Hello, Janet here with a post about a very versatile accordion card I found in the Silhouette Design Store recently; the Expanding Birthday Candle Card by Marji Roy. It is a fantastic design for important birthdays, as it can include a candle for every year of the birthday person's age. This is done by adding whole 'pages' of eleven candles, and then trimming away the flames of the surplus candles.
This was the perfect card to take along to a combined birthday party we've been invited to recently - a 130th Birthday. Perfect, that is, except for the number of candles required. This was the ideal time to use adhesive-backed cardstock, a real time-saver! The designer has an excellent tutorial on how to put the card together and how to calculate the number of pages needed (link in the file listing in Silhouette Design store). In this post I've shared some additional tips including how to further personalise this card design.
Using Self-Adhesive Cardstock
I used the Silhouette Adhesive Cardstock which comes in 12 inch square sheets. I didn't have any orange, so I made my own, using Silhouette's double sided adhesive sheet on the back of a piece of textured orange cardstock (that's why it has yellow backing in the picture below).
Assembly
I followed the designer's instructions, but found it easier to apply the red part of the flames BEFORE the white candles as the candles overlap the red part of the flame slightly.
Adding Ages
By way of explanation and to add more interest, I added the ages of the birthday couple. The file comes with numbers, and I added a plus sign. To find a suitable font I typed the plus sign and then scrolled down my font list and stopped when I found one of similar thickness to the numbers (sorry, I didn't make a note of the font name).
Then I added an offset to the numbers and mounted the original and the offset on to the card front.
Amending the Sentiment
Although not strictly necessary, I liked the idea of making the 'Happy Birthday' sentiment plural. I ungrouped the sentiment provided and added an 's' using the same technique as for the plus sign above.
This time 2 offsets were needed to match the original.
Adding a Greeting Panel
I made a greeting panel to attach onto the back of the card, with 3 coloured layers and one white layer. On the white layer I added a quotation about candles and sharing, attributed to Buddha (incorrectly, according to some websites) which seemed appropriate for this occasion.
I used the Sweet Pea Sketch font and a green/blue glitter pen from the Silhouette® Sketch Pen Starter Set. The whole layered panel was then attached onto the back of the card.
The finished card is pretty BIG, but a fun card to take along to a BIG birthday party!
Do let me know in the comments if you've used this file. I'd love to know what 'extras' you added to it.
Bye for now,
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