Birthday card for an Xbox fan

Good morning! It's another Monday and another masculine card to start the week - and a very special one today. It may have been Harry Potter's birthday yesterday but, much more importantly, it was also my eldest son's! He likes all sorts of things including tennis and cricket, swimming and messing about on the river (sorry, I mean fishing!) cycling... but the thing he likes best (which I don't let him do as much as he'd like!) is playing on his Xbox. So the gadget in this photo, which has become a feature of our living room, was my inspiration for my son's card. Come and have a look:

I've used the coloured buttons for the design with just a nod to the other grey buttons and I wanted it to look as if they'd blown across the page and just ended up in the classic diamond formation. The circles were all cut out using the circle from the Itty Bitty Shapes Punch Pack - and I think these punches are a brilliant buy as I've been using them ever such a lot. They're £15.50 for the pack of three and contain this 3/8" circle, and two gorgeous little flowers. They also coordinate with the Itty Bitty Bits stamp set (£11.95 wood mount or £9.95 clear mount) and the Bitty Buttons too (£4.25 for a tub of 64 buttons).

I stamped the coloured buttons with letters from a retired alphabet stamp using Whisper White craft ink - but you could easily use letters from Basic Phrases. I popped them up on bits of dimensional to make them catch the eye even more. The sentiment is made up of two words from Basic Phrases which I put together with my stamp-a-majig and grounded with scored lines.

Supplies needed for this card:

Stamps: Basic Phrases (sentiment), Square Serif mini alphabet (retired)

Ink: Basic Grey, Whisper White craft ink

Card stock: Naturals Ivory, More Mustard, Night of Navy, Real Red, Old Olive

Other: Itty Bitty Shapes punch pack, stamp-a-majig

You can buy any of these supplies from me and I can have them delivered to your address in the UK. Just send me an email or give me a call on 01280 820593.

Did you notice that although the list of things my son likes to do is endless, it doesn't include settling down to do his homework unprompted or tidying up his room without being asked?!! Well, no-one's perfect - although he very nearly is in my eyes! (Oops I've gone to Mumland again!)

Thank you for popping in today. Do come back and see me again tomorrow when I'll be showing you a new 3D flower I've got all excited about! Have a happy Monday!