Belated Birthday card for my sister

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This card took two or three pages (I forget) of Close To My Heart Skylark paper.  It's not one of my favorites, but I had a few of them & since I thought my sister may like it, I didn't mind using the two (or three, I forget) sheets necessary to make this card.  I do think it turned out quite nice.

I also used two new tools for this card.  I've had both for a few months but had not taken the time to acquaint myself with them & use them.  They are Hot Off The Press "1000 Card Quotes" cd I got from Amazon as well as Serif CraftArtist 2 that I got from QVC.  I will review these items later.  But in a nutshell, I think the HOTP cd is ok but generally pretty lame.  Basically, it appears it's several PDFs that you print out & then cut the sentiments, verses & design elements & adhere them to your card.  OTOH, CraftArtist2 seems to be a "grown up" successor to the Hallmark and/or American Greetings CreateACard app that I've used for about 20 years to make my computer generated greeting cards.  But more on these later.

I cut one piece of Skylark paper to 8 1/2 x 11 inches & folded it over so the green/white side was out & left the chevron "selvage" & so that it was a horzontal/tent fold.  I layered a piece cut from another Skylark paper over that but with the chevron selvage showing (on the bottom layer/card base) as well as ~1/2 inch at the top of the green/white print.  This new layer had the bird side showing.  I stamped "Happy Birthday" with the CTMH Art Philosophy Celebration stamp set (D1497) & CTMH Lagoon ink.  Then I cut the partial tag out from a piece of Skylark paper, layered that on the front, stamped the "To:" (same CTMH stamp set & ink) & wrote "My Sister".  (Based upon my ikky handwriting, you can see why I prefer to use a computer or stamps rather than handwriting!).  I already had the birdcage that was cut from a Spring Fling paper pack from two years ago with Spellbinders Bird Sanctuary die.  Adhered it with pop dots & added a couple of CTMH gold, durable triangles, under the bird cage.

For the inside, since I like to trim the "liner" to be a bit shorter than the card base on all sides.  But since I used left the chevron selvage on the outside of the card, I cut the chevron selvage from another piece of Skylark paper & used it to cover the selvage on the inside of the card base.

For the liner, I used this digital paper, which exactly matched the blue in the Skylark paper:

I found this sentiment from HOTP CD & made it my own in CraftArtist2.  The fonts I used:

• Salsa Mangos BTN Lt
• Marlin Thin
• Tw Cen MT Condensed
• Tropicali Script BTN Bamboo

The top inside is an Anna Griffin die cut from the green/white side of a piece of Skylark paper.

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