Taylored Expressions: Birthday Raccoon

I had my two young nieces over this past weekend for a joint celebration of their upcoming birthdays.  They love spending the day with "Auntie Kim" although it has much less to do with me and much more to do with their love of my craft room.  We made Valentines - they did dozens for their friends modeled after the mini cards (at the end of the post) and then they spent hours working on special cards for their mom and dad.  We had a wonderful time!

Plus, I got to make a cute birthday card for the 11-year old.  She loves animals, so I used a little raccoon and an owl from Woodsy Wishes.


I love bold letters with something substituted.  "LOVE" with a heart for the "O".  At Christmas, use "JOY" with a snowflake for the "O".  So I figured why not use the raccoon?  He doesn't look like an "A" but you can tell exactly what it says.  Then for a little more interest, I colored the owl with bright wings then perched him on top. 
FYI - the Caps Lock - Happy die comes with coordinating stamp sets for the words such as "birthday": the Caps Lock Companion - Happy Occasions and Caps Lock Companion - Happy Holidays.  But I was looking for something a little scripty and frilly for my niece, so I used part of a birthday sentiment from the balloons set linked below.
Also, if you haven't seen them, Taylored Expressions has some very handy charts for using Copics.  I used the Copic Fur Color Chart to pick colors for these guys.  There's also a wonderful Copic Skin & Hair Color Chart.  And if you are just getting started, Taylor has a chart of her favorite colors so you don't have to get all 350 markers at once!
Here they are again - I used various dimensional adhesives to get everything at a slightly different level.

With Valentines Day just around the corner, TE also has Caps Lock - Love.  I'm thinking there are multiple cute things to substitute in that word.  Hmmm....
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