Wellington Bear's birthday surprise

Hi blogging friends

My craft room has been a little hive of activity recently.  It feels good to be able to be crafting again on a pretty regular basis as my loved one continues to recover from their illness - albeit slowly - but they are doing well which is great. 

Todays card is a birthday card that I made for my brother-in-law - and yes, it's another Wellington Bear card!  I think this is the first time that I have ever made a tall card since I started cardmaking but it seemed the best way of accommodating the image: 

The image came on a diecut sheet so it was easy to just pop out the pieces and trim off any little daggy bits then put them together with dimensionals - which we call papertole here in Australia but decoupage if you are in the UK.  The rust-coloured designer paper is by Lili of the Valley (UK) from their most recent release of paper pads - Crab Apple Lane - Country Gent.   Oo, I do LOVE their paper pads - such beautiful quality - and this particular pad has such fantastic designs for masculine cards - I love EVERY SINGLE sheet!!   I think Wellington looks so cute the way he is hiding in the mailbox with the presents.  Here is a wee close-up:

The sentiment was also part of the diecut sheet which I layered onto the same LOTV designer paper and then popped up on dimensionals.  I punched a heart from the same designer paper using a Martha Stewart Looped Heart edge punch ie: it is the leftover punched heart, which I decided to add to balance the sentiment panel.  Here is another close-up so you can see the dimension on the card:

The bottom panel has one edge punched using my Fiskars Postage Stamp border punch (seemed so appropriate with the postbox!).  The designer paper on this panel is from my Docrafts Wellington Bear paper pad.  I tied on some brown/white twine which I bought on Etsy ages ago and was hand-dyed by the seller.  I added some Fray Stop to the cut ends to stop them from fraying.

All layers have been matted with a 1/8" border using my Perfect Layers Tools and any rounded corners were done with my Stampin' Up corner punch.

Finished size is approximately imperial 8-1/4" tall x 3-13/16" wide or 208mm x 97mm metric - which means the card fits into a standard DL business sized envelope.  If you don't understand what DL business size means, here is a little pic to help you - and it is metric because we are metric in Australia:

The good thing about DL Business size here in Australia is that you can just use your standard cost of a postage stamp for posting ie: you don't pay any excess postage - as long as your card isn't too thick.  Mine wasn't despite the layers because I only use 1mm thick dimensionals between each layer - it just looks thicker from the close-up photos.

Challenges:

I am entering my card in the following challenges -

Papertake Weekly Challenge of Anything Goes with the optional extra of making a Mother's Day card or a card for a special female - which obviously I didn't do because I have had soooooo many male birthday cards to make that it isn't funny!!  Believe me, I would much rather be doing a feminine card!

Here Come the Boys - Challenge #47 of no stamps allowed and no digi images - plus it must be a card for a man/boy.

On my next post, I will be sharing a baby card which I am currently working on for my neighbour who gave birth to a beautiful little girl yesterday afternoon.  Thanks so much for stopping by and for any comments you care to leave.

Jocelyn


Card Recipe:

Stamps:  None

Ink:  None

Designer Paper:  Lili of the Valley UK - NitWit Collection - Crab Apple Lane - Country Gent 8" x 8" pad, Docrafts Wellington Bear 6" x 6" pad

Accessories:  Docrafts Wellington Bear decoupage pack, brown/white twine (Etsy), Fray Stop, dimensionals, Perfect Layers Tools, cardstock - kraft

Punches:  Stampin' Up corner, Fiskars Postage Stamp border, Martha Stewart Looped Hearts edge