Happy Birthday Photo Card

This is a photo birthday card I made for my husband. It's a picture of G.G., our Great Dane/Labrador mix. We adopted G.G. from Northeast Animal Shelter in Salem, Massachusetts this summer. He's just the sweetest, goofiest dog, and so I thought I'd make him even goofier by making him wear a pair of sunglasses and putting a party hat on him. Not a real party hat of course, but one made out of electrical tape and card stock. The sunglasses are real. Thank goodness dogs don't get embarrassed.

Chances are you will have most of these materials already at home. If you don't have electrical tape, you can use construction paper or markers. I used it because I had it. You can always improvise.

I printed the picture out on regular printer paper. I cut out the rough shape and Mod Podged it to white card stock. After it was dry, I added color to the sunglasses with Sharpies-- black for the lenses and blue for the rims.

The party hat is made out of card stock. I cut out the basic triangular shape and trimmed it to fit the top of the picture. I cut strips of the colored electrical tape and placed them in the pattern you see in the photo. The excess "overhang" portions of the tape were simply pressed to the back of the hat shape. I had these rolls of tape kicking around in a drawer for the longest time and I was glad to finally put them to creative use. The pom pom is a circle of red felt that I folded into quarters and cut into fringe. It is stapled onto the hat. Finally, the hat was attached to the photo of G.G. with double stick tape and reinforced with clear packing tape.

Originally, the photo card also had a word balloon with a birthday message from me, G.G., and the cats.