Feminine Birthday Cards

This series of posts features cards I've made for a specific stationery order. My customer requested 25 greeting cards for a variety of occasions. And that's all the direction I got! Knowing her previous purchases from me, she likes simple things and lives on a farm, so I kept that in mind when I was making these cards. She's seen most of the designs I keep on hand for craft shows, so I wanted to create totally new cards for her.

I've tried to divide the cards out into small bunches (rather than overwhelm you with 25 cards and deets in one post) by the occasions they were designed for. Also, I'm a terrible photographer when it comes to cards. This has been confirmed.
Enjoy!

Keeping with the birthday theme I had going yesterday, I thought I'd just move into the feminine birthday cards. I use the term "feminine" pretty loosely, and in this case, it just means they're meant to be given to women. For the most part, when I make cards for women, I definitely take the opportunity to add glitter, buttons, ribbons and whatever embellies I can come up with. I did sneak one fairly girly card in here though (and my customer loved it, so I was happy!)

This first card is that girly card I was talking about! One of my favorite cards that I've made for any occasion. I'm loving yellow and grey/black combinations in everything right now and had to use it on a card. I need to use it on more cards!

There's a little of everything on here, from the lacy MS border punch to black satin ribbon to hat pins to some bling in the center of the flower and glittered petals. This is the kind of card that I would love to receive for my birthday :) The lacy ruffles are punched from a SU! designer paper that had a very light yellow design on it, which ties everything together nicely. I used the same DSP to make the petals of the flower at the top. Once I'd layered all my ruffles, I used a piercing tool to "lift up" the layers and give them a little more dimension. 

This card was extremely simple to make and really fun for me (because you know how I feel about cupcakes!) I was thinking of a child's birthday when I made this card, but anyone with a sweet tooth would probably love this.

A couple of fun details...I used some rhinestones as the cherries on the cupcake, just to give the card a little more dimension and add in some bling. And for the frosting on the cupcakes, I colored in the image with a Versamark marker, and the sprinkled it with white embossing powder and heated it up. It layers the frosting over the top of the wrappers, just like a real cupcake would have.

This next card could actually be used for both men and women, I think (though, it leans a little more feminine, which is why it's with this bunch). There's a lot of layers in this card, which I love...this thing has some real weight to it. When you hold it, you know you've got something special and handmade.

One fun detail you might not be able to see in the photo involves the blue panels with the white flowers on them. I made my background paper once again by stamping flowers onto my cardstock with Versamark, and then embossed them in white. There's definitely some texture to this card.

On a side note, you can sort of see the inside of the card in this photo and that I included a white panel on the inside. On my darker cards, I like to do that so it's easier to write (because I'm sure that everyone doesn't keep white pens hanging around their house). I rarely stamp messages on the inside of my card unless the stamps I have are meant to be continued; for example, a bold "Happy Birthday" sentiment on the front of the card and a longer verse on the inside. However, if I put a white panel on the inside of the card, I try to draw the overall design into the card as well. On this particular card, I stamped one of the flower images I used from the outside in a corner, in grey. The reason I leave the insides of my cards blank is so they can be personalized for the recipient.

Alright, last one. This is also one of my favorite cards that I've made in a long time because it's so fun and colorful. I've become obsessed with stamps featuring vintage items, like this bike stamp. And there's my yellow, making it's way into a card again. I'm also in love with banners and bunting. This whole card reminds me of a summer day or a trip to the county fair.

To make the banner a little more realistic, I attached the back layer of pennants (blue, green & purple) directly to the card front, and I used dimensional adhesive for the front layer (pink, orange & yellow). And I also love that you can see the little grey tail of the ribbon from the front row of pennants. Next time I make one of these, I'm going to have to break out my grey baker's twine for the ribbon.

Well, that's it for today, kiddies. Stop back tomorrow for another batch of cards. And, if you haven't already, check out my masculine birthday cards here!

Have a great day, all!!