Get Well Card in Neutrals

I don't know about you, but I've had a run on my 'get well' cards lately.  I don't have any left, so it was necessary to get some made quickly.  Since I've been sending cards to both men and women lately, I was trying to make some cards that would work for either.  That is, until I have time to make more specific cards.  At least that was my idea.  Usually, neutrals work quite well for both, so that was my starting point.  I hadn't used the Artistically Inked stamp set in a long while, and the flowers weren't too over the top feminine.  Let's go with that and see where it ends up.

The base of this card is Crumb Cake cut at 8 1/2" x 5 1/2", then scored and folded in half.  I had a 2 3/4" x 4" piece of Basic White just hanging out on my desk, so that is what I used.  The large flower from Artistically Inked was stamped with Crumb Cake ink on the two opposite corners.  Both of them were positioned partially off the white cardstock.  

On a scrap paper, I tested a couple of green colors for leaves and So Saffron for the flower center.   I didn't care for the center stamped in, so it's left plain on this one.  Pear Pizzazz was chosen as the color for the leaves.  There are four sets of two leaves each stamped around the flowers.  Some of these are 2nd generation stamped.  (This is when you ink up a stamp and stamp twice without re-inking in between.)

To make this very soft pastel design stand out, it was layered onto a Basic Black cardstock piece cut 3" x 4 1/4".  This gives such a nice bold frame around the stamped layer and defines it from the card base.  All those soft neutrals needed a bold pop of black to offset them.  

For the sentiment, the Inspired Thoughts stamp set in the Annual Catalog has some words that worked well here.  They are stamped on a Basic White 1/2" strip.  After stamping the words with Memento Tuxedo Black ink, the strips were cut down to 2 1/2" long.  It was layered onto a Basic Black strip that's 3/4" x 2 3/4".  

At this time, I played with the stamped layer and the sentiment to see how to place it onto the card base.  The stamped layer was attached with Dimensionals a little to the left and down from the center point.  The sentiment was attached over this with Dimensionals on the left, and double-layering the Dimensioinals on the right so it lays flat.

Three of the Classic Matte Dots in black (from the January - June Mini Catalog pg. 59) were added to the card for extra interest.  

The inside of the card has a layer of Basic White.  The same flower was stamped on two opposite corners with Crumb Cake ink, but this time they were off-stamped once to create a much softer color.  The leaves were stamped with Pear Pizzazz ink and were also off-stamped.  The effect is just gorgeous.  Unfortunately, it was so soft looking that I couldn't get a decent picture to show it off!

I made a second card with the same colors but with a different size of Basic White cardstock because it was already cut.  Then I went ahead and made one with Rococo Rose.  Remember that color from last year's In Colors?  It was one of my all-time favorite colors and was fun to use again.   I think it turned out just gorgeous and hope you like it too.

That's it for today's posting.  Hope you enjoyed the idea and see how easily it is to adapt to different sizes of the focal layer.  Each of the cards were made the way they were because of a piece of Basic White cardstock that was left-over from a different project.  

I didn't use anything from the Sale-a-bration brochure today.  I guess I'll have to work on something tomorrow using those fun free items before Sale-a-bration is a thing of the past.  Remember, it ends with the end of February.  So if you've been thinking about ordering, don't wait too long.  When these freebies are gone, that's it.  They won't be coming back.

Have fun creating something new and unique!

Sharon

Blessings of Home Card

Hello again!  Glad to see you stopped by.  With yesterday's card, I had one strip of the Harvest Meadow Designer Series Paper left over after I had the stack of cards finished.  And that pack of Soft Succulent cardstock was still sitting out, and the Basic White cardstock was just sitting there too.  So, since everything is out already, why not design a different card to use up those items.  I've got some friend's birthdays coming up that I'll need cards for in January and thought it would be a good place to start.

This card uses the Soft Succulent cardstock for the base with a layer of Basic White on top.  Before the white is attached though, I stamped the largest floral stamp in the new Blessings of Home stamp set as a soft, mono chromatic background.  The stamp was inked, then off-stamped for a softer, 'sketchier' look to the background.  That left-over 1" strip of the DSP was attached to the left side again to anchor the design.  Then it was all attached to the Soft Succulent card base using Multi Purpose Liquid Glue.

The next part of the design was stamping the smaller floral image onto a Basic White layer.  The Stitched So Sweetly Dies have a pretty scalloped and stitched rectangle die that looked to be the perfect size for this.  After die-cutting the white, the floral image was stamped using Memento Tuxedo Black ink.  

For coloring, I chose to use my Stampin' Blends.  I have a couple friends that love purple - any shade will do to make them happy!  So of course, this card has a mix of purple shades for the flowers:  Purple Posy L&D, Highland Heather L, Fresh Freesia L&D.  The leaves are Soft Succulent L&D.  And the flower centers are So Saffron L&D and Cinnamon Cider L.  The pictures really don't do the small flowers justice.  They are the ones colored with Fresh Freesia ink and are so cute in real life.  Much pinkier-purple than they look in the photos.

After coloring, the die-cut was attached to the card front using Dimensionals for some interest.  

The sentiment is the same one from the Inspiring Thoughts set that I shared yesterday, except today the full stamp was used.  It's stamped on Basic White with Soft Succulent ink, trimmed, then layered on a Soft Succulent cardstock piece.  This is attached with adhesive to lay flat on the left and a Dimensional on the right to keep it level.

Hopefully you can see some of the layered Stampin' Blend colors on this close-up of the image.  It was fun using so many layers of color on each flower to get the look I wanted.  Yes, I do love my Blends!!

Underneath the sentiment I added a small knot of Fresh Freesia 3/8" Open Weave Ribbon.  It's attached with a Mini Glue Dot.  

For this card, I felt I needed to add some bling.  The 2021-2023 In Color Jewels just called out to me, so I gave them a try.  I could have used the Fresh Freesia ones, but finally decided on the Soft Succulent gems.  Either color would have worked out well, but since I have more of the Soft Succulent gems I used them for this card.  I love the iridescent look of these gems!  It actually makes them blend in with so many more colors than just the In Colors they should match.  In my humble opinion, these are a must have in your "bling box".

Hope you enjoyed today's post.  I'm having a great time playing around with my newest stamps.  I might have to start branching out to other colors though.  I've been stuck on the Soft Succulent for awhile now.  What color should I play with next?

Happy stamping and creating!  It's a great way to finish out the old year. Of course, it's also the perfect way to start fresh in the new year!  Have fun...

Blessings and many hugs,

Sharon

Amazing Silhouettes Sneak Peek

Wow, the time has been really flying by this past week.  I managed to design two cards and thought I'd have them posted already.  But alas, my planning isn't quite lining up with reality.  Today I'm sharing a card that I made to enclose with all the catalogs that I put in the mail today.  Yes, that's running slower than I had planned too.  But at least there are a whole pile of catalogs that were taken to the Post Office earlier today.  Now it's up to the Post Office to see how long it's going to take to get them to all my customers.  If you don't have one in the next ten days, please give me a call and I'll see what I can do.  Anyway, back to the card... 

As a demonstrator, I signed up for the Stampin' Up! Onstage event last November. One of the many fun things I received is this Amazing Silhouettes stamp set which will be available January 4th in the new January - June 2022 Mini Catalog.  It's so much fun getting stamps early!  There are three stamps in this set and they all look like this one with just a silhouette image.  I love the look of these stamps.   And I'm amazed at the amount of detail that shows from just having the image in silhouette like this.  They are really gorgeous.  This is the largest stamp, and after using it on these cards, I'm going to have to try out the other two stamps to see what I come up with.

Because I was making a whole pile of these cards, I was looking for a simple layout that wouldn't take too much time.  I set up the stamp on my Stampa-a-ratus and just stamped away on card after card.  What did I ever do before the Stamp-a-ratus?  It makes stamping multiples so quick and easy, and you always get the image exactly where you want it.  Some of the cards I stamped with Soft Succulent and some with Mint Macaron ink for a slightly softer look.

The color for the card base is the Soft Succulent cardstock cut at 8 1/2" x 5 1/2", scored and folded in half.  This seems to be my favorite color lately.  Out of the last three cards I've designed, all of them use Soft Succulent for the main color.  Hmmm, guess I really like it!  The next layer was Basic White cardstock cut 4"x 5 1/4".  The image was stamped over to the right side.  A 1" x 5 1/4" strip of Harvest Meadow Designer Series Paper was cut and attached to the left side on the Basic White cardstock piece using MultiPurpose Liquid Glue.  Then the Basic White layer was attached to the Soft Succulent base using the MultiPurpose Liquid Glue again.

I used the sentiment from the Inspired Thoughts stamp set that's found in the 2021-2022 Annual Catalog.  I like the way the font skips between all caps and all small letters.  Just something a little different.  I couldn't find a plain Thinking of You in the set, so I used a Soft Succulent marker and just inked the words I wanted.  This is actually a birthday sentiment, but you'd never know.  

TIP:  Make sure you really look at your sentiment stamps to see if you can use just a portion of the stamp to say what you want.  It's so easy to ink up only the words you need using a marker.

The sentiment was stamped on a Basic White strip and then backed with a slightly larger piece of Soft Succulent cardstock.  It was attached to the card front using several Dimensionals.  A tiny knot of Soft Succulent 3/8" Open Weave Ribbon was attached to the left side of the sentiment using a Mini Glue Dot.

As you can see on this last picture, I splatter-tapped some Wink of Stella on the front of this card.  Some cards I left simply plain.  After giving it a lot of thought, I decided to keep the card 'bling-less' this time around.  I really liked the nice, clean look of this card.  Hope you do too.

Well, that's it for today's installment.  Please continue to keep checking in with me.  I'll try my hardest to get more consistent with my posts.  You know, the best laid plans of mice and men oft times go astray.  And I seem to be having a lot of that 'astray' going on!  😁 

Happy creating and stamping!

Sharon

Christmas Pinecones

 Hey there.  Back again with a Christmas card to share today.  I love the Painted Christmas Designer Series Paper and thought it was time to make another card using the gorgeous prints.  After looking through them, I decided on the print with the small pinecone and pine needle clusters all over it.  With that picked out, the rest came together pretty easily.

The card starts with a base of Soft Suede cardstock cut at 11" x 4 1/4", scored at 5 1/2" and folded in half.  I wanted to make the sizing of the layers a little different than the usual, so the Crumb Cake cardstock is  cut at 4 3/4" x  3 1/2".  This way more of the card base shows up to frame the main images.  The DSP print is cut down to 4 1/2" x 3 1/4".   

There's a band across the card that measures 3 1/4" x 1 1/4" and is cut from Evening Evergreen cardstock.  Inside this band is a panel of another print from the same Painted Christmas DSP.  In fact, it's the back side of what I just used on the card front.  I love these two prints together.  I have a feeling I'll have used up all of these two prints before I make much of a dent in the other prints in this package.  Do you find you gravitate to certain prints in each package of Designer Series Paper and tend to use them up before you get to all the others?  Or is that just me??

At this point, the DSP has been attached to the Crumb Cake cardstock with adhesive.  The second print has been attached to the Evening Evergreen band, and this has been attached to the DSP layer with adhesive also.

I didn't want to cover up all the DSP and band, so I chose a smaller sentiment from the Tidings & Trimmings stamp set.  This was stamped on Basic White with Evening Evergreen ink.  It was punched with the Label Me Fancy Punch.  It didn't stand out from the background enough, so I used a Blending Brush and the Evening Evergreen ink to define the outside edge a little.  It was then attached to the card front using Dimensionals.

The pinecones were stamped from the Christmas Season stamp set.  They were stamped on Crumb Cake cardstock using Crumb Cake ink for the bottom layer and Soft Suede ink for the detail layer.  They were die-cut using the coordinating Seasonal Labels Dies.  When trying to get the placement right, I thought it needed a touch of gold to enhance the look.  The berry branch from the Christmas Trimmings Dies was used to die-cut a couple branches from Gold Foil Paper.  These are just tucked in around the pine cones and brighten the whole card up.  The large pine cone was attached with adhesive, but the smaller one was popped up with Dimensionals.  There is a small knot of the 3/8" Open Weave Evening Evergreen Ribbon to accent it.  That's attached with a couple of Mini Glue Dots to hold in place.

The sentiment on the inside was from the Inspired Thoughts stamp set.  It's stamped in Evening Evergreen ink onto a Basic White cardstock piece cut at 5 1/8" x 3 7/8".  The edges of this were also accented with the Blending Brush and Evening Evergreen ink.  It's then attached to a 5 1/4" x 4" layer of Crumb Cake cardstock. Finally it is then attached to the inside of the card, and the card is finished.  One more card down, ready to get addressed and sent out in the mail.  How many more of them do I need to make yet?  Who knows, but I think it's a great, big bunch of them!  Got to keep making those cards...

Hope this card layout gives you some ideas and gets you creating.  It's a similar layout to cards I did earlier in the October, but this time I used DSP instead of stamping underneath the band.  It's a great layout to use when you're stumped for ideas, and you can quite literally come up with hundreds of ways to use it with whatever papers and stamps you have on hand.  The sky really is the limit with this layout.

Just a reminder that if you're placing an order, I'd appreciate you using my Current Host Code tucked at the top right corner on my blog page.  Also, if you'd like to purchase a gift card for a friend or family member for Christmas, I'd be happy to make one up special for you.  Please do it soon, so I can make it and get it to you in the mail in time for Christmas!  We wouldn't want your gift sitting in the Post Office somewhere on Christmas Day.  So let me help you make someone happy for Christmas! 

Thanks for stopping by today.  It was a good day for stamping and sharing.  I need to get in as many ideas as possible before the time runs short.  Keep checking back often to see what's new.

Happy stamping and creating,

Sharon