Hi, there! It’s Wednesday again, and you know what that means. Time for another Mo Manning creation around here. This time, I’ve kind of gone back to my roots, but not really. It’s a layered card, which used to be the norm for me, but the image is fussy cut, which most certainly has never been my signature.
I received an order for a 50th birthday card for an electrician. The card needed to be “messy”, which is kind of difficult for me. My usual style is pared back and very simple, I just don’t have enough elements on my cards to be able to make a mess of any kind. Thus going back to my roots of using lots of patterned paper. I colored up Mr. Fixit in my favorite colors and fussy cut him.
I had to go looking for inspiration online. The last “old style” card I made was in June of last year, which means I’m rusty. I found a card I liked and used it as a guide to create this one, which is actually an A7 card (5×7″). I dug through my patterned papers, both 12×12″ sheets and scraps, and found a few from Papirdesign, Maja Design and a small scrap from My Mind’s Eye that I used to die cut the gears and numbers. I arranged all the elements on my card, some using foam tape and others adhered straight down, and wound up with this. I used old dies from Sizzix for the gears, forcing me to pull my BigShot out of retirement for a few minutes. Those dies are too thick for my Gemini Jr., which is the machine I use for nearly all my die cutting. The last time I used my BigShot was over two years ago, so there’s a reason it’s retired in the closet. I added a piece of Snip Art chipboard and a film strip piece from Tim Holtz for a little bit of added interest and something that wasn’t just made of paper.
On the inside, I adhered left over pieces of the gears, just to use it all, and stamped a sentiment from Norsk Stempelblad AS using Dark Indigo ink from Papertrey Ink. There’s plenty of room on the right for a personal message, this is a side fold card (another anomaly from me, I prefer top fold).
On the back of the card, I repeated a lot of the elements that I used on the front. The tag dies I used are from My Favorite Things, and I used my recently acquired personal stamp from Create a Smile on one of the die cut tags, stamped in Dark Indigo ink.
Not a lot of Copics used for this one, I mostly stuck to blues.
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 with my Copics, cut the panel down quite a bit and put lots of foam tape on the back. I dug through my patterned paper Christmas scraps and found a blue piece from Papirdesign that was large enough to cover the card front, as well as a couple of smaller pieces from Maja Design.
I stamped and white heat embossed a sentiment, before die cutting it with the mid size fishtail flag frame die from My Favorite Things. I added a few snowdrift sprinkles from Little Things from Lucy’s Cards, and my card was all done. Super simple, and one more card in the Christmas 2021 box. Feels good to have the pile grow!
Nothing too fancy in my coloring today. The combo I used for the cat happens to be nearly identical to the one I used for the girl’s hair, I just omitted the darkest one.
I colored up 
I added two layers of cardstock behind my colored piece, so it would stand out a little from my Limelight card base (colored card stock from My Favorite Things).
I added some vellum clouds on tiny pieces of foam tape, so it looks like the dinosaur’s neck is really long, I thought that was a fun little detail to add. Placed some enamel dots from Papirdesign in strategic places to cover the foam tape, and made an envelope from Papirdesign patterned paper using the A2 V flap envelope dies from Simon Says Stamp for the card to go in.
Bright, bold Copics!
I don’t know what’s going on with me, but I’ve made another red Christmas card. I love creating Christmas cards, but I’m not a fan of red, not even for Christmas. The best thing about creating cards is that they get sent to someone else, so even if I personally don’t like certain colors, I’m getting rid of them eventually anyway, so it doesn’t matter. 😉
Once I’d colored the image with my Copics, I trimmed 1/4″ off each of the four sides and covered the back with foam tape. I found an old scrap of patterned paper from Magnolia that was already cut down to 4 1/4 x 5 1/2″, probably a reject from a previous project, but perfect for this one, the red matches my coloring! It has white “snowflakes” on it. These have 8 points, so they’re not actually snowflakes. There’s no such thing as an eight pointed snowflake (or a five pointed, for that matter), it has to do with how water molecules are formed.
I die cut a couple of scraps of Maja Design patterned paper using two of the Fishtail Flag Frames dies from My Favorite Things. I stamped and white heat embossed a sentiment from Norsk Stempelblad AS onto one of the die cut banners, adhering it to the larger one using 1 mm foam squares for a little bit of dimension. I used the same foam squares on the back of the bigger one and glued both banners to part of a mini doily from Doodlebug adhered to the top left corner of my colored panel. I added a few enamel dots from Papirdesign, and my card was done.
I found an old scrap of patterned paper from 3ndypapir that was just large enough to create an envelope from using the A2 V flap envelope dies from Simon Says Stamp. I thought the color matched the brown in my card nicely.
Not a lot of colors used for this one.
I thought 
Using Memento Bamboo Leaves ink, I stamped a sentiment from Norsk Stempelblad AS inside one of the balloons, stamped again in VersaMark ink and clear heat embossed it. It makes it stand out a little more from the balloon. I die cut the panel using a die from the A2 Stitched Rectangles STAX 1 set from My Favorite Things and adhered it to a card base made from Sour Apple card stock from MFT using lots of foam tape for dimension.
I added Sparkling Clear sequins from Pretty Pink Posh to three of the balloons, and my card was finished. All that was missing was an envelope. The only colored envelopes for A2 sized cards I have left are in warm tones, so I decided to make my own using the A2 V flap envelope dies from Simon Says Stamp with a scrap piece of patterned paper from Papirdesign.
I thought the color of the patterned paper matched the blue balloons on the card so well, and it made the pile in my scrap drawer shrink ever so slightly, gotta love that!
I kind of went overboard with the number of Copics used for each balloon, but I think it turned out pretty good in the end.
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.
I really enjoyed playing with the mini slimline format last week, so I wanted to create another mini slimline. Last time, I slightly miscalculated the measurements I needed to create the matching envelope, so I made this one a little bit smaller, so it fits inside the envelope from last week that was just a tad too small for that particular card. This one measures 3 3/8 x 5 7/8″. I didn’t want to mess with the scene too much, so I die cut a few clouds from vellum using dies from Papertrey Ink and white heat embossed a Norsk Stempelblad AS sentiment onto one of the clouds. I mounted the clouds onto tiny pieces of foam, and added enamel dots from Papirdesign on top in very strategic spots.
I used a bright color palette for this one.
Papirmølla 