We had 2 special reasons to celebrate with our daughter recently, both of which called for special cards. The first was her engagement on New Years Eve. The card I came up with was a bit different than many engagement cards so I thought I’d share the logic behind my design with you. My starting point was her beautifully stunning Trillion Cut engagement ring. I searched for inspiration and found the star fold card that many of you will have seen, when opened it is triangular in shape. I’ve seen this card fold many times before but not made one. I always wondered how the recipients would display them as they don’t stand up like a traditional card, so I decided to attach mine to an 8″ x 8″ card blank. The card fold allows for both sides of any card stock used to be visible so my next task was to search through my 12″ x 12″ double sided card stash.I couldn’t believe my luck when I found the perfect one, red and white on one side and blue and white on the other. My daughter is a passionate Manchester City fan and her partner is an avid Manchester United Fan. We had talked about the shape of My daughter’s diamond being significant, in much the same way as a trilogy ring signifying the past, present and future which is why I added these sentiments to the card. I really enjoyed this project, especially as it was for my own daughter and I have a new interactive card design which I will no doubt use again in the future.

The second reason to celebrate was the same daughter’s birthday. As I said previously, she is a Manchester City fan, so I used this as my theme. She’s had lots of Manchester City themed cards over the years, so my challenge is always to come up with something different. For this one, I used a new die set; the MFT All Star High tops set. This is such a cute die, I just love how they turned out. The detail you can achieve is amazing although they do need a certain degree of patience, especially with the eyelets. But I hope you’ll agree that the end result was worth the effort. I cannibalised an old shop bought MCFC birthday card of my hubby’s for the embellishments and couldn’t resist using the pun for the printed sentiment.

I really love how, when you make cards yourself, or commission a specially made card, you can be as unique and individual as the occasion and recipient and create a lasting memory to treasure.