It was easy to select the colours for the month of July in the  Stampin’ Up! Perpetual birthday calendar. The July image was stars and there are some real red star stickers in the kit. So I selected night of navy to go with the real red.

I stamped the stars in the two colours at the lower right hand side of the month as usual. Then I stamped the month in night of navy before stamping the star image in both night of navy and real red. I kept placing the big red star included in the kit over the page to see what effect I was creating. Once I was happy, I glued the star onto the sheet. I then stuck the three sizes of red star stickers from the kit around the images to create a layered look.

I’m up to June in my Stampin’ Up! Perpetual birthday calendar and June’s image is some big happy flowers. I therefore chose happy summery colours, taking inspiration from the color coach – crushed curry, melon mambo and pumpkin pie. I started by stamping in the three colours in the lower right hand corner of the month’s sheet as usual, stamping some of the images twice without re-inking to give a more layered effect.

Then I stamped June in melon mambo and did the same layering with the June flower image in the three colours. I cut out a star in crushed curry using the second smallest star framelit and glued that above the month. I roughly cut around the sticky J and then tapped it onto the melon mambo ink pad. After letting the ink dry, I peeled off the letter and adhered it to the centre of the star.

My perpetual birthday calendar is progressing nicely – I’m up to May. The Stampin’ Up! Perpetual Birthday Calendar kit comes with everything you need, in fact, more than you need to produce your calendar but of course you can substitute your own supplies. As I’m doing! I focused on the April showers for April so it made sense that May should be all about flowers. I took my inspiration from the All Abloom DSP stack and stamped May in strawberry slush and the flower images in strawberry slush, blushing bride and daffodil delight. I cut a few shapes out of the paper that inspired my colour choices but I wasn’t happy with the look. I even tried ribbon! In the end I decided to let the flowers stand on their own!

I wasn’t fond of the suggested April sheet – it had too much stuff on it for my taste. So I decided to focus on April showers. I stamped the April image in lost lagoon, stamped off once first. Then I took a piece of moonlight DSP stack in lost lagoon and whisper white and cut out a star using the second smallest framelit die. I stamped April in lost lagoon before adhering the star in order to get the placement right. I contemplated putting on a letter A, but it just didn’t work. Stampin’ Up! suggests sequins. I tried. I really did, but they weren’t working for me. So I cut out some stars out of silver glimmer paper using the confetti star punch. That worked much better! I also repeated the stamped off lost lagoon April image at the bottom right hand corner of the month’s sheet and added a few stars there too.

I’m up to March in my Stampin’ Up! Perpetual birthday calendar – I still haven’t worked on my calligraphy though, I must get to that or just scrawl the names in in my normal handwriting. I followed the suggestions by Stampin’ Up! a little for this month’s page – here’s a close up of the top.

I used pumpkin pie and hello honey as suggested but changed the banner. I didn’t want all the banners to be either glimmer paper or background DSP. This one is from the Moonlight stack and is in hello honey. I first sponged some hello honey in the middle of the paper before stamping the March images in pumpkin pie, stamping a second time without re-inking on some of the images. March is also stamped in pumpkin pie. Rather than using the M in white as suggested, I tapped it onto the pumpkin pie ink pad first. I like how the M really pops now.

I did the same sponging and stamping at the bottom corner of the paper as on previous months.