Last week Lynn K posted a beautiful easel card for a friend’s 75th birthday.  I have the good fortune to enjoy a friendship with both Lynn and the birthday lady, Hazel.  Last Sunday, Hazel’s daughter and family held a party in honor of Hazel’s birthday and I was able to attend and enjoy the celebration.  Because it was a special birthday, I wanted to make a card that was special.  I too, decided to use the theme of 75 but not in the same way that Lynn K did.

This is a photo of Hazel and the middle portion of her card.

And here is Hazel (with some help from her daughter and my husband) with the entire card.

As you can see it is a l-o-n-g card.  Seventy Five inches to be exact.  Also if you were to count the candle flames on the card – Yep! there are 75 of them!

It was a fun project with a few challenges.  So here is how it was constructed.

There are 9 panels that are connected with 1″  wide strips of organdy fabric.  The fabric is sandwiched in between the cardstock back and the cardstocks and papers on the face of the panels.  This photo shows that a space of about 1/16″ was left between the panels so the card would fold.

Once the panels were all joined into one long strip, the cardstock and paper parts of the card face were glued in place.  The card face consisted of a patterned paper for the background above the ‘cake’ and behind the candles, the cardstock ‘cake’, the cardstock icing strips, the layered cardstock letters (candles), and the cardstock candle flames.

This photo shows a close up of the completed first two panels.

It occurred to me as I was cutting the background paper pieces that because of the pattern in the paper, I would need to pay attention to where they cut so the pattern would line up when they were placed side by side on the card.  By using the “Page” mode in my KNK Studio software and resetting the origin on my KNK Maxx Air for each cut, I was able to successfully cut them so they matched.

The icing strips were drawn using the Pencil Tool in the KNK Studio software.  The ends of the strips were adjusted so they look as if they are continuous across the whole cake.  I didn’t find a font that worked the way I wanted for the wording so I again used the Pencil Tool in the KNK Studio software and drew my own letters.   Since there are more letters in “HAPPY BIRTHDAY DEAR HAZEL” than in “HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO YOU”, I needed to adjust the width of the wording on the center three panels to have it fit.  The letters are two layers of cardstock.  The layers were created by using the Transform/Inline tool in the KNK Studio software.  The candle flames were also drawn in the KNK Studio software using the pencil tool.

The ‘real’ gift was a gift card and I wanted to include a holder for it as part of the card.  I decided it would be fun if the gift card holder looked like a wrapped present.  I cut the basic holder from the same pink cardstock as the cake portion of the card.  Then I cut pieces of patterned paper so the present would looked wrapped and added ribbon pieces and a ribbon bow.  Lastly I added a set of pink Velcro pieces to hold the present closed.  The next three pictures show the inside, the back, and the closed gift card holder.

I took the photos right after I had glued the patterned paper to the cardstock and it wanted to curl.  After the glue dried, the gift card holder lay flat.

The gift card holder was glued to the last panel of the card.

The card was now complete and opened up just fit on the coffee table in my living room.

Now I only needed to create an envelope for the card and address the envelope.  I wanted the writing on the envelope to be very neat so I used my Zing Pen Tool with a Pilot Razor Point Liquid Ink Marker Pen to write Hazel’s name and her birthday address using the CAC Champagne font prior to cutting the envelope shape.  I like using the Page mode for cutting and decided to use it for writing the address also.  I knew about where the envelope would cut, determined the distance from the edges of the envelope to the bottom right hand corner of the address using the grid on the computer screen, placed two sticky notes so they formed a corner at that spot on the cardstock on the mat and set my origin there.  Since the envelope needed to be large, I couldn’t fit it on one piece of 12″ x 12″ cardstock and designed it in two pieces.  The open spaces in the letters were filled in with a Purple Star Gelly Roll pen.

The envelope pieces were glued together and the card was folded.  The project was complete!

The finishing touch was to add a ‘stamp’ from my Custom Stamps and Stickers post last month.

All of the cuts for this card were made on my 15″ KNK Maxx Air using a red tip blade and my KNK Studio software.

Cardstock was cut with a F = 55, V = 150, Blade Offset = 35, and a Blade Height = 25 PIN.  Some of the cardstock required 2 passes and others only one pass.

Scrapbook paper was cut with a F= 35, V = 150, Blade Offset = 35, and a Blade Height = 25 PIN using one pass.

The address was written with a F= 8, V =110, and the Cut/Plotting Defaults/Tool = Pen.

Files for this card can be downloaded using the links below.  Enjoy!

BDay Cake & Letters_JudyKay

Box Envelope_JudyKay

Gift Card Holder Present_JudyKay