Whew! What a weekend!

Well, I survived my crazy weekend!  It was my son's 7th birthday and we held his party on Saturday.  It was, of course, a Minion theme, so I had to come up with a Minion birthday card to match.  I found a cute one on Pinterest designed by Paula Dobson, so I pretty much CASE'd it because I didn't have much time to get overly creative.  Paula didn't provide details about how to make her version, so it took some trial and error to figure it out.  Here is what I came up with:

Punch Art Minion birthday card featuring the Just Sayin' stamp set.

Cute, huh?  The only thing I wasn't thrilled about was the hair...not very Minion-esque.  Too much hair...as my son pointed out!  If I did this one again I would definitely do the hair differently.  In case you ever find yourself in need of a Minion card, here is a list of the the punches I used:

• Body:  3rd smallest die from the Window Frames Collection Framelits cut from Daffodil Delight card stock with the left and right "bumps" trimmed off.  Sponge edges with Crushed Curry ink.
• Overalls:  same die cut as above cut from Midnight Muse Core'dinations card stock.  Trim off the bumps as above and also cut in half.  Then insert each side into the hexagon punch about 1/8" and punch the "bib" of the overalls.
• Straps:  slot punch (retired) If you don't have this punch you could hand-cut small strips
• Pocket:  Banner punch reinserted at the points and punched to get the angled bottom
• Patch on pocket: I hand-cut a 1/8" square and added the smallest circle from the Owl Builder punch in Midnight Muse to the centre.
• Sand all pieces of overalls with sanding block and then sponge with Midnight Muse ink

• Legs:  pennant punch (non-scalloped triangle) - punch two and overlap.
• Feet:  heart from the Owl Builder punch with one of the bumps trimmed off
• Hands:  Four-petal flower from the Itty Bitty shapes punch pack, trim one petal off
• Arms:  Punch a 3/4" circle from Daffodil Delight, then punch around the resulting hole with the 1-1/4" circle to get a ring.  Cut in half and use one half for each arm.  Sponge with Crushed Curry ink.
• Strap for goggles:  Word Window, trimmed
• Goggles:  3/4" circle in Silver Foil, largest circle from Owl Builder in white, medium circle from Owl Builder in Chocolate Chip, smallest circle from Owl Builder in black
• Hair (in case you like this minion's faux-hawk):  ornament from the Merry Minis punch pack, fringed with paper snips.

Here's a better look:

Here are a couple more shots from the big bash on Saturday:

The littlest minion:  my 18-month-old nephew modeling the party hats I made from toy construction hats, fun foam, black pipe cleaners (for the hair!) and card stock. 

My big 7-year-old birthday boy minion, blowing out his candles.

It was a great day...Max said it was his best birthday ever, which is all I needed to hear!  I'm just really glad I have a year to recover before we do it all again!

Minion Madness!!

Well I finally got my stamping stuff put back together sufficiently to allow me to get the invitations finished for my son's 7th birthday party.  This year it is a Minion theme!  If you don't have kids you likely have no idea what I'm talking about, but minions are the cute little critters from the Despicable Me movies.  Here is the invitation I made:

Birthday party invitation featuring a punch art Minion!

Cute, huh?  My son loves them, so I guess that's all that matters, but it's nice when I like it too!!  To put this guy together I pretty much followed the tutorial by Donna S I found HERE.  I changed the shape of the head by using one of the Ovals Collection Framelits to round the top of the head evenly...I like the look better than what I would have ended up with had I tried to do it by hand!  I also decided to change up the goggles a bit, using silver foil card stock instead of Basic Gray and popping up the frames and adding window sheet circles to make them look more like goggles.

I also added some detail to the eyes and overalls using my Chalk Marker and used black Candy Dots instead of cardstock for the buttons on the overalls.  As I always do with all of my punch art, I sponged all the pieces with ink of the same colour to add dimension and really make the character come to life.  Instead of using the "G" for Gru on the pocket, I stamped "You're Invited" instead (from a long-retired set), as these are invitations to the birthday bash.  Now all that is left is to print the party info for the inside of the card and they're ready to go!  Now unlike last year, when I had to make a million Mario-themed decorations because there were none in the store, I found a ton of great stuff online for the Minion party...wahoo!  Saves me a ton of time for other fun projects!!  Gotta love the internet ;)