Miles Buzzin' By

I'm back on my boy birthday card kick, well, for today anyway. My friend Leslie {waves...hi Leslie!} sent me this a-dorable little Miles (the dragonfly) Huggabugg from Stamping Bella a while back and I thought Lauren's sketch would be a perfect opportunity to use him. Plus, he's the sweetest little dragonfly evah, so I turned him into a birthday card for another of my nephews. During the summer, at the cottage, the kids are reminded that dragonflies are our 'friends' and my nephews like to try and get them to land on their hands. Sometimes if we time it right, we're there when the dragonflies are emerging from their larval skin. It's super cool to watch them unfold themselves, dry their wings in the sunshine and fly away. I know...I'm a nerd, but nature is so interesting! Ok...enough entomology...on to the card.  :)

I started by stamping Miles with Memento Black onto Gina K pure luxury carstock, then I coloured him with copics. I wanted him to be bright and vibrant, just like the papers I'd chosen to use from October Afternoon's Night Light series. Since this is a boy card I didn't make his wings all shimmery, but I sure wanted to! Instead, I painted crystal effects onto his glasses for the look of real lenses. I cut him out with my Coluzzle then finished off his wings with my scissors. He's layered onto a circle of the green patterned paper then onto a circle of Not Quite Navy, which I cut out with a nestie and pierced. 

The card base is Gina K 120lb pure luxury, followed by Pumpkin Pie, which I ran through my 'Diamonds in the Rough' cuttlebug folder. I know SU paper is coloured all the way through, but I still sanded the raised areas to give it just a slightly lighter shade of pumpkin for a little definition. The other base layers are also from the Night Light series of papers...sooooo colourful and fun! My Janome sew mini has been neglected lately (well, that's not true...I tried to use it on my Elzy card yesterday but it was jammed for some reason, so I re-threaded it today and it's working like a charm) so I ran a straight stitch along the patterned panels for some interest. 

For the sentiment, I didn't have a stamp like this so I turned to my computer and printed both the outside and inside sentiments. A few paper layers, a button, and the outside was complete!

Then I moved to the inside of the card. I knew I'd be inserting a gift card so I made a pocket with layers of paper. Another line of stitching ties it all together nicely.

This is the first one that has to go in the mail in the next day or two to make it to Canada in time for the big day. 

Thanks for stopping by!

Karen