Happy Birthday Little Man ...

Our first grandson, Max, had his second birthday today and by all accounts he has enjoyed himself all day! We bought him a Lego airport set as he loves watching aeroplanes and his Mum and Dad took him to Legoland at the Trafford Centre for a birthday treat.

Here is the card I made him for his second birthday.

I started with an eight inch white card blank and added a layer of gingham patterned paper from the Petal Fresh collection by NitWit Collections for Lili of the Valley. Then I added a large square of pale blue card to represent the sky. I used Memory Box dies to cut the clouds from white card stock and the letters and numbers from blue card stock. I used a Zig 2 way glue pen to stick the sentiment onto the clouds, which I then stuck to the blue card base using double sided tape for two of the clouds and sticky foam pads to raise up the other two clouds.

Little Max is always asking to be taken to the airport so that he can watch the aeroplanes taking off and landing, so I was delighted when I found the "Little Man" mini clear stamp set from Kaisercraft http://www.thecraftbarn.co.uk/product.php/34741/kaisercraft-mini-clear-stamps-little-man . I stamped the cute aeroplane onto blue card stock four times, using Memento Danube Blue dye ink. Then I fussy cut each layer out and decoupaged them together using clear silicone, so that I could angle the wings etc. Whilst the silicone was drying I stamped the vapour trail using Papertrey Fresh Snow ink. Next I added a strip of double sided tape to the back of a piece of bright green card stock before using a Magnolia Doohickey die to cut out the strip of grass. Adding the tape before I cut the card made it so much easier when I came to stick the grass to the bottom of the picture!

Max also likes being held up to look out of the window so that he can spot the birds outside. For that reason hubby is known as "Birdy Grandad" so I just knew that he had to have some birds on his card too! These two are separate dies from Marianne design and I cut them both out of brown card stock. I then used a Versamark pen to colour the leaves on the branches and the wings and eyes of the two birds. Whilst the ink was still wet I applied some pearly pigment powders (I used Blonde Moments pigments powders, which I bought from Dyan Reavely at Art from the Heart some years ago) using a fine paintbrush. I brushed off the excess powder and polished with some tissue before adding the bird and branch die cuts to the card using my Zig 2 way glue pen. Finally I added the plane with a dab of silicone and angled it so that it looked like it was banking round. All done!

You do have to imagine that the birds are in the foreground - otherwise they are far too big and out of proportion to the plane - but hubby pointed out that as Max is only two he isn't likely to complain about the perspective just yet (although he is very clever)!