I spent the whole of last weekend making invitations for my friends wedding. They wanted something with birdcages and I found these votive wraps in Hobbycraft which I thought might work. They are £3.99 and you get 20 strips with 5 birdcages on each one. so that's 100 in a pack.

I cut them up carefully until I had a box full.

This is how the invitations turned out...

...but I had quite a few little birdcages leftover. So this weekend I had fun experimenting with them and made a few birthday cards.

This is just some lovely birdcage paper which came free in a magazine. The words were printed on the computer on card, cut just with scissors and attached with foam pads. The little bow is just a bit of embroidery thread.

This flowers paper was actually from some packaging that I rescued from the bin. I can't remember what, maybe a tissue box, or Easter egg, something like that. This is just lots of layering up of coloured paper & card, I think the technical term is "matting & layering".

Because I like the inside of cards to be blank whenever possible I stuck all these elements down onto the pink polka dot paper before I glued that to the card base. It's a bit more fiddly but now the card doesn't have all the ends of the threads inside and I don't have to use an insert.

This is half of a regular doily (you just have to be really minimal with glue when sticking doilies down, it easily squidges through the holes and you can get in a mess!) The words were printed on the computer, cut out and the edges inked. The tiny little butterflies are punched from patterned paper.

Julie

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