Quick Birthday Gifts

If you follow my tweets, you’ll know that last weekend I was looking for ideas for a birthday gift for a friend who is a super cool mom/art teacher. I rounded up some ideas, and I ended up making an altered journal, flower photo frame, and a 3×3 card.

Being a crafty artistic type, G loved the gifts.  It was a good lesson for me, since I tend to make more elaborate, time consuming things. I had two other projects planned as well, but my Saturday got away from me and I had to keep it simple.

Note: these projects used a lot of retired SU! product, Sunshine Day DSP, and Pacific Point card stock to be specific. If you like the color scheme of the DSP, I’d recommend the DSP Flock Together (IBC p162, #114018) since it uses lots of blues, greens, and yellows. If you like the retro funky kind of look, then try Tall Tales (IBC p161, #115678). Then pick a coordinating solid card stock. Here are more details on each of the gifts:

The journal was pretty simple to do. I cut a piece of dsp so that it was 1″ taller and wider than the book when open. Then I used Tombow Multi to glue the paper to the outside, folded in and glued the excess paper, and trimmed the paper at the spine of the book. On the inside of each cover I glued a coordinating piece of dsp.

For the “g”, I used a sponge dauber to ink up a piece of On Board Timeless Type chipboard (IBC p185, #112083) with Pacific Point Classic Ink, then used my heat tool to dry the ink. Then I clear embossed the chipboard several times to get a nice shiny finish to it. I then adhered it to the journal using Mini Glue Dots.

On the  I was inspired to make the flower photo frame by the Spring Daisy Frame featured in the April/May issue of Simply Handmade. This is made of 8 1″x6″ strips of DSP, each glued at the ends to look like a tear-drop. Then they are glued together to make a flower. Then two cardstock circles are adhered to the middle using Pop-Up Glue Dots. I then printed pictures of G’s husband and son and glued them inside the circles.

As for the card, I stamped the new stamp set Hello Again (IBC p114, #113780) in versamark for a background, then glued a fun piece of DSP at the bottom, then used a red Circle Fire Rhinestone Brad (IBC p179, #109110) in the middle.

I’m going to work out the kinks in the instructions for the flower then post a tutorial. If you have any questions please email me…my address is in the left sidebar.