Spellbinders Nestabilities - Opulent Ovals Birthday Card

I often neglect to update my blog with my new cards but I don't really stop making cards. As fellow bloggers know, posting a card entails a lot of work and it is very time consuming. It takes a good momentum to be able to sit down and do all the necessary work. Well, I finally managed to catch that momentum and here I am, posting my 5th card, all in one day. Please check the other four cards that I just posted.

Each time I finish making a new card, I always say it is my favorite card. I thought that my favorite card thus far was the previously posted card, the Spellbinders Radiant Rectangle card. But I now think that this Spellbinders Opulent card is my  favorite. Just like the previous card, I had it on my desk right next to my keyboard for several days and just couldn't stop staring at it. This is the greatest manifestation that not only do I truly enjoy my card making hobby, it is my great passion which is why even after 20 years, it has never gotten old on me and I still have the same passion and enthusiasm now as I had 20 years ago. Well, each and every card that I've created manifests it all.

I made this card for my niece, Lualhati, who I still fondly call Ati but she has been using Lu as her nickname which is, of course, much easier to pronounce and remember. We were all named with Filipino words starting with me, Ligaya, which means happiness. Lualhati means glory. The oldest niece is Filipinas, named after our country, followed by Maharlika which means noble, and then there is Diwata which means a fairy, a mythical figure in Philippine literature, Malaya means freedom, Dakila means great and Katleya an orchid flower. One nephew was named Rafael in honor of my brother who passed away and my other nephew and niece from another brother, oh well, he chose to defy my father and broke the tradition by naming his children Geovano and Geneve, still beautiful names but nothing Filipino :-). Geneve was actually named after my maternal grandmother, Genoveva. I love that my other 3 brothers respected and followed the nice tradition initiated by my father.

Back to the card, just like the two previous cards, I created an easel card base in Silhouette Studio but ended up not using it as I wanted to emphasize the beautiful intricate detail of the frame and project a nice 3D effect. I found a tutorial on creating an easel frame out of the die itself. It looks very tricky but it is actually easy. The card has that vintage look which I love. It's always a challenge having to come up with a new embellishment and having lots of dies to choose from is a great help. I've been collecting dies with leaves, swirls and flourishes. The lace nesting the flowers adds a nice vintage touch on the card. I created the two sentiments in Silhouette Studio and you can see how I love playing with the fonts. I think I spend the most time on the sentiments of every card that I make. A lot of thought is put into the choice of words and the choice of fonts. I love all the dies in the Opulent Ovals die set and used all of them on this card. I used the same offset of the largest die that I created in Silhouette Studio on the window of the box. The box really looks so elegant with the Memory Box swirl die and Marianne Design Anja label.

UPDATE: September 22, 2014:

Here is another tutorial showing a much simpler way of making an easel card out of die cuts.

The sharing file includes the 2 sentiments, the box and the original easel base card that I created in SIlhouette Studio. Please note that I only share my files with my blog followers. Just leave a comment to indicate your request for the free file and please don't forget to leave your email address.

Happy crafting!
Ligaya

Spellbinders Nestabilities - Opulent Oals

To create the frame, I used these 2 dies.
I cut 3 pieces and glued them together to make the frame sturdy.

These 2 dies were used to frame the sentiment

These 2 dies were used frame this other sentiment

Leaves used for the flower bouquet:
Marianne Design Bird On Branch (Large) - LR0138
Marianne Design Anja's Leaves - LR0226

Memory Box - Riviera Corner

Name tag on the box - Marainne Design Anja's
Label Set - LR0241