had the be switched pronto! There was also the fact that, as the girl's Birthday's are only a couple of weeks apart, it's always best to keep their cards fairly similar and this is what I came up with:

I used:

- 8" x 8" square white scalloped edge card blank

- plain pink card stock for the main frame and the frame round the 'Toothless' image

- covered the main card 'frame' with a piece lightish blue pearlescent card stock

- added a pink satin bow on a length of ribbon to the left hand side of the card and added a little 'Princess' charm to it, using opalescent cord - how I made the ribbon length with its bow is a new tryout for me, details underneath this list

- next die cut the greeting from white card using the Memory Box 'Grand Happy Birthday' die and popped that down in the right hand corner of the card before adding '6th' - die cut from more white card using a Memory Box 'Classic Numbers' die and Tattered Lace 'Every Day Anniversary Alphabet (D695)' dies

- at that point, as with Mia's very similar card,  I could see where to position the image so next that was glued in place

- added 'LIVI' to the image, die cut using white card and Tattered Lace 'Every Day Anniversary Alphabet (D695)' dies

- one white paper flower added to the side of the sentiment with a large clear gem added

- something was missing from the top right of the card so I added some star peel offs, sort of arching into the image - and just a tickle of clear Wink of Stella over the moon

And the idea how to create the bow all from one piece of ribbon came to me in the middle of the night before I made the card. I took a length of the pink ribbon and selected a hard backed book from the bookshelves in my craft room, making sure the book was wide enough to measure at least half the height of the card itself as this is going to be the strip of ribbon down the length of the card. Should have taken a few photos really but this is what I did next.

Folded the ribbon around the book with the centre of the piece of ribbon against the page opening side of the book. I'd left long enough ends to then be able to tie a bow on the spine side of the book - so at this point I had a piece of ribbon, wrapped around the book and tied in a pretty bow at one edge. The reason it's best to follow the tying of the bow on the actual spine is because your next move is to cut the centre of the ribbon in half - across where it lies across the page opening side of the book, makes it easier to slide scissors underneath :) So you now have a bow with its tails, tied in the centre of a length of ribbon hanging from each end.

Then it's just a matter of adding the length of ribbon to your card with the bow already neatly tied in the centre - the raw ends are hidden underneath the pink and blue card layer on the front of the card. I hope this makes sense, if not please say and I'll do a little step by step with photos! Don't know why I never thought to do this little trick before, it makes things much easier and you do end up with a neat bow which lies along the length of the ribbon.

Then, once again, I needed to make up a box to protect it en route to Germany :) Hope you had a super Birthday Livi!


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