Hi! Today I have a sweet card (pun intended) to share featuring one of the kids from the 3 on a bench stamp set from Mo Manning. There are two options in the store: you can by the merged stamp with 3 kids sitting on a bench or opt for the separated version, which has the bench and each of the kids as 4 separate image files. I used the latter for my card today, and chose to use just the girl eating the watermelon and the bench.
I colored the girl with my Copics and fussy cut her. I put her to the side while I worked on the rest of my card.
I wanted to repeat the blue from the image in my card, and found a scrap of Fancy Pants patterned paper that was already cut down to fit the front of an A2 card. It’s a beautiful blue, and it has a little bit more interest to it than card stock, without distracting too much from the image.
I used the cloud die in the slim card basics die set from Mama Elephant to create my clouds. The die was long enough that I only had to die cut it once, and cut my finished cloud border into two pieces that are both 4 1/4″ wide. I mounted them to the bottom of my card with 1 mm foam squares for both layers, creating a little bit of depth and dimension in my card, and also an anchor point for the remaining elements. I even stamped part of a background stamp from Tim Holtz on the left half using Spring Rain ink from Papertrey Ink, which is a very light blue ink. Again, it adds a little interest to the background without being too distracting.
I put 1 mm foam squares on the back of the little girl and adhered her near the left edge of my card. I think she’s so cute with that big slice of watermelon!
I used the Parker alphabet die set from Memory Box to die cut the letters to spell “sweet” six times from Red Hot heavyweight card stock from My Favorite Things. I glued them together for a stacked look and adhered the word to my cloud. I stamped and white heat embossed the words “you are” from the Courageous You stamp set from Altenew on a scrap piece of that blue patterned paper, cut the words apart and adhered them to the card using clear foam tape from KoolTak. Those little word strips are so small, I thought clear would be best. I added a couple of light blue enamel dots from Papirdesign to finish.
Not a whole lot of colors used for this one. I also used B90, which is a color I’ve made myself.
I stamped the flowers in fadeout ink from Inkon3, before coloring them in with Copics and fussy cutting up to the line.
I die cut Hello three times from white card stock and stacked the die cuts for dimension. The die is from a die set that came with my Gemini when I bought it two years ago, and this is the first time I used it. It has a swirl going down at the bottom of the H that connects to the o, but I chopped that off. 
I added sequins from the White Orchid Sequin mix from Little Things from Lucy’s cards on or near the flowers and the sentiment, and my card was complete.
Not a whole lot of Copics used for this image, it IS simple, after all. I also used V97, which is a color I’ve made myself. 
I colored the image in with my Copics and used partial die cutting with a die from My Favorite Things to turn it into a tall, slim panel. I stamped and white heat embossed a stamp from the Pinstripe stamp set from Altenew repeatedly on a card base I made out of Winter Wisteria card stock from Papertrey Ink, and added my colored piece in the center using foam tape. I stamped and white heat embossed a sentiment from Papirdesign onto a scrap piece of card stock, die cut it and matted it with a white circle, before using 1 mm foam squares to pop it off the colored piece just a bit. And that finished the card for today. Super simple.
Lots of colors used for this one, for some reason.
I wasn’t sure what to do at first, but wound up fussy cutting the image, leaving a white trim. I usually prefer cutting right up against the edge, but I didn’t want to cut off the sketchy lines on the perimeter of the image, and decided to leave the white border. I ran a piece of white card stock through my die cutting machine using a geometric embossing folder from We R Memory Keepers. It gives the background a nice texture without being too distracting from the image.
After die cutting an eyelet circle from a Cottage Cutz die set using a piece of patterned paper from DCWV, I did some aggresive cropping to one side and mounted the remainder of the circle on my dry embossed white card stock using 1 mm foam squares. I added the white panel to the card base using regular foam tape, and added the girl on top of the circle, before finishing off the card with a heat embossed sentiment from an Altenew stamp set and a few sequins from the White Orchid sequin mix from Little Things from Lucy’s Cards. The blue card stock is Blueberry from My Favorite Things.
Last, but not least, the colors I used for my coloring.
I had the beginnings of a plan before I started coloring this cutie, and knew that I wanted a window of sorts for the image to be sitting in. I traced a square die onto my panel before I started coloring, so I knew how large of an area I needed to fill in beyond the baby and the cloud.
Using the Star turnabout stamp from Concord & 9th along with Misty Morning and Cloudy Sky Ink from Altenew, I was able to create a quick panel of scattered stars in colors that matched my colored image. Using dies from two die sets from My Favorite Things, I turned my panel into one with a window and nice faux stitching along the edges. I really like the look of the faux stitch lines that many of the MFT dies have. Other companies have faux stitching dies too, but there’s something about the length of the stitches, the distance between them and the adjacency to the edge of the MFT ones that make them a favorite of mine. I put foam tape on the back of my stamped star panel, making sure to center my image in the window.
I didn’t have any card stock colors that fit my stamping and coloring perfectly, so I went direct to paper using the Cloudy Sky ink from Altenew onto a quarter piece of white lettersize card stock. I adhered that to a white top folding card base made out of Stamper’s Select White card stock from Papertrey Ink, which is the same card stock that I use throughout (except for the colored image, which is on X-Press It blending card, the only paper I use for Copic coloring). Using another die set from MFT, I die cut tiny little stars and stacked some scattered around on the stamped star panel. I stamped and white heat embossed a Norsk Stempelblad AS sentiment onto a scrap piece of my dyed card stock, before using a couple of additional dies from MFT to turn it into a banner. I love my MFT dies!
Limited color palette. For the sky, in addition to B21, I used B20, which is a color I’ve made myself. I also used BG71, another color I’ve made, for the clothing on the baby.
Papirmølla 