Hot Air Balloons Birthday Card

Do you find that you go through phases of using different colours in your art or crafts?  I notice that I do - I could pretend that this is planned to look good on Instagram, but it actually happens quite subconsciously.  At the moment I'm going through a rainbow phase and want everything to look as colourful as possible!  So I used a rainbow colour palette to make this birthday card.

I made this card with the following materials:

• white card blank (A5 size when folded)
• printables; hot air balloon digital stamp, cloud and rainbow chevron background paper, rainbows border strip
• white card
• blue coloured paper
• watercolour paints
• coloured pencils
• black fine tip pen
• sequins and gemstones
• double sided sticky foam pads, double sided sticky tape and glue stick
• craft knife and Silhouette Cameo 2 cutting machine

First, I created a splattered rainbow background on the card blank using watercolours.
I printed the hot air balloon digital stamp onto white card, cut out with a craft knife and coloured it using coloured pencils.
Then I cut a ring of white card with my Cameo cutting machine, I also used this to cut a scalloped border from white card.
I mounted the white card ring onto cloud patterned paper, as a background for the hot air balloon.

A strip of blue coloured paper was mounted behind the scalloped border strip and attached to the card blank, followed by the rainbows border strip.

I attached the white circle with the clouds paper to the card with double sided sticky foam pads, then added the balloon - again with the foam pads to add dimension to the card.

A small piece of the chevron pattern paper was glued above the borders on the right side of the card, then I wrote 'birthday wishes' by hand with a black, fine tipped pen.

Finally, I added some sequins and gems for some sparkle!

You can find the Hot Air Balloon printables used in the project, and more, in my Etsy shop hfcSupplies.

PS. Have you seen the craft challenge I am hosting on my blog?  I have extended the deadline for entries to Thursday 21st July so you still have time to enter!  All you need to do is make something using my hot air balloon designs (some free printables are available through the challenge post!) for a chance to win a £10 coupon to my Etsy shop. Find all the details here > Craft Challenge Hot Air Balloons

Craft Challenge - Hot Air Balloons and Free Printables!

UPDATE! The closing date for this challenge has been extended to Thursday 21st July!

Would you like free printables and to join in with a craft challenge with the chance of winning a prize? If the answer is yes - keep on reading!


I have been working on lots of new hot air balloon themed designs recently (which you may have already seen if you follow me on Facebook or Instagram), so Hot Air Balloons seemed the perfect theme for my first blog challenge!

What is the Challenge?

I would like you to create a hot air balloon themed card, scrapbook page, atc, tag or other craft project made using my printable designs.  You can use the free printables below, or something else you have purchased from my shop...

This hot air balloon digital stamp and spotty patterned paper will be available for you to download free until entries close on 18th July! Download them here. (Please follow the Terms of Use)

If you sign up to my newsletter by 22nd June you will also get 2 bonus printable patterned papers (which will be sent out in my newsletter on 23rd June)!

The digital stamp is approx 4 inches tall (you can print it smaller too) and the spotty paper comes on a letter size sheet (8.5x11 inches), which can also be printed on A4 paper.

You can find more of my hot air balloon themed printables in my shop here.

Challenge Rules

1. Create something on the Hot Air Balloon theme - using either the free printables above or something else you have purchased from my shop.  You can use any other supplies you like in your project.
2. Post your entry onto your blog or online gallery and include a link back to this blog post, so that other people can join in!
3. Enter by leaving a comment at the bottom of this post, with a link to your project - please make sure I can contact you if you are a winner - either via your blog or by leaving your email address.  The link you submit must be for your project post, not a general link to your blog.
4. Your entry must be new and created (by you) for this challenge.
5. Up to 3 entries per person are allowed.
6. The deadline for entries is Monday 18th July 2016 (challenge closes at 11:59pm BST).
7. Winners will be announced on my blog on Thursday 21st July.  There will be 2 winners:
• 1 chosen by me - will win £10 coupon for my Etsy shop hfcSupplies
• 1 chosen at random - will also win £10 coupon for my Etsy shop hfcSupplies
8. By entering the challenge, you are giving me permission to share your entry as an example on my blog, website, facebook page and Pinterest board.

For full Challenge Terms and Conditions and Printables Terms of Use please see here.

For your inspiration, here are some I have made:

I hope that you enjoy taking part in the challenge, I can't wait to see what everyone comes up with! I will be posting all the entries here on the blog, so do check back and see what other people are making.  Share your creations on social media with #hfcblogChallenge and please share a link back to this post so more people can join in!

Happy crafting!

Spoonflower contest – Coral, Mint, Black and White

This week’s Spoonflower challenge involved a restricted colour palette of coral, mint, black and white but you could create a design on anything you liked using those colours.  I chose a hot air balloon theme for my entry.  There seem to be a lot of entries this week – it took a long time to scroll through them all on the voting page!  It was nice seeing what a wide range of designs people produced, there are so many great designs – it will be interesting to see the top ten this week!

You can see all the entries here, and vote for your favourites too! 

http://www.spoonflower.com/contest_voters_temp/new?contest_id=293

Hot Air Balloon Cupcake Box DIY Tutorial

I have been wanting to design a new printable box shape for a while and after much testing, some arguments with my printer and a happy accident I have created this cupcake box!   It is slightly larger than my existing box shapes (3 inches square), so comes on more than 1 sheet but is still easy to make. 

This box has a hot air balloon theme, to match my latest range of printables, but I will be making cupcake boxes with other designs soon too.  There are 4 boxes featuring different balloons and colour schemes (blue, red, green and yellow), in this tutorial I will just be making the blue box but they are all made in exactly the same way…

There are 2 sheets you will need to print for the box, plus an additional sheet for an optional lid.  Each sheet can be printed on A4 or letter sized (8.5 x 11 inch) card.  For best results when printing, I recommend using your printer's highest quality setting and printing on a good quality card.  I print my boxes onto 240gsm white card…

Cut around the outside of box parts 1 and 2.  Then score and fold along the dashed lines (Tip – use a craft knife and ruler for straight edges, and a sheet of craft foam under the card when you’re scoring with a bone folder)

Glue tab ‘A’ (on box part 2) to the centre square on box part 1 (marked side A), your box should now look like this…

Glue the remaining tabs marked with ‘glue’.  You can leave the box like this, and fill with sweets or other small gifts…

Or if you are making it for a cupcake, make the cupcake holder to fit inside the box.  Cut around the edge of the cupcake holder and cut out the circle in the centre.  Score and fold along the dashed lines, then glue the tabs.  Your cupcake holder should look like this…

There is also an optional lid you can make, which is printed on a separate sheet (with 2 lids on one sheet).  Make this in exactly the same way as the cupcake holder (it is slightly larger than the cupcake holder).  Slide the lid over the top of the box.

Alternatively you can cut away the top part of the box before sliding over the optional lid.  You could also glue a piece of acetate to the inside of the lid, so that the circle hole becomes a window and you can see inside the box.

A few other ideas for customising your box are mixing and matching the coloured cupcake holders and lids, using ribbon or baker’s twine around the outside of the box and adding one of the tags (which come on page 1 of the box templates).

If you would like to make your own boxes you can buy the templates for this box and other designs from my shop here: shop printable gift boxes

The baker’s twine tied around the box in the photo at the top of this post is ‘Eton Blue’ – you can buy this (and lots of other colours too!) from my shop here: shop baker's twine

I hope you like these boxes and if you make some of your own I would love to see your photos! :)