Sweet Summertime Card Tutorial

I recently received an Echo Park paper set from Sandra at Gotta Craft and it has inspired me to make some really summery birthday cards. The beautiful summer weather has also inspired me... to stay indoors and make cards where the breeze doesn't blow my stash away!

The intention was to make a set of unisex cards for kids, but I think they're pretty universal actually, especially when the sun is shining this much!

The set 'Sweet Summertime' features a lot of pinwheels, which inspired me to make this card:

It contains two great sticker sheets, with loads of letters, bunting and borders. One sticker says 'Let's Go Fly a Kite', which inspired me to make this card:

The sticker sheets also feature a big hot air balloon, which inspired me to make the final card in the set... for which I've also done a little tutorial.

What you'll need is:

• Some cards. You can use pre-made cards or cut your own (I'm running low on the former so I cut my own from some cardstock)
• A selection of patterned and plain paper (2 patterns and 6 plains)
• Button and string
• Birthday message stamp (mine is from Woodware) and cloud stamps (mine are from Sassafras Lass)
• Round corner punch and scalloped border punch
• Some old-fashioned ticket embellishments
• Glue, glue dots, ink, scissors, craft knife, etc
  

Take a selection of coordinating papers. I've used some paper and card from The Paper Mill Shop and a patterned freebie (the Happy Birthday paper) in addition to the Echo Park paper (used here for the balloons).

Preparation:

• Cut strips of brown, orange and green to about 3cm thick, and as wide as the card base you're using (mine was 10.5cm wide).
• Cut rectangles of the 'Happy Birthday' paper and the plain blue paper: again, as wide as the card base you're using, and at 7.5cm and 7cm respectively.
• Round the bottom corners of your card

Cut out the clouds and the hot air balloons. As you can see from the uniformity I cut my clouds with the Cricut and then ran them through the Cuttlebug (to put Swiss Dots on them). The balloons were printed onto the patterned paper and then cut out by hand:

Punch the coloured strips of paper to make the scalloped borders:

Punch the bottom corners of the patterned paper to round them:


Glue the scalloped borders together, and then glue them to the patterned paper:

Then glue the bottom half to the top half to make the base of the whole topper.

Now it's time to add the stamped images. First, stamp the message at the top of the card. I've used Memento Ink (Tuxedo Black).

Then draw some lines, with an ink pen, running on from the stamped writing to form a frame at the top of the card:
Next, stamp the clouds onto the 'sky'. I experimented with black and white ink, but preferred the white, because it's a lot more subtle (and realistic!), even if it is faint. It's not the best photo but I'll include it anyway:
Take the string and wrap it around the entire card topper, lining it up with where the scalloped borders meet the 'sky'. Thread the button and pull tight, securing the button with a glue dot if it doesn't want to stay in place. Tie a bow.

Put some glue on the back of your ticket and stick it in place, at an angle, just under the button and string:
Finally, stick on the cloud and the hot air balloon. Cut a tiny basket shape from the corrugated cardstock and stick on to the bottom of the balloon:

Then stick the whole card topper onto the card, lining up with the lines you've drawn out from the stamp at the top. And the finished card, one more time: