Happy Birthday to You, Elise!

Easter was a religious holiday, a bunny hopping egg finding day, and a friend's birthday! I met Elise through the wonderful world of scrapbook retreats and she became my 'friendly Stampin' Up! gal' as well. She is a sweet woman who is incredibly artistically talented. I am inspired everytime I get to watch her work! And now that she has her own blog, I do not have to wait for the next retreat to see what crafty & artsy goodness she is up to! Lately, she has been playing with Tim Holtz's fun fragments and giving me all kinds of ideas. By the way.....that workshop that Tim is talking about on his blog?? That's where Elise is right now...today!!! How Awesome is that?!! I am So looking forward to seeing what she's learning from Tim, the man, today!!



Rummaging through my stamp collection with Elise's birthday card in mind, I wanted to pull stamps that she may have not seen before. She is a stamp-addict, like most of us in this stampy blogosphere, so she's seen a lot. Then I came accross Marilyn, by Stampsmith, and thought she would be perfect! Since this card was going in the mail, I didn't want it to be too lumpy and bumpy, so I kept my design fairly flat. Something that I really liked was that the ribbon points on the card fold flat in the envelope, but pops up a bit when taken out. On the inside of the card is a piece of PTI's vintage cream cardstock with a strip of Bitty Dot paper to coordinate with the front of the card. I'm horrible about remembering to decorate the insides of the cards, so I was really glad that I did this time! :>

Here's a little mailing TIP: If you have brads, bling, or bumps that do not make your envelope thicker than the 1/4" max, put clear packing tape on the back of the envelope so that the post office machines do not get caught on your embellishment and you do not have to put additional postage on it for hand proccessing! Someone from the Stamp Shack sent me a birthday card this way and I thought it was ingenious! I even went to the post office to ask about it and they said, yup, it will keep your postage down to a single first class stamp as long as you do not exceed the size or weight limits. Too cool! (oh yea.....Elise, apologies for the lint and whatnot that was on the first piece of tape I put down....I didn't realize the packing tape had been sitting out so long!! :>)


Supplies:
Cardstock: Vintage Cream, Dark Chocolate, Plum Pudding - PTI
Patterned Paper: Bitty Dot Basics - PTI
Stamps: Marilyn - Stampsmith
Ink: Close to Cocoa - SU
Ribbon: Sweet Blush Satin - PTI
Embellishments: Flowers - Prima; Light Pink Flower Rhinestones - KaiserCraft