Hi! I’m back today with a fun card featuring a flower wreath from one of the stamp sets Lili of the Valley came out with in their spring release. This is one of the stamps in the Magical Florals stamp set.
I stamped the wreath on a piece of Rustic Cream cardstock from Papertrey Ink, before coloring with pencils. Yes, you read that right, I broke out my Prismacolors and did pencil coloring. I don’t use my pencils very often. Copics are my “go to” coloring medium, but every now and then, I shake things up.
I fussy cut around the finished piece, leaving a white border along the edge and cutting the open part at the top right as if my colored panel was a circle. I didn’t want to cut away the interior, and this seemed faster, easier and better. I created a 4 1/4″ square card base and used the Caleidoscope embossing folder from Simon Says Stamp to create a little bit of texture in the background, before mounting the wreath on foam tape.
I stamped and white heat embossed a sentiment from the Mini Messages stamp set from Mama Elephant onto a piece of Cornflower cardstock from My Favorite Things, before using a nested circle die to turn it into a circle. I put a few foam squares behind it and adhered it to a part of the wreath where it wouldn’t cover up too many of the flowers.
To finish the card, I added a generous amount of Papirdesign pearls for some shine.
I colored the image with Copics and fussy cut around it, leaving a white border. This image is pretty easy to fussy cut, so it didn’t take long. I’m trying to get out of my standard “full panel with cluster” mode, and fussy cutting the image gives me endless possibilities.
I needed something in the background behind my image, and decided to create a circle stencil to ink blend into. I used Distress Ink from Ranger in Abandoned Coral, Spiced Marmalade and Squeezed Lemonade, before I removed the stencil and looked through my stash of background stamps I could use to add some more interest. I wound up with a mixture of stamps from Inkido, Tim Holtz and My Favorite Things, and used Distress Ink once again for the stamping. This time Spiced Marmalade and Mustard Seed for a bit more of an intense yellow on top of the ink blending.
I mounted the image using foam tape, and die cut the word happy from the Bold Happy Birthday die set from My Favorite Things. I die cut four of each letter and stacked them for a dimensional look, overlapping them on my card to make them fit.
I stamped and white heat embossed a sentiment from the Anything-but-Basic Birthday Wishes stamp set from My Favorite Things onto a piece of Caribbean Sea cardstock, also from MFT. The sentiment actually says Commencing Happy dance, but since I already had a diecut happy, I only needed the first and last word for my card. I added three additional strips of cardstock behind the words for dimension, and finished off the card with a few enamel dots. The teal ones are from the Cool Summer Nights pack from Altenew, the orange ones from a Halloween pack from Papirdesign. I also added a dot of black Glaze pen to the kittens’ eyes and the boy’s eyes, then a white dot using the Gelly Roll 05 from Sakura once the black had dried on the boy.
I colored the image with My Copics and decided to fussy cut around it this time. I tend to turn my colored pieces into panels for my card and work from there, but I wanted to do something a little different today.
I left a white border around the image to make it easier on myself. You tend to lose some of the details in the hair if you cut up close to the line, and I wanted to keep the hair intact. I also added Glossy Accents to his glasses for shine and a touch of dimension.
I wanted to include his name on the card, but had printed my image fairly large. My solution was to make a landscape A7 card (7×5″). I rarely make landscape cards (trickier to photograph) and the same goes for A7, but it’s fun to shake things up. I also shook things up by adding cardstock strips going across the card. I tried with cool colors first, but the image got lost, so I went through my solid colors of cardstock again and made a version with warm tones. From top to bottom they are:
I used the Impact Alphabet die set from My Favorite Things to spell the name. I die cut four of each letter and stacked them for a dimensional look, gluing them right onto the stripped background, before adding the sentiment and date in white on black.
I mounted the image on foam tape and added a few enamel dots from Altenew (teal dots from the Cool Summer Night pack) and Papirdesign to finish the card.
This 
I stamped a sentiment from the Definisjoner stamp set from Norsk Stempelblad AS with Melon Berry ink from Papertrey Ink, chopped off a bit of the panel and adhered it to a card base I created from Melon Berry cardstock, also from Papertrey Ink.
I added a couple of sequins from Little Things from Lucy’s Cards. The larger sequin is from the Sweet Shop mix, the smaller one from the Iced Sherbet mix.
Super simple color palette.
Aren’t these bunnies cute? I paired the three bunnies in the Teacup Bunnies stamp set with a digital sentiment. The sentiment will be a freebie digi, along with a few others in the same style and sub sentiments to pair with it.
I colored the bunnies and letters with Copics and did some fussy cutting, leaving a thin white border to preserve the “fuzzies” that are part of the signature Lili of the Valley style. I used a black glaze pen for their eyes to make them pop and shine, and once dry, added a tiny white dot to each eye using a white Gelly Roll 05 pen.
I used the Crystal Distortion Embossing folder from Simon Says Stamp on a piece of Lemon Tart cardstock from Papertrey Ink to create a little bit of interest in the background. Below the yellow panel, I added a strip of Sprout cardstock from Concord & 9th for a little bit of extra green.
I adhered the cardstock pieces to a white top fold card base and mounted the teacup bunnies and sentiment on foam tape for dimension, before finishing off with a few enamel dots from the Tropical Forest set from Altenew.
I’m using the new 
I adopted Laura Bassen’s new coloring motto for 2023 for this card: “no muss no fuss coloring”. This was very simple, a few grays and a little bit of pink for the cheeks, the inner ears and the belly. I used a craft knife to cut out the interior of the balloon and printed another panel with just the balloon in the same size. I colored that balloon in green (thanks for the color suggestion, Liz) and added foam strips along the outer edge of the balloon, before filling it with tiny iridescent stars from the Icicle sequin mix from Hero Arts. I then added a piece of acetate on top to complete my shaker, and adhered the koala panel to the shaker, making sure to line up the window with my shaker heart balloon as best I could.
I added foam tape on the back of the rest of the panel and adhered it to a top fold card base. The card base is actually Stamper’s Select White cardstock from Papertrey Ink, but I adhered a panel of Clover cardstock from Concord & 9th on top to create the green front. The color matched with my green balloon, but I don’t have unlimited amounts of Concord & 9th cardstock, so I’m trying not to use it all at once. Also, it’s a thinner cardstock, and not sturdy enough on its own to hold the weight of lots of foam tape and a shaker.
Using the largest of the dies in the Stitched Rectangle Scallop Edge Frames die set from My Favorite Things, I die cut a frame from Soft Stone cardstock from Papertrey Ink. This is such a perfect soft grey, I love it. I finished off the card with a few enamel hearts from Altenew, from the Green Fields pack and the Rock Collection.
The iridescent stars inside the shaker heart really catch the light nicely.
Super simple color palette, as I mentioned.
I chose to color Elliot in a very soft grey, and once fully colored, fussy cut the image leaving a thin white border. I put the image aside and started working on the rest of the card.
I felt a landscape design would work best for what I had in mind, and used the Geometric Landscape stencil from Altenew to create some interest in the background with blue inks, also from Altenew. I used the entire Lapis Lazuli color palette from Altenew for my blending, (Azurite, Ultramarine, Eastern Sky, Iceberg) which fades to white at the top.
Using the Sending You Hugs die from My Favorite Things, I die cut the letters to spell out HUG four times from white cardstock from Papertrey Ink, which happens to be the same cardstock I used for my cardbase. I love their white cardstock, it’s the best by far. I stacked the letters for dimension and stamped and white heat embossed a punny sentiment that comes with Elliot & Marcel. There are actually a few more sentiments in the set, and I added another one to the inside of the card. I didn’t have the right color cardstock, though, so I cheated and covered white cardstock with the Azurite color, which is the darkest of the four blues I used for the blending of the background. To create the sentiment strip, I went direct to paper, and used my heat tool to speed up the drying process of the ink so I could stamp and heat emboss on top. I added three additional strips of cardstock behind it to make it flush with the die cut letters, adhered it to the card and finished off with a few sequins from the White Orchid Sequin mix from Little Things from Lucy’s Cards.
I chimply love punny sentiments and couldn’t resist.
Very simple color palette for this one. This was fast to color.
Papirmølla 