I’ve found that there are many  advantages to making cards. I’m more confident with colour now. And no longer do I have to run to the store to get a last minute birthday card. In fact, maybe I won’t need to be so last minute now (here’s hoping!). Stampin’ Up!’s new Occasions catalogue that is going live on Jan 6th contains a perpetual birthday calendar kit so my goal here is to be really organised. The kit contains more decorations than you need so that you can pick and choose what to add to which month. To complete the project you need the Stampin’ Up! Perpetual Birthday Calendar stamp set and a number of ink pads – baked brown sugar, blushing bride, crisp cantaloupe, hello honey, lost lagoon, melon mambo, pumpkin pie, real red and strawberry slush. The stamp set consists of 24 photopolymer stamps – the text for each month and a little image as well. Luckily the insert in the kit shows which image is suggested for each month.

I pretty much copied the illustration for January’s page.

I started by stamping the month in lost lagoon and then stamped the January splodges in hello honey. Looking at the illustration – and at the colours mentioned – I decided to use baked brown sugar but to stamp off once before stamping the image. I added the lost lagoon banner but decided that the sticky J just didn’t show up enough in white (as in the illustration), so I dabbed it onto the hello honey ink pad before adhering it to the banner. I used my 2 way glue pen and added a few tiny splodges of gold glitter. Here’s a closer look at the top detail:

As suggested in the catalogue and in the kit’s enclosed leaflet, I added the January image at the bottom right of the sheet. It ties it all together nicely. Now “all” I need to do is get out my calligraphy pens and instruction book that I got for my birthday, practice a lot, and write in the January birthdays! And I should start thinking about a birthday card for my sister since her birthday is rapidly approaching on the 13th.