flower – Stamped Smiles

Hello friends and happy May! I hope you are having a wonderful week and have been enjoying your Spring season with lots of sunshine and flowers! There’s always lots of things to do when the weather turns warmer, but that’s a good thing!

Today starts a new challenge over at the Mix It Up Challenge Blog! There is always lots of wonderful inspiration from the team, so please go check it out and play along! The challenges are always ANYTHING GOES with an optional theme. This month’s optional theme is Inlaid Die Cut (flat or raised)! For these challenges, you have plenty of time to enter as they run for 6 weeks! I look forward to seeing what you come up with! Here’s the project I made:

I think this card turned out very well using the inlay die cutting technique! I found the perfect dies, but of course you can use almost ANY dies you want to try this including your regular shaped die cuts! I always find those frame style dies to be very easy to work with for this.

I received this cool freebie die from Taylored Expressions called “Simple Stems” and thought it would be perfect for this technique. I also inlaid a sentiment die from my stash over top of the flower and inlaid that too. I used the Taylored Expressions Frame in Frame 3 die set to create the middle pattern and glitter frame around the flower. These were also inlaid into the white card front panel.

It’s a little tricky at first to figure out in what order to die cut all of your pieces so that it looks right. Mine is very flat which I find helpful for mailing out and with the cost of postage stamps going up again this Summer, I need to rethink the type of cards I make any more. Here’s a photo so you can see that everything lays flat to the card front:

For the inlaid die cutting, I also find sticky sheets very helpful. I took a piece of double-sided sticky sheet and placed it on the back of the white card front panel AFTER I had cut out the frame from it. This makes the inside of the panel sticky so that I could lay all of my pieces on top and also keep it flush with the white card front panel. Once I laid all of the die cut pieces, I took the backing off the sticky sheet and attached it the A2 top folding white card base with everything in place. You also don’t have to worry about liquid glue oozing out.

It’s a simple CAS card, but it was so fun to do! Hope you’ve enjoyed my card and take some time to check out the challenge this month! Thanks so much for dropping in! See you soon!

Challenges:

Daring Cardmakers – “Something Old, Something New” (old glitter paper and new die cut + I used blue paper)
Simon Says Stamp Monday – Feminine
Moving Along With the Times – #166 Flowers

Hello friends! This week has completely flown by me so very fast!! I can’t believe how quickly it went and I’m thinking being outside in the warmer weather will make it go even quicker! Summer will be here soon, right?!

Today is Thursday and also the first Thursday of the month, which means it’s time for our regular “Anything Goes” theme at Cute Card Thursday! We are also sponsored by our regular monthly sponsor Whimsy Stamps! So of course, you know I’m going to be using one of those for my creation today:

Vicki-CCT576-WSElfie

Isn’t she just a cutie?! This newly released digital image is called Elfie from Whimsy Stamps. I’ve been starting to see a few lady bugs here and there around my area, but I actually don’t like it when they are everywhere! Otherwise, I can take them on a card and think they’re so cute!

After coloring her up, I cut her out with a stitched circle die and layered another circle with black cardstock behind her. I also cut out the Whimsy Stamps Friend Word die set with black cardstock and set it aside to work on the rest of my card.

I pulled out this embossing folder with lady bugs (by Darice) and embossed a piece of red cardstock with it. I took some white ink to lightly go over it to highlight the texture a bit. I layered this piece onto a piece of black and then layered these over a white A2 sized top folding card base. The circle image was place towards the right of the card and then I just cut off the excess circle with scissors.

I stamped the “hello” from the Whimsy Stamps Painted Sayings clear stamp set with black ink next to the image. The “friend” die cut piece was glued at the bottom of the card. I also took the WS Quick Strips die set to cut out a couple of stitched banners from some shimmer paper and added them to the side of the circle. Lastly, I’ve put the black gingham ribbon bow over the banner strips and added the lady bugs and sequins to the design. I filled the sequins with some Nuvo White Blizzard Glitter Drops.

Here’s a closer look at the coloring of this cutie. I’ve used some Copic markers to color her in and then I’ve used a Wink of Stella Clear Glitter pen to add some shimmer over her wings and the wings on the butterfly. Here’s the list of Copics I’ve used:

Hat, skirt, shoes and ladybug – R39, R37, R35, R32, C8, C5, C3
Shirt, leaves – G24, G21, G20
Hair – E49, E47, E44, E43
Skin – E21, E13, E00, E000, R20

Vicki-CCT576-WSElfie-flat

I think there are so many different ways you could color up this image, but I saw her holding this little ladybug and so I just went with that theme when coloring. Hope you’ve enjoyed my card today and got inspired!

Challenges I’d like to enter this card for: