Julia asked me to make a card for someone at work whose 40th birthday is this week. Until she told me the person was male, I figured I had enough variety already made. Male birthday cards are harder! Plus I don’t know the birthday boy so it’s hard to know whether I should play up the 40 or down. In the end, I went for subtle.

Base: 8.5″ by 5.5″ island indigo

Mat: 4″ by 5.25″ very vanilla

Stamp sets: Happy Hour, Sassy Salutations plus a numeric set that I borrowed (retired)

Inks: island indigo, versamark

Other: Cherry cobbler embossing powder, clear embossing powder

I don’t have any sets with numbers (I need to rectify that!) so when I took the Cool Cats set back to class, I borrowed a set with numbers. Previously I’d tried writing 40 myself using my caligraphy pen. Since I’ve only had that for about a month, I’m not skilled enough to write on a card! I stamped the glasses in the same colour but different glasses to create interest and varied the height of them as well. I positioned the sentiment to fit in with the slope of the glasses and embossed it in cherry cobbler; I echoed the colour in the strawberry. Then I decided to emboss the 40 in clear so that it was there but subtle – in case the birthday person is sensitive about turning 40. I really like how this came out although it took me about a week to finish it. I kept putting it to one side and doing easy things – cutting envelope liners or trying different colour variations on previous cards.