Customized mermaid card and box for birthday-from Basic to Something Special!

 

I really love mermaids and collect mermaid stamps, embellishments, papers, etc. so when a friend asked me to make a special birthday card to give to her sister who liked the beach, I thought a mermaid card would be perfect - and she agreed!  I already had a basic mermaid card I had made for a card swap, so I pulled it out for inspiration - here is what I started with for this mermaid birthday card - pretty as it is here, but I wanted to make it super special...

But then I colored it up, like this:

Next I took off the ribbon and since I had a little mermaid dangle, I put on different blue ribbon in velvet (blue is her fave color) and tied it on with that, and also put the card on a light blue backing:

 

 

I was told the birthday girl also liked seashells so I put some of them on the front of the card with pearls and sequins, as well as "40" in gold metallic paper, since it was going to be her 40th birthday:

    

  

I then embossed a seashell background on the inside of the card

 

  

 along with more seashells on the other side with the greeting:

 

For the envelope I used a gold-edged envelope and also put mermaid paper on the inside flap:
 

Here's what the card and envelope looked like after I customized them:

 

But I discovered I had a really pretty stamp of a mermaid castle, so wanted to use that too....I stamped it on the back of a newly available Delicate Details Treat Box and colored it and decorated it to match: (you can either put treats in the box, or one of those little tealights!!)

   

So this is what the entire birthday ensemble now looked like:

  

 

The final touch was to wrap them all up with one of the cellophane bags that Stampin' Up has:

And that's how you can take a basic card and turn it into something special!  

I've used Stampin' Up products (both current and retired) along with other mermaid items I have collected from other companies - Stampin' Up items are great for mixing up with other craft items!  Give it a try :-)  

 

The pretty treat box can be purchased in my online Stampin' Up store as well as the pearls, sequins, coloring pens, seashell stamps, diecuts, embossing folder, and paper:   https://marynoble.stampinup.net/