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Month: December 2020

Echo Park Fine and Dandy Collection Kit

Echo Park Fine and Dandy Collection Kit

After all the oranges and browns in the last batch of cards I decided to do something bright and cheerful.  The colors and images in the Fine and Dandy collection were perfect.  The kit included 12 12×12 sheets of paper and 2 sheets of stickers.  I’ll probably not use the sheet of alphabet stickers but I did use quite a few of the image stickers.  I made over 30 cards and still didn’t use up all of the paper.  I ended up putting the remaining sheets and leftover scraps back into the packaging and will pull it out later when I’m looking for a small project.

For the first set of cards I used the bumble bee paper.  I knew it would be perfect with the “be Happy” stamp.  Using colored pencils I colored the stamped image to match the paper.  As a final touch I used a Wink of Stella pen to highlight all of the bumble bee wings.

One of my favorite prints were the owls which I thought were very cute.  The background is a bright pink chevron print.  For the strip across the card I used a few different colors of cardstock which I edged with Love from Lizi clear iridescent glitter peel-offs.  To keep the cards usable for multiple occasions, I used several of the coordinating image stickers instead of a sentiment.

When I saw the birds perched on bunting paper, I immediately pulled out the “a little birdie told me…” sentiment stamp.  I only use the stamp when I have paper with birds on it, so not very often.  To mimic the draped shape of the bunting I used a die to create a scalloped edge on the paper.  To keep the card nice and bright I used a striped paper for the bottom of the card.  To ensure the sentiment didn’t blend it too much, I matted it in bright pink cardstock and popped it up with foam tape.  For a little sparkle I added a few Queen and Company goosebumps.

The red and white gingham print was quite bold so I wanted to pair it with a more toned down print.  With a white background the less busy floral paper was a nice match.  Placing the sentiment panels, some coordinating stickers and others stamped, on the lower portion of the card also helped tone down the gingham print.

I wasn’t a fan of the yellow paper.  I’m not sure if it was the pattern or the color but since the print on the opposite side was too large for cards…  I decided to use the yellow paper as a background and paired it with more of the floral print.  A blue scalloped border was added to one side of the floral panel for some contrast and Love from Lizi gold holographic peel-offs were added to the other.

One of the last papers I used was the mason jar print.  By this point I had used up most of the papers that I thought would work for a background.  So instead of putting the paper aside I decided to try some white shimmer paper as the background.  Adding a scalloped cardstock strip and bright yellow ribbon across the card added some more color and broke up the solid background.  A small “miss you” sentiment popped up on the bottom of focal panel finished the card.

Although it’s not a “baby” themed paper, I thought the owl print would make a nice baby card.  Paired with a light pink background, bright stripes and a leftover strip of pink chevron paper made for a bright happy baby girl card.  While I didn’t think about it at the time, fish-tailing the sentiment strip matched the chevrons on the bright pink strip across the card.

Another nice paper/sentiment combination was the music note paper and the “Just a Note”… stamp.  I cut the music note paper to 4 x 5 1/4 inches, which allowed me to get 6 background panels from 1 12×12 sheet of paper.  Instead of a single matted layer I double matted the background first with yellow and then blue cardstock.  For the focal panel I used the rest of the bird/bunting paper.  The flags under the focal panel were cut from the cardstock scraps from earlier cards.

For my last 2 projects, a 6×6 paper pad and a collection kit, I was able to make a lot of cards.  However, towards the end of each project I was getting a bit bored.  My next project was something smaller with motivation provided by a cardmaking video I saw online.

Jen Hadfield Warm & Cozy 6×6 Paper Pad

Jen Hadfield Warm & Cozy 6×6 Paper Pad

I haven’t posted any new cards lately, but I have been busy making them.  I’ve got a pile of cards cluttering up my craft room.  😊

After the first few Christmas cards several weeks ago, I hopped back in to autumn cards.  I pulled out the Warm & Cozy paper pad that had been hanging around my craft room for a couple years.  This was a 36 sheet paper pad so I was able to make a lot of cards.  The papers are a nice mix of autumn/outdoorsy prints that worked well for masculine and feminine cards.  There were also 2 sheets of cut-aparts that I used with several of the cards.

I got started with the easiest card.  Since the paper already had the pretty leaf image on it, I just trimmed the paper down and matted it on some coordinating cardstock.  I used the same cardstock to diecut “Autumn” 3 times and then stacked them for some dimension.

The paper pad had lots of prints, so I used quite a bit of solid color cardstock for backgrounds.  With all the colors in the prints (shades of reds, golds, oranges, browns) I was able to use up some of the less common colors of cardstock that I have in my craft room.

One of my favorite cards used a simple gray woodgrain background and a large plaid focal panel.  A scrap of another woodgrain print was used for the strip across the card and a cut-apart was used for the sentiment.  To keep the card from being too flat I added 3 metallic brads to the corner of the plaid panel.

I really liked the wood panel deer silhouettes and made sure to all of the paper with this image, including the cut-aparts.  Keeping with the wood theme I used more wood grain paper for backgrounds and accent panels.

To “stretch” some of the tone-on-tone prints, I cut the paper into 3 inches wide panels and paired them with a coordinating 1 inch wide cardstock strip to create a background.  A coordinating Love-from Lizi peel-off covered the seam between the two papers.  A 3 x 3 inch focal panel and a few more cut-aparts finished the cards.

One of the sheets included very small, 1 x 1 inch, cut-aparts.  I thought about trimming the paper into blocks and using a block of cut-aparts as a focal panel, but since each block would include multiple different sentiments that didn’t work for me.  Instead I picked some of the general sentiments and used just those cut-aparts on a few of the cards.

After making most of the cards I had a stack of 2 inch wide strips left over from cutting a full sheet of paper into a background.  With at least 2 of each print, I cut the strips down and paired them with the remaining florals as the focal panel.  This was a great layout for using up much of the remaining paper.

Since many of the cards had a more masculine feel I didn’t want to add too many embellishments.  On several of the cards I used Love from Lizi peel-offs instead of matting and Nuvo drops and brads for some shine and dimension.

Since I’ll be donating most of these cards and they’re too late for this year, I’ll store them for next year.  The charity starts packaging and shipping holiday cards about 6 months in advance so I’ll be way ahead for next year.