Merry Birthday Wishes

My mom requested a Christmas-y birthday card to give to a co-worker, so I put this one together based on the current sketch from Retro Sketches. It also fits with this week’s CAS-ology gift themed challenge—there are a few layers, but I think it’s still a pretty clean and simple design.

The focal image is a gift box made from a festive piece of dotted designer paper. I added a die cut red paper bow and a pair of red and green bells for a whimsical touch. The card will be hand delivered so I'm not too worried about the bells adding bulk to the card.

I combined sentiments from two different Paper Smooches sets—“merry” from Christmas Sampler and “birthday wishes” from Birthday Buddies—to get the sentiment I stamped in red ink on the white die cut tag attached to to the gift. I layered the gift box on a green panel using dimensional dots, then set the panel on a red dotted piece on a white card base. The dots are kind of busy and the colors are pretty bold, but all of the white space behind the panels tones it down a bit.

And, speaking of gifts, if you're still looking for gifts for your crafty friends or for yourself, i {heart} papers is having 12 days of Christmas sales. Each day through December 24, a new sale item will be posted at a steal of a price. Sale items valid until sold out or until Christmas Day, whichever comes first! (Sorry, no restocks or rainchecks!)

Materials Used: 
from i {heart} papers: Paper Smooches Christmas Sampler and Birthday Buddies stamp sets, Tsukineko Memento Lady Bug ink, Doodlebug Design North Pole 6x6 paper pad, Sticky Thumb dimensional dots 

other: Simply Chartreuse cardstock (Papertrey Ink); Whisper White cardstock (Stampin’ Up!); bow die (Lil’ Inker Designs); tag die (My Favorite Things); bells (Michaels)