Copper Congratulations

Today I designed a congratulatory card with hopes of giving it to my son-in-law who is waiting on the results of a job interview.

If Steffan gets the job, it will be a wonderful change for him. It will be closer to home so he can save on gas,  there will be lots of training (he would get to go to Minneapolis for two weeks!) and good opportunities for advancement. Even better, he would not have to lift a lot of heavy items so it would be better for his back.

The card itself is quite simple but I think that it makes an effective masculine card because it incorporates a lot of texture with its simplicity.

I started with a standard card base of Island Indigo. On a small piece of Island Indigo, I stamped with Versamark the sentiment from the stamp set that comes with the Watercolor Wishes Card Kit. I heat embossed it with Copper Stampin' Emboss Powder and then flagged the end using the Triple Banner Punch. I also wrapped the non-flagged end with Linen Thread and added a bow.

Cutting a piece of Copper Foil Sheet, I used the punch again and then then embossed the piece using the Petal Burst Embossing Folder.

To add even more texture to the card, I cut two pieces of the 5/8" Burlap Ribbon and angled the ends, fraying them a little. These were adhered to the middle of the card front using Fast Fuse. The embossed copper banner was adhered using Dimensionals with the sentiment banner on top.

For the inside of the card, I cut a matte from the now retired Naturals Ivory card stock. I added a further sentiment as well as some grunge from the Touches of Texture stamp set; both the sentiment and grunge were heat embossed with copper. I adhered the matte with Fast Fuse to complete the card.

This photo shows off the copper to its best.

I think that the copper works wonderfully well with the Island Indigo. I'm hopeful that Steffan will hear soon about the job and that I can give him this card!

Exciting News and Botanical Thank You

I got very exciting news the other day–the card that I submitted to Kylie Bertucci's International Blog Highlight was voted into the top ten! Out of 46 entries from around the world, the ten of us will be participating in a International Blog Hop on May 11. I am so grateful to the people who took the time to vote for my card–I truly appreciate it!

Today's card is one of multiple cards I created to thank my stamping group for their orders this month. 

I started by cutting a standard card base from Night of Navy and a matte from Delightful Dijon. Using my MISTI and Night of Navy ink, I stamped the sentiment from the Watercolor Wishes Card Kit. I used Night of Navy Seam Binding to knot around the matte and then adhered it to the card base using Dimensionals.

I used the Botanical Builder Dies to die cut the leaves and flowers. I used my McGill Paper Blossom Tool Kit to shape the flowers and then glued them together using Multi Medium Matte. I created a pleasing arrangement, snapped a photo for reference, and then adhered the arrangement to the matte using Multi Medium Matte and Dimensionals.

For the inside of the card, I used a stamp from Botanicals Garden to stamp on a piece of the now retired Naturals White card stock with Delightful Dijon ink. I then sponged the edges with Night of Navy.

I chose the following colors as I love the way they look together. Feel free to save this color combination for your own designs if you like it!

I like the way this card design turned out. Do you? Drop me a note below!

You're Amazing

My card today evolved totally from a color combination that I had brainstormed while working at Walmart one day.

If you have followed my blog for very long, you know that I love bold, in-your-face colors on my cards and today's colors are no exception!

As I often do, I turned to my Silhouette Cameo design software to plan out my card. I find that it is easier for me to plan out my matte sizes and be sure that my embellishments are in proper proportion on the card.

I started with a Cajun Craze card base of 6 x 4.75". I also cut a smaller matte for the very front of the card. Before deciding on any further mattes, I chose to die cut my flowers and leaves and plan my arrangement for the card front.

The Botanical Builder Framelits Dies were used to cut three flowers from Tempting Turquoise and three from a Tempting Turquoise flowered paper from the Brights Backgrounds DSP Stack. From Cajun Craze I cut some flower centres using the dies but also chose to use the Blossom Bunch Punch. I used the Rose Garden Thinlits to cut three stems of leaves from Chocolate Chip card stock.

I fussed with the flowers and leaves until I had my design planned out, and snapped a photo before removing all the die cuts to shape them with my McGill Paper Blossom Tool Kit. After shaping, I inked the edges with their matching color of ink. I then glued all parts of the flowers together using Multi Medium Matte, using the Brights Candy Dots in Turquoise for the centres.

While planning my flower cluster, I was sure to leave adequate room for my sentiment. I used my MISTI to stamp the sentiment from the Watercolor Wishes Card Kit, in both Tempting Turquoise and then Versamark. I heat embossed it with the now retired Tempting Turquoise Stampin, Emboss Powder.

To coordinate with the leaves, I chose to use a very thin Chocolate Chip matte directly under the front Cajun Craze matte. I adhered these two mattes together with Fast Fuse Adhesive. I chose to use the same flowered Turquoise paper as a matte adhered directly on the card base. For added support for my top mattes, I cut a smaller piece of brown, self adhesive Fun Foam which I adhered to my top mattes and then adhered to the card base using Fast Fuse Adhesive.

I used Multi Medium Matte and Dimensionals to adhere my flowers and leaves to the card front, giving the flower centres a little Wink of Stella for good measure! I placed a few rhinestones around the card front for added sparkle.

For the inside, I used a matte of the now retired Naturals White card stock. I used the leaf stamp from the Rose Wonder stamp set and tiny flowers from the Botanical Blooms stamp set. The matte was adhered with Fast Fuse to complete the card.

I hope you like my card today. I love how these colors work together (though I'm sorry that the flowers look more like Marina Mist than Tempting Turquoise; no amount of camera fiddling allowed me to get a truer color for them!).