New Baby Thank You card

In these days of emails and text messages, I think written thank you notes have become even more important rather than less, especially to the older generation, which is a group in which I am surprised to find myself! One thing that has not changed for the parents is that after a new baby you a) get inundated with gifts, and b) you have no time to write Thank you letters. With this in mind I decided a good gift for a new Mum would be a bundle of hand made thank you cards. To personalise this card, it would be fun to put the family names beside each bird, but for the tutorial, I have left them out. The card is made in two pieces, and the layer underneath is attached with foam pieces to give the 3D look.

EQUIPMENT

Silhouette Cameo or Portrait

A colour printer

Card stock

Glitter glue

Foam stickies

DESIGN FILES

Cute Bird by Sarah Bailey #41028

Dear Lizzy Floral Branch by American Crafts #46119

STEPS

1. For  a C6 size card, using the Rectangle tool, draw a rectangle 16 cm wide and 22 cm high.
2. Draw a small circle 1 cm diameter. To make the scallop bottom of the card, replicate a line of them . Group them.
3. Move them to the bottom edge of the card and overlap the two pieces. Make the grouped circles a little bigger or smaller to fit along the edge perfectly. Weld. I have used a fill of white here simply to show the card more clearly.

Follow the directions given on the image above. Move this to one side for now.

4. Open the Floral branch on your work space. You will see it already has a cut line around it. Separate the image from its cut background by Ungrouping them. Move the image to one side. Using the cut outline Make a rectangle to weld onto the bottom of it. Follow the instructions shown on the image, below right..

5. Place the image back on top of the cut outline. Click on the Text button, select the fonts you want and write your sentiment. Select colour fill and line colour for your letters. Position them on the card front. Select everything, group them, and move them to one side.

6. For the second, background layer of the card, make a rectangle 10 cm x 14 cm and fill with a colour, such as a shaded blue.

7. SKY BACKGROUND: Open the Cute Bird file.  Reconstruct the bird shape. Make the different elements whatever fill colour you want. Replicate the bird (you may want to mirror two of them) and change the colours as many times as you need. For smaller "baby" birds, drag them down in size using the corner handles. Once you are happy with them, place them on the background sky, and check that they will be visible when placed behind the front "window". You will be able to print two of these background pieces on one sheet of A4 card. As they are simple rectangles, I cut them with a slicer, or scissors, whilst the Cameo cuts the intricate window front pieces.

8. FRONT WINDOW PIECE: Remove the blue sky layer to one side and switch on registration marks as this is a Print and cut. Print off the front card with the branch. You will only be able to print and cut one on each A4 sheet of card stock. Check that the only line to cut will be the edge of this shape.

Put the Silhouette knife to the right depth for your card. Put the card on the cutting mat and feed it into the Silhouette. From your computer, send the design to cut.

9. CARD CONSTRUCTION: Position the sky/bird background behind the window and trim it as needed to sit as you would like. Attach it behind the front window with sticky pads. Decorate with glitter as wanted. Make another 9 or so, package up prettily and give away if you can!

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