For when only a giraffe in a party hat will do…

by PaperPuff

I needed a couple of 16th birthday cards recently for a female relative. I have no idea what is ‘in’, or indeed ‘out’ of fashion, what is cool and what is hot. Funny that these last two can mean the same thing, isn’t it? Like fat chance and slim chance? I digress. Odd, that has never happened before. Ever. Really hard to type with my tongue in my cheek though…

So, back to the point. I didn’t want them to be childish, nor did I want them to be too ‘old’. A Goldilocks card, if you will. Much frowning followed. I may have developed another wrinkle. The things we do for art….oops, back to the tongue in cheek situation again…

Anyway, some miracle face cream later, I had a plan. One card would be contemporary (I hope!) and simple, spelling out the age in die cut letters. I used punchy contrasting colours and printed pattern for the letters to make it more interesting. Hopefully minimal is acceptable!

pink-sixteen

The second one was still giving me trouble, but I had used up all the face cream so couldn’t risk another wrinkle. Then, it came to me. On such an occasion, go to the mattresses, as they say in “The Godfather” and “You’ve Got Mail”. Time to break out the giraffe in the party hat. This is such a fun image from one of my Louise Tiler digital kits in Serif CraftArtist. I added a few extra gold dots to the background and drop shadow to the crittur and cake before printing. The banner is also from the same kit. I decided to cut a star from packaging acetate and added the ’16’ in peel offs (remember them? I have a sticky stack!). Hopefully quirky, or just plain crazy, is also acceptable.

giraffe-16giraffe-16-detail

Supplies: Louise Tiler Birthday Florals digikit for Serif CraftArtist; XCut Wedding Alphabet and Numbers dies

64 thoughts on “For when only a giraffe in a party hat will do…”

  1. I love them both, Gillian! The giraffe is especially festive. And I am happy to know that someone else gets stuck in the thinking phase! I recently got stuck on 13 year old girl cards…that will be saved by the parents for 12 more years (girl is turning ONE this year). My crystal ball was in the repair shop, I had no idea what would be in style, what colors the birthday girl might like in 13 years, would she be princess-y or skateboard & video games?? I should look about 111 at this point!

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    1. Wow, talk about a difficult task! Are they going on a space mission or something?! Or do they worry that you might have hung up your stamps and retired (early, of course!) by then?!

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      1. Well, they were collecting letters to be opened in the baby’s bat mitzvah year. Lovely thought. Mine field for card designer! Hard because I wanted the cards to be special, but no idea which way to go.

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  2. You have definitely cracked it with these 2 cards! The giraffe is fun and quirky and the first card is a fab CAS design! I could do with a good alphabet die-set and I like the look of this one, can you tell me how ‘tall’ the letters are approx. pretty please? 🙂

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    1. Thanks Karen! The letters are just under 3.5cm tall. the set is all upper case and includes numbers, which are slightly smaller (about 2.8cm) plus a small heart, exclamation mark, apostrophe and even smaller letters to do the ordinals. Plus, being from XCut, it doesn’t cost a fortune! Hope this helps!

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  4. I love your “tongue in cheek” remark. I have often found myself in these quandaries also. Sometimes I think I am a dinosaur in the craft world. Anyway, the first card is not too girly and not super sophisticated either. The second is playful and festive. Well done.

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  13. What great cards! I love the neat and fresh sans serif font on the first one – the lovely robin’s egg blue and exclamation mark make it an official party! And the hatted giraffe on the second one is delightful. Both wonderful takes on the big birthday (oh, so many moons ago for me) 🙂 Love it!

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  14. There’s a girl at work who is turning 25 on the 25th, she called it her “golden” birthday. Have you ever heard of that? Something to do with the numbers being the same.
    I’m going to dig out some paper pads and figure out something for 25, the girl who drives a Jeep and has a cute round blue purse, along with beautiful white teeth. She’s like Barbie but, has a job..lol

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    1. No, never heard of a ‘golden birthday’ before. I expect it has been invented to make us spend even more money! No doubt you will make something gorgeous for her as your cards are always great!

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  15. Oh what great cards! I love them both! I love the die cut letters on the first one. Great paper! I’m sure she will love it! It is not too “in” or “out”. I think it is perfect. I adore the second card! The giraffe and cake are perfect, and perfectly placed! What a great card! 🙂

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  17. Both of those are brilliant Goldilocks cards! I love the giraffe and the acetate heart but I also love the minimalism of the first card, with the jazzy letters. And poor fat chance and slim chance, both with eating disorders and neither lucky.

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      1. But you can do one just in case, lol.
        I have a stamp set with some space… I can’t call them spaceships… space creatures and plan to use it soon. It should be fun!

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  22. Both your cards are great! One trendy and the cute! I’m saved by this dilemma as i have 2 teenage kids who “approve” my cards!

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