Tag Archives: Perpetual Birthday Calendar

Happy New Year from My Elegant Cards

It’s 1st January 2015. Happy New Year! To usher in 2015, I thought I’d welcome January. I’m not usually terribly fond of January; it’s often bitterly cold here in New Jersey, I’ll have said goodbye to my parents for quite a few months and I frequently seem to get sick. This year I think I’ll try to be nicer to it – it shouldn’t be as hard this time. I’m going to spend three weeks at spanish school in Barcelona!

Stampin' Up! Hello You Thinlit dies

Maybe the pear pizzazz splodges, looking rather like murky water, aren’t being that nice to January, but I do love pear pizzazz with lost lagoon. The splodges come from the Stampin’ Up! Perpetual Birthday calendar set which is in the new Occasions catalogue which will be launched next Tuesday. The January is from the same set.

I cut out the lovely hello – isn’t the typeface great? –  with the Hello You thinlit dies. I had intended on adding more splodges in another colour, but decided that less is more. As I usually do.

I read the instructions on the thinlits envelope and Stampin’ Up suggested running the die through the big shot three times. I tried it – as well as using the wax paper – and it works much better for getting rid of loose bits of card. I have read that a dryer sheet also helps but I ended up with some of the drying stuff on the next piece of card that I ran through the big shot and the dryer sheet wasn’t helpful enough to make it worth having to clean the plates each time!

Did you make any resolutions? Perhaps this is the year that you’ll take the plunge and sign up as a demonstrator. I’d love to have you join my team. There’s no pressure to sell or even demonstrate. You can even just join for the discount – even for just your first quarter and then drop. There’s no penalty. Although I’ll say that with a 20% discount for demonstrators, it’s pretty easy to sell $300 of stuff each quarter because your personal purchases count as your sales.

Getting ahead – February birthdays

As I mentioned yesterday, I’m hoping that the Stampin’ Up! Perpetual Birthday calendar makes me more efficient regarding birthdays. I showed you the January page yesterday and today here’s the February page.

feb calendar

I changed it a bit from the illustration from Stampin’ Up! I decided that February and Valentine’s needed a red heart, not a pale pink one. The kit provides three hearts, one in real red, one in blushing bride and one in melon mambo. You get to choose what to use. I skipped the F on top of the heart. I think that the big red heart sings on its own. I stamped the hearts image in real red, blushing bride and strawberry slush both on the top of the sheet and the lower right hand side of the calendar. February is stamped in real red. Here’s a close up of the top of the calendar

Stampin' Up! Perpetual Birthday Calendar

Not only did I stamp the hearts in the three colours but I used the sticky hearts in real red and blushing bride that came in the kit. It gives the page more dimension.

Here’s the detail on the lower portion of the calendar:

Stampin' Up! Perpetual Birthday Calendar

Again I stamped the hearts in real red and blushing bride and added the stickers for dimension.

A Perpetual Birthday Calendar

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.

Stampin' Up! Perpetual Birthday Calendar

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:

Stampin' Up! Perpetual Birthday calendar - January - 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.