Sew Happy Birthday

Today's card was inspired by the sketch challenge @ Connie Can Crop but will also be applied at Cards 4 Galz "Pretty in Pink" and @ Dare2BArtzy "Lots of Layers".

This card was made especially for my mom's birthday last Friday -she is a talented seamstress and makes the most incredibly gorgeous hand stitched quilts! Since I didn't have any quilter stamps in my stash, I made do with this retired set from The Angel Company instead.

I used 2 ink pads for this card -a Basic Gray from Stampin' Up! and a light tan Palette hybrid ink for the distressing/antiquing. The pattern paper came from the DCWV mat stack that I have been using a lot of lately and the main cardstock is a creamy color with some specks & threads running through it, that I thought would be just perfect for the feel I was going for with this card.

I cut my middle panel of cream into 3 equal pieces and randomly stamped the sewing kit images across the pieces, then colored them with Lyra Aquacolor Crayons and a Dove blender pen for a soft, antique look.

To add texture to the card front, I diecut a tag from kraft cardstock and then ran it thru my embossing machine with the herringbone folder. I then tore the bottom off, tied it with some twine and distressed it by rubbing over the top with the tan Haystack pad. I also did that with the piece of twill tape to give it a bit of an aged appearance. 

The heart die was used to diecut, but not emboss the shape for stamping the sewing machine onto in the gray ink. The lace trim was a small piece I had in my stash from decades ago and I easily adhered it with the adhesive from my ATG gun. I tied some cream Scrapper's Floss through the button before I used a mini glue dot to adhere it to the card front.

As I built up the layers on the card front, I was careful to make sure everything looked balanced and was adhered securely...using the sketch as my guide, it was super easy to do. I stamped the sentiment on a strip of the cream cardstock and distressed the edges by sponging on the tan ink. The sewing machine was colored with the same watercolor crayons as listed above and popped up last with some foam dots for added dimension.

Inside I used the left over piece of patterned paper from the card front and stamped the sentiment and some supporting images to finish everything off. Because of the dimension, I chose not to mail this and instead it was hand delivered on Monday afternoon...I think she liked it. :)

PP334 -"Cut It Out" Theme Challenge

Today's card was inspired by a MFT design team member's card I saw on Pinterest and the theme challenge at The Paper Players blog.

I decided to try using my Fun Stamper's Journey rectangle die set in a new way...using 4 at a time to make a pierced frame element directly in my card front.

 The first step was stamping the clover (retired from The Angel Company) in archival black ink all around the edges of my 4 1/4" x 5 1/2" side folding, horizontal, white card front...creating a wide border. I then colored them using watercolor crayons and a small water brush. Using an acrylic block as my palette, I pulled and puddled color from 2 different shades of green crayons and mixed them with water to get the shade I was going for.

I gave it a few minutes to air dry and then helped it along with my heat tool to speed up the process. Once the piece was sent through my Amaze die-cutting machine with all 4 dies taped together to cut the frame directly into the card front, I lined it with foam tape to pop it off the card base. I wasn't entirely pleased with the spacing on the pierced elements, but these were the only dies I had to work with, so it will just have to do! (And my perfectionist self just needs to get over it, lol)

I trimmed another piece of white cardstock to 4" x 5 1/4" and adhered it to the inside of the card front so that I would have somewhere to re-adhere the middle piece of the frame so that I could stamp the word "lucky" on it with a retired script alphabet stamp set from Close To My Heart. This was done in FSJ Black Licorice hybrid ink and then embossed with clear powder to give it a slight bit more dimension.

Assembling the card front was like putting a puzzle together and once complete, I used my clear Wink of Stella pen to cover all the white space on the recessed middle retangle with a soft, subtle shimmer before adding the 7 green sequins. I then tied some green jute along the left-side spine of the card, securing it with a mini pop dot under the knot of the bow. 

While it's not a perfect card, I am still pleased with the way it turned out and had fun experimenting with some of my crafting tools during the process...and isn't that what it's really all about? Now it can go out in the mail to one of my March Card Swap Pals.