Happy Birthday Byron!

Happy 13th Birthday Byron! 

Byron is my cousin Rhonda's son, (the one that just had a birthday) and yes, her son's birthday is 10 days from her birthday.  Now, I know that he is now a teenager, and he still loves video games of all kinds.  I know even when I was young, that Rhonda & I loved to play Super Mario Bros. and well of course Byron loves it too.  So that's what inspired this birthday card!  :) 

First of all, I printed a masculine template that I downloaded from www.itsybitsypaper.com onto white cardstock for the background for the front of this card.  In the template, I added a Super Mario Bros. quote "Eat cake, shell scum!" in yellow to show up on the blue area of the background.  (If you're not a Super Mario fan, then this quote would make no sense to you! haha!) 

I then cut the mushroom at 2.25" from pg. 32 of the Create A Critter cartridge.  I added the eyes with a fine point black Sharpie and used my white gel pen for detail.  I downloaded some Super Mario Bros. clip art and printed it on some white cardstock as well.....I got the stars, the bricks, and the "?" blocks.  I added these with pop dots as well as the mushroom. 

In Word, I also printed the "1 UP!" phrase in a "computer/video game/tech-y" font and cut these into little "clouds" to put inside the card (as well as one on the front as seen in the picture above). 

When Byron opened his card this evening at a family cookout, he told me that it was the "most AWESOME card ever"!  That made me feel so good since I wasn't even sure he'd really like it all (being a boy and all!)  :)  But he did correct me to say that the mushroom "should have been green instead of red" in order to have the "1 UP!"......I told him that it had been a loooong time since I had played and well, he'd just have to take the red one for now :) ........but he DID like it....as well as everyone else.  Yay!

Happy Birthday Byron!

Love your 2nd cuz,

                   Shelley

**Entered into Made It Myself Mondays!