Hi, crafty friends. There’s a new release out from Streamside Studios, and it’s all about dinosaurs. There are lots of images in the set and also some background elements to create a prehistoric scene in another new set, making the possibilities with these endless.
I’m focusing on ONE of the images for today’s card. I couldn’t resist the cute triceratops sitting on top of a present. I love The Land Before Time and chose to color this one similar to the character Cera from the movie. She’s orange with a cream underbelly. I kept mine all orange, but made the pads on her feet cream. Flowers are Cera’s favorite food, particularly yellow ones. There are no flowers in my scene, but opted for yellow on the present instead.
I used a couple of very pale blues for the sky in a halo around her, and used a few greens for a simple grassy hill for her to sit on. I die cut the Leafy Cover die from Mama Elephant to frame my image. I used one white die cut and two green ones made from Meadow cardstock from Hero Arts. I stacked them for stability and dimension.
I would have loved to use the prehistoric sentiment from the set of landscape elements, but I really wanted to heat emboss my sentiment, which is one of the few things you can’t do with digital stamps. I went digging through my clear stamps instead, and found this one from the Bitty Birthday Wishes stamp set from My Favorite Things that I thought went perfect with the image. I stamped and white heat embossed it on a piece of Hawaiian Shores cardstock from Papertrey Ink.
I wanted sequins that would match the sentiment strip and the teal colored parts of the image, and the Seaglass mix from Simon Says Stamp was the perfect match. I used way more sequins than I normally do and scattered them all across the card front.
There’s nothing quite like the dimension you get from layering die cuts, it adds so much interest to the card.
Lots of oranges and yellows for this. It IS an orange triceratops sitting on top of a yellow present, after all, so I guess it’s only natural.
I recently made a full shaker card with another image from Rachelle with lots of balloons. That card was all in warm tones, so I thought I’d use cool tones for this one. I did add a few orange balloons, though, I think orange is a fun color to use with teal and green. I used a die from the Stitched Mini Slimline STAX set from My Favorite Things to turn my colored piece into the perfect rectangle to fit a mini slimline card. I stamped a sentiment from the Birthday messages stamp set from Mama Elephant using Prickly Pear ink from My Favorite Things and put the panel aside while I worked on the rest of my card.
I ran a piece of Sour Apple cardstock from My Favorite Things through my die cutting machine with a Geometric embossing folder from WRMK, and adhered it to a mini slimline card base I created from Stamper’s Select White cardstock from Papertrey Ink, leaving a white frame on the outside. I used foam tape to mount my colored and die cut piece in the center of the card.
I wanted another element and used the Cloud 1 & 2 die set from Papertrey Ink to die cut a couple of clouds from vellum. I mounted the clouds on 1 mm foam square to give them a little bit of lift, making sure to put the foam squares in strategic spots so I could cover them with enamel dots in matching colors (green and orange dots from Papirdesign, teal dots from the Cool Summer Night pack of enamel dots from Altenew).
Simple, yet fun color palette for this image.
I had so much fun creating this card. I originally colored everything on one panel, but then decided to put the bunnies on action wobbles. I fussy cut the bunnies leaving a thin white border, fussy cut the eggs right up to the black lines and printed the grass and flowers at the bottom on a separate panel.
I used the Stitched Mini Slimline STAX die set from My Favorite Things to create the perfect panel for a mini slimline card with the faux stitch edge I like so much on my cards. I used the Slimline Cloud Edges stencil, also from MFT, with some Blue Yonder ink (again: MFT) to create the clouds in the background.
Onto a piece of Berry Sorbet cardstock from Papertrey Ink, I stamped and white heat embossed a sentiment from the Itty Bitty Basics stamp set from My Favorite Things. I cut it down to a strip and added a few more layers of cardstock behind it for stability and dimension.
I used 1 mm foam squares behind the eggs and put an action wobbler behind each bunny. I only have the big action wobbles, but I was able to cut them down to fit behind these cute guys. I decided not to add any embellishments to the card, there’s enough going on with the eggs and the wobbling bunnies, I thought.
Simple color palette perfect for spring on this one.
I colored him in very simply with just a few Copics, hinted at a sky behind him and grass below him using some very soft colors, trimmed my panel down and put it aside while I worked on the rest of my card.
Using Spring Moss cardstock from Papertrey Ink and the By the Numbers impression plate, also from PTI, I created a soft, yet textured background that I adhered to my top fold A2 card base created from Stamper’s Select White cardstock from Papertrey Ink. I love their white cardstock, it’s the whitest I’ve found, and it’s thick and wonderful to work with.
I glued a strip of silver glitter cardstock above and below my little puppy, before mounting it on foam tape on the top half of the card.
I die cut Gratulerer using the Gratulerer 6 die from Papirdesign three times: two from white cardstock, once from the silver glitter cardstock I’d already used. I stacked these for a little bit of dimension. I stamped a sentiment from the A06 stamp set from Norsk Stempelblad AS onto a piece of Pale Peony cardstock from Papertrey Ink using VersaMark ink, then heat embossing using clear embossing powder from Ranger. I added two more layers of pink cardstock behind it so it’d be flush with the die cut word above it.
To finish the card I added a few Sparkling Clear sequins from Pretty Pink Posh. These might be my favorite sequins, and I’m almost out of them, so I’m desperately searching for new ones. They seem to always be sold out.
Very soft and simple color palette used for this card.
This bunny is the Clover Bunny from the newly released 
Once my image was colored, I decided to turn this into a very simple card by adding a frame around it and not much else. Using Fire Coral cardstock from My Favorite Things along with the largest die in the A2 Stitched Rectangles STAX 2 Set and the Selfie Square die, both of these also from MFT, I created my frame.
I used the Circular Lace Stencil from Simon Says Stamp with Fire Coral ink from MFT onto the Fire Coral cardstock for a little bit of subtle interest to the background.
Next to the bunny, I stamped a sentiment from the Scripty Bday stamp set from Mama Elephant using Fire Coral ink once again. I love it when everything matches on a card.
I added foam tape behind my frame and adhered it all to a top fold card base I created from Stamper’s Select White cardstock from Papertrey Ink. I added a bit of clear Wink of Stella to my “flower”, but decided not to add any embellishments. Super simple, right?
The color palette is even super simple. I rarely use as few colors as this.
I colored the scene in using my Copics, before using Iceberg ink from Altenew with the Slimline Cloud Edges stencil from My Favorite Things to create soft clouds in the background. I then sacrificed one of my stamp storage pockets from Avery Elle, using about half of it for this card to create the pocket for the colored panel to slip into. I know there are full shaker covers on the market, but I don’t have any, and the storage pocket was easy enough to alter.
I filled my shaker pocket with sequins and gems from the Candy Corn mix from Little Things from Lucy’s Cards. This is a great Halloween mix with clear, yellow and orange sequins, as well as some little gems and even acetate ghosts. I loooove the ghosts, but of course I removed them from the part of the mix I used for this birthday card.
I die cut the word Gratulerer twice from white cardstock and once from Pure Poppy cardstock from Papertrey Ink using the Gratulerer 8 die from Papirdesign, stacked them and used liquid glue to add the die cut to the front of the window.
I stamped a sub sentiment from the Go’klem stamp set from Norsk Stempelblad AS onto a separate piece of Pure Poppy cardstock using VersaMark. I heat embossed it using super fine detail embossing powder from Ranger in white, cut the sub sentiment down to a strip and added a couple of additional cardstock layers behind it, before adhering it to the front of the shaker using score tape.
Simple, but fun color palette for this one.
I printed the dragon on a piece of X-Press It blending card and colored him with my Copics, before using the largest die in the A2 Stitched Rectangles STAX 1 die set from My Favorite Things. I covered my card base with a 4 1/4 x 5 1/2″ piece of patterned paper from Kaisercraft (Charmed from the Key to my Heart collection) to match the green. I cut the panel with the dragon at funky angles at the top and left side to create a convex quadrilateral that I mounted on foam tape in the top left corner of the card.
Using a scrap of patterned paper from the Fremtidsdrømmer collection from Papirdesign, I die cut Gratulerer using the Gratulerer med dagen 3 die set, also from Papirdesign. I die cut an additional 3 layers of white cardstock to glue behind it, but decided that even that wasn’t enough dimension, so I cut tiny slivers of clear foam tape from Rabbit Hole Designs to add to the back of the letters. That did the trick, and it looks like the die cut is floating. I stamped a sub sentiment from the A06 stamp set from Norsk Stempelblad AS onto another piece of the same patterned paper using Jalapeño Popper ink from My Favorite Things, cut it down to a strip, added a couple of white cardstock strips behind it and more of the clear foam tape to make it float, before finishing off the card with a few enamel dots from the Pocketful of Sunshine pack from Altenew.
Fairly simple color palette, but I went through too many teal colors before I decided on the right one for the straws and the sprinkles.
The stamp actually comes with all the candles in a row, but for this design I wanted to shake things up a bit. I colored my candles in a bit of a rainbow order and used a lot of candles (I printed the whole row of candles three times). After they were all colored came the fun part: fussy cutting.
I don’t normally mind fussy cutting, I find it relaxing, but these candles are tiny and there are plenty of them, so it took a while. Well worth it, though. I prefer cutting right against the black lines of the image when I fussy cut, and that’s what I did here, for everything but the wick of the candle, which has a bit of white showing on either side.
Using clear foam tape, I mounted each of the candles onto a panel I created from Soft Stone cardstock from Papertrey Ink. I then mounted that panel onto my card base, which I created from Stamper’s Select White cardstock, also from PTI. I love the cardstock from Papertrey Ink, it’s my favorite!
Using the Happy Birthday die from My Favorite Things, I die cut the words three times from True Black cardstock from Papertrey Ink and the shadow twice from 40 lb vellum from Bazzill. I stacked the black cardstock and covered my layered die cut with VersaMark ink, then sprinkling on Super fine detail black embossing powder from Ranger and heat set. I don’t usually use black embossing powder, it tends to create a mess, but to create shiny die cuts like this, it works great. I repeated the embossing process a couple more times to make it extra shiny and glossy and even.
Before die cutting the vellum, I put a piece of adhesive sheet on the back of one, so I’d be able to glue them together without any adhesive showing. The trick with adhesive and vellum is to have an even layer on the back, whether it’s liquid glue or another type of adhesive. Of course you can add your adhesive in strategic places behind the vellum or put embellishments on top, but I didn’t want to have to think about that for this card, and doubling up the vellum makes it a little less transparent and it stands out more against the colorful candles behind it. I actually didn’t put any embellishments on this, I thought there was enough going on with all the candles and dimension already there.
Lots of colors for this. Three colors in most of the combos, some use four. Yes, I go overboard, I’m aware 😉
I colored and fussy cut 
For the background I used the largest die in the Stitched Traditional Tag STAX die set from My Favorite Things and die cut two of these from Blue Breeze cardstock from My Favorite Things, before gluing them back to back. On the back I simply stamped a To/From stamp and on the front, I used the Falling Snow stencil from Simon Says Stamp along with some paste for a subtle snowy effect in the background.
I used quite a few colors for the fur on the squirrel, but the rest of the colors are pretty basic.
Papirmølla 