Carol's Craft Room: Special Occasions.....

Two very special occasions in the near future gave me the excuse I needed (as if I ever need one!) to have a little play today. Both male birthdays, which I find hard to design for at the best of times but I've been mulling over the design for these cards for a day or two now, and I hope you like the end result!

My brother is 60 in a couple of days so this is the card I made for him. The base cardstock is black, layered with silver mirror card, followed by a sheet of black & white striped paper from the Papermania 'Liquorice Sherbet' paper pack I was lucky enough to be find in my stocking this Christmas. I've used some of the black & white spotted paper from the same pack on the banner pendants, which I cut using a banner punch from SU. The base cardstock for each pendant was black, layered in red, then the spotted Papermania paper glued on top. The bows (also from the same range) filled the gaps between the pendants and finally, a stip of concertinered paper over the top to add a little more detail.

I made a rosette out of yet more paper from the pack and topped this with the Happy Birthday sentiment stamped on white pearlescent cardstock, which I then mounted onto red, before popping it into place on the rosette with a couple of dimensionals. The final touch was yet another bow and six small black small black pearls in the swirls of the sentiment border.

Finally the BIG 60! These were just a couple of die cut chipboard shapes that I sprayed using Stick & Stay then dusted with SU Dazzling Diamonds glitter. To link them into the colour theme I added a few more of the black pearls.

Hope my brother likes the card...... inside I computer generated the text " Age is a matter of mind. If you don't mind, it doesn't matter!"

My next card was the same design as for my brother's but with a few very small changes. This time I layered up my black cardstock with red before adding the same striped Papermania paper, I added a ribbon behind the rossette and embossed the stamped sentiment.