Male Birthday Card & Papertake Weekly Challenge

I've recently seen some brilliant cards made with Karen Burniston's Accordion 3-D Flip Album Sizzix die, and wanted to have a go at making one. I can't find the die in stock anywhere, (I know I'm not spending any money till May, but my husband said a belated valentines gift wouldn't count!) so I ended up borrowing the die from my friend Donna.

Sorry about more bunting once again - can't resist it!

The chevron and print cardstock, I printed from Mel Stapz's papers here. I used Spellbinders nestabilities for the inner tag shapes, Base camp Cricut cartridge for the Happy Birthday and shadow, and Movers and Shapers Star and Circle set, and Sizzix Originals Stars die, for the various star layers.

Also, Karen Burniston's Birds on a Wire Decorative Sizzlits Strip, for the two little birds.

I used my Cropodile to make holes in the corners, and added silver eyelets to thread the twine through, and washi tape bought on ebay for the bunting.

You can see I like using lots of foam pads to build up layers, which makes the card quite bulky, so instead of folding the card with the inner parts also folding inwards, I turn them to the outside, so the rest of the card can fold flat (and it looks nicer to when you get it out the envelope!)

I also made this card, using the stamp which I won from the Crafty Cardmakers blog a couple of weeks ago.

The challenge at Papertake Weekly is to use 'Buttons and Bling', so I incorprated those into the card.

I coloured the stamped image with Copics, and layered them on foam pads. The banner die is from Papertrey Ink.