Bicycle Birthday Card

Today is my Mum’s birthday and also a collegue’s birthday so I decided to make him a card this weekend.

A while back I saw a challenge entry/inspiration by Mariana Grigsby called ‘bicycle color trends challenge’ for Embellish Magazine and I loved some of the entries – so many different bicycle stamps & ideas & beautiful colours… So I really wanted to re-create them, but there were no bicycle stamps in my collection!! Cue much searching online for bicycle stamps… I found the lovely American Crafts ‘Sing Along’ on ebay, so I got that… Then I saw Hero Arts ‘Joy Ride’ set for sale on Etsy – how could I resist? However, by the time they arrived from the USA and I had a spare moment to think about what I wanted to create the Challenge had closed 😦

So my beautiful bicycle stamps were languishing in my storage binder, feeling lonely and under-valued… Until now! My collegue cycles in to work every day – he cycles from his home near the East End of London to Waterloo station (which would terrify me beyond belief!!) and then to work from the station at the other end of his train journey, so his trusty bicycle is very important to him… My stamps sniffed the air and sensed their time was ripe…

I used the stamps from ‘Joy Ride’, the bicycle from ‘Sing Along’ and a cog from Kanban Crafts ‘Cogs’ that lookes very like a cog for your bike chain, in black ink all over a white store-bought card. Inside I added the sentiment and little bike from ‘Joy Ride’. I then inked the edges in Tim Hotz Distress ink limited edition ‘Squeezed Lemonade’ to give it a summer feel (yes, I know it was in the ‘Spring’ limited edition set, but yellow makes me think of sun and Summer…). Next I took the Kanban Crafts crown clear stamp from their new ‘Jasper’ set and the ‘Keep calm and carry on’ words from another stamp set and the little bicycle from ‘Joy ride’ and stamped a Kraft tag in black ink. Using my Fiskars eyelet setter tool I cut a hole in the card and put a brad (from the Docrafts ‘Beautiful’ collection) through the hole in the tag to attach it to the card.

Fingers crossed he likes it!