Happy birthday to me!

Happy Friday, everyone!

Yesterday was my birthday, and I got a few of my girlfriends together, and we had dinner at Maggiano’s!

I wanted to make a little decor as well as some little favors for my guests. Partly, I wanted to thank them for coming, and partly, any excuse to have something to make, right?! 🙂

My original idea was to use my new Hamburger Box Die, purchased specifically for this occasion. I watched Stampin’ Up!’s YouTube video on how to use it, made 2 (one with some DSP, and the other with the new Thick Whisper White cardstock), and I was SO not happy! I went to my team’s Facebook page bemoaning this, and the ladies provided me with some tips as well as a link to someone else’s blog who describes her first experience that sounds like EXACTLY what was going through my head, with an added, “I’m almost 36 years old, will I EVER learn to glue withOUT getting it ALL over my fingers?!” to my inner dialogue LOL BUT she powered through and found a couple of tricks… I will try again, but I wanted to get my favors done, so I just reached for my Gift Box Punch Board (the first time I’d used it!).

I grabbed some Shimmery White cardstock, followed the instructions on the Punch Board for how big to cut it (I used 8″ x 8″ squares to make the largest box that can be made from a sheet of 8-1/2″ x 11″ cardstock), where to place, score, and punch! I watched the quick SU! video for this one, too 🙂 Very useful!

I used the new Cotton Paper (hope they come out with more colors of this!!) and the Bouquet die to create the flowers! The nice thing about the Cotton Paper is that you can die cut MANY at a time! Each of these flowers uses 5 of each of the petals, so I just cut some squares big enough for each petal, and cut all 5 at once (so 10 petals, 1 pass through the Big Shot!)! I even cut out all 8 centers (2 of the starburst-like centers in each color) all at once! Some glue dots and hot glue were used to assemble these flowers before adding them to the belly band (1-1/2″ x 12″) that can be slid on and off the box.

I also used some of the Bermuda Bay Striped Grosgrain ribbon and Sequin Trim (I have a Bermuda Bay problem!) to add to some little Milk jars I found at “the M Store” (the straws that match perfectly also came from there!) I had wanted to take a picture of it all on the table, but that did not work out for a variety of reasons, chiefly my plan to get there before my friends to set up didn’t happen because the nail place wouldn’t let me leave! I finally left AMA (ha!), wearing those little flip flop things through the mall to the restaurant!!

You may be wondering what was inside them?! I made little Post-It-Note holders using some retired DSP (it’s pretty– it’s metallic gold; doesn’t show that in the picture) 🙂 (There are a lot of instructions out there for the construction, but to give credit where credit’s due, these are the ones I found and followed.)

I also had my friend Eva bring some Arbonne samples of their Ultra-hydrating Hand Creme; and she also brought some Seasource Detox Spa Renewing Body Gelee– which she says is a moisturizer, but it works great for sunburn AND (if you’re like me, this excites me!) great to put on pesky mosquito bites!! I could have gotten some little smelly lotions somewhere else, but I wanted to give them something high-quality and useful!!

Thank you for celebrating my birthday with me!! 🙂

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