STELLA'S CAT

Today is an extra-special day. My little granddaughter, Stella, turns seven years old today! Of course, I couldn't let a special Stella occasion slip by without creating a cute card for her to enjoy. 

For Birthday #7, I chose to make her a cat, using mostly punches and Framelits:

The color combo was taken from the 2013-2015 In Colors: Crisp Cantaloupe, Pistachio Pudding and Strawberry Slush. (Don't you get hungry every time you hear those color names??) 

A close-up of the card shows how each feature was made. 

To form the ears, I simply measured halfway across the card to find the center horizontally, went down 1 3/4" inches from the top, drew light pencil lines from each upper corner of the card down to where my little marks intersected, and cut away the ensuing triangle. 

The pink inside the ears comes with two punches of the Triangle Punch (page 222). The "whites" of the eyes were created with the smallest of the star Framelits (page 231), while for the green portion of the eyes, I used the 1/2" Circle Punch (page 221), for the black, it was the 1/4" Circle Punch (page 223) that I used. And, finally the 1/8" Circle Punch (page 223) was used for the tiny white dots on the eyes.

The nose, of course, was created with the Small Heart Punch, which is now retired. However, the heart punch from the Itty Bitty Accents Punch Pack (page 222) would work equally as well.

Kitty's tongue was one of the petals from the Fun Flower punch on page 219. 

Finally, I had loads of fun creating the kitty's cheeks. They were punched out with the 1 3/8" Circle Punch (page 221). I added Crisp Cantaloupe polka dots with a stamp from a past Paper Pumpkin kit. I then sponged the edges of the circles with Crisp Cantaloupe ink. Using the 1/8" Circle Punch, I punched five holes in the sides of each of the circles. The cheeks were then popped up in place with a single Stampin' Dimensional in the center of each.

To create the whiskers, I inserted ultra-thin strips of black cardstock that I cut, anchoring them in place inside the holes with a dot of the Green Glue (page 204). To make them look more like whiskers, I used my Paper Snips (page 215) to trim the ends to points.

Fortunately, I still had a bit of the glorious Gumball Green stitched ribbon in my stash. So, I cut a slit the width of the ribbon in the fold of the card and inserted enough ribbon for the ends to meet in the front, and anchored them with Glue Dots (page 204). I also attached the jaunty bow with a Glue Dot. 

Even though this card is the traditional 5 1/2" x 4 1/4", the whiskers stuck out quite a distance on either side. Since a cat's whiskers are so all-important, I didn't want to impair their effectiveness by stuffing the card into an A2-sized envelope. So, I measured the card from the tips of the whiskers, and made a custom envelope with my trusty Envelope Punch Board. 

To create the envelope, I used a sheet of scrapbook paper I had that is NOT Stampin' Up! But I liked the way the green and white of the design perfectly matched the ribbon. However, not being Stampin' Up! paper, I ran into the problem of the paper fraying when I scored on the upper portion of the envelope. It looked horrendous. I simply could not leave it that way. But, what to do? 

I took another scrap of the same paper, folded it in half horizontally to fit over the fold of the envelope, and added a 1/4" strip of Pistachio Pudding cardstock to the front of this piece, and adhered it to the envelope top. It worked perfectly to hide the unsightly edge, and added just a little bit more interest to the envelope front. 

For Stella's name on the front of the envelope, I used the Alphabet Rotary Stamp (page 191) in Gumball Green. I then punched it out with the Small Oval Punch, which is, unfortunately, retired. But any of a number of current punches or Framelits would work equally as well.

We Skyped briefly with Stella and her mommy this morning so we could actually see the Birthday Girl. She was then able to show us "in person" another thing that made the day even more memorable: she had wiggled and pulled her first tooth this morning! 

Happy Birthday, my dear little Stella!

Kitty

Smiles.