A Dino-mite Birthday Card?

Inspired by some Member Gallery photos on Two Peas In a Bucket, this dinosaur birthday card was 4 evenings in the making.

It’s not my best work, not even good work. To be honest, I don’t like it at all. Maybe it was the choice of colors but it looks like a kindergarten project. But, it did take me a while and is probably the most involved card I’ve made to date.

The paper used for the trees were printed with an argyle pattern. Then each dinosaur and tree was cut using the Silhouette SD then colored using Distress Ink – Antique Linen. A little bit of gold pigment ink was added to the dinosaurs and then finally I used a happy birthday stamp to randomly stamp the dinosaurs using distress ink again. The banner was made using Illustrator based on instructions found on the web and were touched up with distress ink as well. I got the depth perception I was looking for but SOMETHING is missing. What is it???

On the bright side, I got to finally use my stamp from China. Looks neats!

Google Search: How to make a banner in illustrator

It’s been a while, but I’m back at it again – card making. Good thing everyone has a birthday!

Bad thing is I’m tired of googling images that only meet 75% of what I envision and cleaning them up for use. Gimp used to be my best friend for the clean up task but now that Illustrator is in my life, I feel the need to create. So, today, after I created some of the raw pieces of the dinosaur birthday card, I realized the card needed a little umph. Perhaps a ‘Happy Birthday’ banner will do the trick. The creator in me googled ‘how to make a banner in illustrator’.

Bless Google for returning this blog as the first search result and bless the soul of The Design Playbook for such detailed yet easy to follow instructions.

Now, my creation will be complete! While I work on the banner, the cutouts are laid out to dry.