Make a Wish...

Morning all!

Inspired by my Greetery All Aglow birthday cards a few weeks ago, I've been having fun playing with bright rainbow shades and thought it only right I revisit the wonderful Make a Wish stamp and coordinating die set from Concord & 9th to create some more candle-themed birthday cards ready for upcoming celebrations.

This little set offers so many possibilities: You can combine the stamps and dies for lots of different looks, or just use the dies on their own to create a set of birthday candles that will work for all ages.

To create the candles for this card, I first die cut the set of five candles, then stamped each one with the solid candle background, following up with the spotted background in the same shade of ink.

I added a little grey ink to the wicks and then cut the flames from two shades of yellow cardstock and glued them on.

To really showcase the candles, I grabbed a couple of staple items from my stash:

• The large stitched scalloped frame from Mama Elephant's Park Avenue die set

• The super-versatile Big Top background stamp from WPlus9, which is currently on clearance

I absolutely love using patterned paper with the Park Avenue frame to add real pop.

I was able to find some colourful paper in my stash that was a good match for the candles.

I just needed to create a subtle background to go inside the frame, and the Big Top stamp from WPlus9 was the perfect solution.

With this stamp, you stamp it once, then rotate it to stamp the other half of the background. It covers an area of around 3.5 x 5 inches and fits perfectly inside the aperture of the Park Avenue frame.

And as you can see, there's the perfect amount of space inside the frame to arrange the candles and add a sentiment, like this one from the Make a Wish set.

As a finishing touch, I added some clear droplets for extra sparkle.

Top tip: While you have your supplies out on your desk, you can make multiples of this design and put them aside for upcoming birthdays. Plus, you can customize them later with number dies if there's a milestone celebration on the horizon.

Until next time, happy crafting!