Saturday 28 May 2016

Miss Krystal is 24 today!

Today my 'big girl' celebrates her 24th birthday!

Krystal's birth was actually quite eventful.  My ex-husband and I had just bought our first home and moved into it.  I knew I was supposed to take it easy since I was so late in my pregnancy but I figured that if I got everything sorted out for the 'baby' (we didn't know if we were having a boy or a girl) then I could rest and take it easy once everything was done.

We moved into our home and spent all weekend rushing around organising things and getting boxes unpacked... and then the baby stopped moving!  I was ordered to go home and put my feet up... which I actually did!... but by the next afternoon there were still no movements from baby so my midwife said that I needed to go to the hospital to monitor baby's heart beat.

After several hours on the monitor it was decided that it would be best if baby came early... she was actually due June 16th!  They induced me and we got ready to be parents.  Mum and my two younger sisters arrived during the labour.  After saying I didn't want Mum in the delivery room all through my pregnancy she arrived at the hospital to hear me say she could come in.  Little did I know that one of my sisters actually watched the entire labour and birth from the window in the hallway!

Just after midnight my youngest sister called out from the corridor that 'if I waited 24 more hours the baby could be born on HER birthday'... and I remember yelling back to her that 'I didn't want to wait 24 more minutes let alone 24 more hours!'

As it was, Miss Krystal was born just after 1.30am and she and my sister have been 'almost twins' ever since LOL

Here's a very early photo of Miss Krystal (I think she was just a few weeks old):

Krystal has always loved girly, pretty things... along with anything sparkly, pink or purple so I decided to try and make her a special card to celebrate her special day.

I have to admit that I stamped and coloured a couple of images onto scrap watercolour paper first but wasn't entirely happy with them before I finally settled on my card design.

I picked a piece of patterned paper from Kaisercraft's 'After Five' collection.  I really liked the varnished feel of the paper and it was super neutral in terms of colour.  I die cut the card front using my Lawn Fawn stitched rectangle dies and then used some of the left over paper to die cut the word 'birthday' using Tim Holtz Celebrate dies.

Then I used the die cut 'birthday' to help me place the 'happy' stamp.  This stamp comes from Simon Says Stamp and it stamps perfectly every time.

The next job was to place the stamp for the flower stalk.  I decided to use Simon Says Stamp's Spring Flowers set.  I bought this stamp because it was so pretty but hadn't actually used it yet so it counts as being NBUS (Never Before Used Schtuff)!

I decided to stamp using Versa Mark and then heat emboss with silver embossing powder to try and match in with my patterned paper.

Once the stem, flower and bubbles were all heat embossed, I coloured the images using Faded Lilac, Picked Raspberry and Mowed Lawn Distress Inks.

I totally adore how the Faded Lilac and Picked Raspberry inks blended together on the flower... super pretty!  I did get some darks and lights too by simply drying the coloured image and then going back and adding more colour on top.  Very simple but also very effective!

Next, I adhered the coloured watercolour cardstock card front to the Kaisercraft patterned paper.  The photos don't clearly show the lovely pattern, or the varnish finish, of the paper.

Of course I had to add the 'birthday' die cut that I'd made earlier:

Since Krystal loves 'sparkly' things... and since I've had a bit of a thing for sequins and rhinestones lately I decided to add some to the card and here it is all finished:

I wish I could show you just how sparkly and pretty it all turned out but I'm really loving this card and hopefully Krystal will too.  She's at work right now but we're taking her out for dinner tonight to celebrate her day.

Thanks so much for stopping by xx

4 comments:

  1. Shell this is gorgeous - love your design!!! What an eventful delivery - not one you would forget in a hurry. :-)
    Blessings
    Maxine

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  2. Happy Birthday Krystal.

    A beautiful card - I am right there with Krystal on the pinks & purples :)

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  3. Oh yes! The card is very much Miss Krystal! xx

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