A very special birthday card

 I have a special friend who has a daughter about to celebrate a birthday,  and their entire family is very precious to me.  I was invited to join a card drive to send her daughter 100 birthday cards.  This was my first attempt at a pop up wave card that Sam Calcott recently demonstrated on her mixed up craft youtube channel. She is pretty much a card engineering genius and also has her own line of card making products called made to surprise.  What I love about her, is she keeps bringing great content to her channels even though she has her own line of products.  Go check her out for some unique cards that are stunning!  

Her card features flowers and mine features butterflies.  I used my Spellbinders Bibi's butterfly collection along with the paper rose tiny butterfly dies. This is a 5 X 7 card and is held closed with a belly band.  I used papers from my stash and embellished the tiny butterflies with some gems.  The big birthday sentiment is a die from The Stamps of life. 

I love the colors and think this card turned out beautifully, I know my sweet friend will love it!

Trying to use what's on my desk...

 I can't get enough of these tiny butterfly dies.  The detail in them are just amazing.  Bonus, they are TINY! They have become a little set that I keep handy to use as needed, because you know I love butterflies. 

I was working on a very special birthday card and had these tiny butterflies left over and they just called out to be used.  I also had a 5.5 x 5.5 botched card base, so I cut it down to 5 x 5 and away I went. I also have several sheets of the background paper which is covered in butterflies.  It's just so lovely.  I used my hemstitch square dies from Spellbinders. I added a candy heart from honey bee stamps and pops of color from scrapbook.com to embellish.  The stamp is one I've had for probably 15 years.  Again, these tiny butterflies are a die set by Paper Rose that I purchased at Scrapbook.com.

When I don't love the outcome

 I really dislike working on a project and not being happy with the finished product.  I fiddled futzed with this card forever adding detail after detail. I thought it was going to be something I really loved, but I just don't.  I hope whoever I wind up sending it to enjoys it anyway.  Once again, I was working with a pre-made card base given to me by a friend many, many years ago.  

When it doesn't turn out like you thought, but turns out

 I had this idea of creating an influx of butterflies coming from the bottom of the card and spreading out.  I knew I wanted an embossed background too.  I have a plethora of these green acetate butterflies and I thought I could achieve that.  You know how it goes though, it did not come to fruition in the way that I thought and I spent entirely too much time situating those butterflies, but I was finally ok with the result of the card and I know the recipient loved it.  I made this an A7 card.  The sentiment is from an old Anna Griffin die set that I got at a yard sale a few years ago.  

#3

 This is the final card I made with the first sheet of squares.  I just love how all these cards turned out and I sent them all in the mail the day after I made them.  Hope you enjoyed them and I really hope the recipients enjoy getting them.

#2

 So, I have these square kraft envelopes that I got on clearance many, many years ago.  They didn't come with cards, but when this girl finds a clearance deal on envelopes, I rarely pass it by.  This was card #2 from my last post and those squares that kept teasing me.  Same concept, but different layout and design.

This card has also been sent to a friend the day after I made it.  One of my favorite verses inside.

Those squares just kept staring back at me

 I have been gifted many items over the years as friends and family have learned of my cardmaking therapy, love, obsession, part time hustle.  At me desk, I kept seeing these pre-cut squares just begging to be put into a card.  I pulled them out and got to work. 

There were two identical sets and I just had to pull them apart.  I divided the first sheet into three color groupings.  Although, they all match, I picked ones with colors that were most similar to each other. This is the first card I came up with.

I dry embossed the background panel with a 3D embossing folder from Spellbinders.  I used what could possibly be one of my favorite die sets, those tiny butterflies, for each square.  They are a die set from paper rose and there are six different etched butterflies.  SO detailed and delicate.  I stamped the sentiment from a stamp simply stamp set.  I also added some distress ink to the background panel to be cohesive with the look of the squares.  I love how it turned out.  Scraps but not scraps.  I also added a bible verse inside the card on another one of the squares.  This card has already gone out in the mail!

Come back in a couple days to see Card #2 in this series!