Dad's Birthday Card

As a child, it was always exciting to get a card with your actual age printed on it.  When you are young you are always "going on ..."  (5 going on 6, etc.).  Once you are an adult, the actual number is less important, however, the "milestone birthdays" (usually the ones divisible by five) often are celebrated with a card that highlights the number.  When you reach a certain age, you start to brag about your age again - I remember my grandmother, who died at 89, always said she was "in her 90th year!"

I decided to make my Dad a card with a nice big shiny "87" on the front.  I wanted to use chipboard and did not have time to fuss with drying times for glitter or paint.  So, once again, I reached for the DCWV "Dazzle" stack with the incredibly shiny silver paper.

For the first time in a very long time, maybe years, I pulled out my old red Sizzix machine and the "Fun Serif" dies.  I cut the 8 and 7 from chipboard and from the Dazzle paper (since this is one sided paper I made sure to have the "right" side of the paper against the cutting edge of the die).  Then I wondered what would be the best way to make sure that the Dazzle paper was firmly attached to the chipboard.  I decided to use Scor-Tape but soon realized that it was not easy to make it fit the chipboard after it was cut.

So, I added some 1/2 inch Scor-Tape in closely spaced lines across the piece of chipboard and cut the numbers again.

This nifty little trick gave me numbers with a nearly solid covering of double sided tape so I could easily adhere the sparkly layer to the pieces.

You can see here how much better this worked than the example on the left where I was trying to fit tape to the number after it was cut!

I also used the 1/8 inch Scor-Tape on the inside of the card.  Since it is a pop up card, I wanted to be sure the insides would stay firmly attached.  I placed strips of the tape all along the sides and top of the folding parts of the card.  I removed the backing strips and set the insert into the card base.  Then I folded the top down onto the sticky tape.

The moveable parts are now firmly in place. 

Next I added tape to the bottom section of the insert, removed the backing and folded the card shut on top of the sticky insert.

This pop up insert will stay in the card no matter how many times it is opened!  I added some gems to the candle flames after this photo was taken.  This is a file from the Silhouette store that I purchased and cut with my Silhouette SD.  A lot of the files in the store are very simple or are things that I could make myself but this file would be very time consuming to make so I was happy to pay 99 cents for it.  I have already used it for several birthday cards.

We had a great trip to Pennsylvania and Dad is doing well.  Here he is with our younger son just before we left to drive home this morning.  Thanks again to all of you who sent cards - he really enjoyed them and particularly liked seeing how many different states they had come from.

It was fun to see all of the guesses about what I paid for this little box and the treasures inside it.  Miz MaryAnn got it spot on - $2!  I think that was a great deal.

My hand is healing - the stitches are due to come out Wednesday morning.  I can move the fingers much more easily now that the swelling is down - a good thing since I'll be decorating a Christmas tree today. I hope your Thanksgiving preparations are going well - we will have a veggie feast here and then will go see some of our family for dessert.  No turkey since we leave the next day for Spain and our vegan son won't be wanting turkey leftovers while we are gone!

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