Hi, crafty friends! Today is Mother’s Day in Norway, and I probably should have thought ahead enough to make a Mother’s Day card to share today, but I’m not always a good thinkaheader and have a birthday card to share instead. My design is pretty generic, though, and it would be easy to swap out “birthday” for “Mother’s Day”. I even think the color scheme is perfect for mother’s day.
So many things went wrong in the creation of this card, but I fixed/covered up most of my mistakes and I’m pretty happy with the end result. I started by stamping birthday from the All the birthdays stamp set from Concord & 9th onto an A6 panel of Stamper’s Select White cardstock from Papertrey Ink, as well as onto a piece of Nectar cardstock from Concord & 9th that was large enough to cover the shaker area. I didn’t want to stamp it directly onto the card base, that would have made it harder to line up. More on that later. So far, so good, right? I then die cut the HAPPY from the Happy Birthday words dies from Kristina Werner into my white panel, and kept the counters of the A and the Ps to put back in later. Things were still going according to plan. There’s a small asterisk looking stamp in the All the birthdays stamp set. I wanted to stamp that randomly across my white panel and pulled out an acrylic block. We used to stamp with acrylic blocks all the time before the Misti was invented. I’m not a ding dong, surely, I’m capable of stamping this tiny stamp a few times with an acrylic block without messing up, right? Turns out I AM a ding dong and royally messed up on the Eucalyptus colored asterisk above the A and P. Pretty much in the middle of the card, isn’t that typical? I knew I was going to add sequins, and I could strategically place one to cover up my boo boo. I cut off 3/16″ on all sides to allow the card base color to work as a frame once the card was complete.
I then adhered a piece of acetate behind my letters, glued the counters (interior pieces of the letters) back in onto the acetate, flipped the panel over and added tons of foam tape around the shaker window pretty close to the window, even putting tiny strips behind the counters of the Ps, before putting a few sequins from Altenew into the shaker well before sealing it shut with another piece of acetate. I made sure to add the sequins the right side up. That was not a good idea, but I didn’t realize at the time and adhered my shaker piece onto the stamped piece of Nectar cardstock to line up the stamping on the two pieces. The problem with the sequins all facing the same way is that once they shook around, they clumped together like stacks and were pretty much impossible to separate by flicking the card. The other mistake? Adding the foam tape so close to the letters and behind the counters, my sequins didn’t really have a chance to move much. I had adhered everything to the card base at this point.
I’m not shy with glue when adhering things, but I was able to slide a thin 6″ steel ruler under my shaker panel and basically used it as a saw to cut it away from the card base, cutting horizontally so I would preserve the card base as well as I could. I didn’t have another sheet of Nectar cardstock to create a new A6 card base, so this was the way to fix it. I then pulled off the nectar piece with the stamping, then the back acetate piece, which took with it a few of the small pieces of foam tape that were in the way anyway, and then I emptied out the sequins, made sure there were no sticky pieces left behind, put sequins back into the now rectangular shaker window, this time randomly with some upside down and some right side up – and I added way more sequins too, before sealing it shut with a new piece of acetate. The piece of Nectar cardstock I’d stamped on initially had crease lines after being pulled off, so I had to restamp birthday on a new piece of Nectar. Evidently, I didn’t put the stamp into the Misti the same way as I had the first time, because the new stamping wouldn’t really line up with the old stamping – part of the nature of photopolymer stamps, they’re soft and can be curved. The loops on the b and h don’t perfectly line up with the stamping on the white panel the way they initially did, but this is me embracing imperfection, I wasn’t redoing the white panel too.
I adhered my shaker panel to the card base and cut a couple of additional white panels to put on the inside of the card. This means I have a white panel to write my personal message, the card is a little sturdier because it’s now thicker, and the piece I adhered on the back of the front covers up the fact that I could actually see through parts of the card base after my little sawing earlier. Not shy about glue, remember? Yeah, the glue does its job, and I tore parts of it down to almost printer paper thickness. I added sequins to the front of the card (one covering up my stamping mishap) and I was done. At least I thought so… I was happy with the card, but then noticed as I was writing up the blog post for Papiria that the counter of the second P had slipped a little and wasn’t in the right spot anymore. It was bugging me. It was *really* bugging me, so I peeled it off, die cut a new one that I adhered in the right spot and took a couple of new photos. You can still see the droopy counter in the first two photos here, but that’s my card. I got there in the end.
I love Stacey’s images, they all work so well together to tell stories. I colored my scene with Copics and cut my panel down ever so slightly.
I stamped a sentiment from the 
Even with a fairly limited color palette on the card, I used quite a few Copics.
I started by die cutting the sentiment. I cut the shadow layer from True Black cardstock from Papertrey Ink and the top layer from gold glitter cardstock from Kort & Godt. I love their glitter cardstock, it’s so smooth and nothing rubs off. I used the largest die in the Additional A2 Layers die set from Waffle Flower on a piece of Eucalyptus cardstock from Concord & 9th, before using the faux stitch die in the Festive Blooms die set from Concord & 9th to dry emboss the panel, which I then adhered to my black card base. I love that there’s a tiny little black border.
I die cut leaves and sprigs from the Festive Blooms die set and the Joyful Season die set (also from Concord & 9th) to frame my sentiment. I used Sprout and Juniper cardstocks from Concord & 9th for the leaves and sprigs, and a little bit of Rustic White cardstock from Papertrey Ink for the berries. I curled up the ends of the leaves, added foam tape on the back of the berries and adhered it all to flank my popped up sentiment. There you have it, a Christmas card with what I believe to be a very modern palette.
This is one of those super simple cards. I stamped the image using Extreme Black ink from My Favorite Things and masked it before stamping the 
I stamped a sentiment from the 
I stuck to a pretty limited color palette, I feel, but there’s still a lot of markers.
This scene is created entirely with images from last years holiday collection from Stacey Yacula. 
I colored the entire scene with Copics, stamped the sentiment from the 
I used lots of Copics for this, and all the different gray families, actually.
I used a large pennant die (
I took some white cotton thread (
I suggest you put this image in your cart, it’s so awesome. I colored it with my Copics, adding an actual no line horizon behind my critters to complete the wintry scene, before using a die from the Nesting Postage Stamps infinity die set from Hero Arts to turn it into a huge postage stamp. I then used the 
I created a top fold card base from Pure Poppy cardstock from Papertrey Ink, mounted my large postage stamp using lots of foam tape and adhered a few Snowdrift sprinkles from Little Things from Lucy’s Cards to finish.
I actually used red markers for red this time, with a little bit of B14 where I wanted it to be darker than R29 can create on its own. I usually use earth tones for red, this was a fun change.
I started with a panel of white cardstock (Stamper’s Select White from Papertrey Ink) that I cut down slightly from a quarter sheet. I used a couple of dies from Papirdesign to do a dry emboss on my cardstock. I covered a white top fold card base with a quarter sheet of Harbor cardstock from Concord & 9th and layered my white dry embossed panel on top.
I die cut the banner pieces in the Joyful Season die set from Concord & 9th from Harbor and Powder cardstock, before stamping a sentiment from the Merry Greetings builder stamp set from Kristina Werner onto the banner pieces using Harbor ink. I assembled the banner and added a few layers of cardstock behind it for dimension. I die cut a tree and a snowflake from the same dies that I used for my dry emboss background, both from Powder cardstock. I stacked two of each and glued them on top of its actual position in the embossed background, before finishing off with Opal gems from Spellbinders. Very simple.
I printed the image onto X-Press It blending card and colored it with my Copics, going for a couple of different purple combos – one dark for the snowman’s hat and scarf, another for the cute little bird. I chose a deep pink combo for the present and the bird’s accessories to bring in another color. I die cut my panel using a rectangle die from Waffle Flower, then went in with a snowflake stencil from Ciao Bella and some Lilac ink from Concord & 9th. I then added VersaMark on top and sprinkled on Iridescent Sparkle embossing powder from JudiKins to turn the snowflakes sparkly once the powder melted.
I stamped a sentiment from the Julehilsen stamp set from byCino using Autumn Rose ink from Papertrey Ink. The sentiment translates to “Express delivery from the North Pole” and was the perfect size for my chosen placement. I adhered a quarter sheet of Autumn Rose cardstock from Papertrey Ink onto a white card base and mounted the colored panel in the center, before finishing off with sequins and raindrops from the She’s So Lovely mix from Little Things from Lucy’s Cards.
Lots of purple. I can do hard things (using purple is HARD).
I colored my cutie with Copics and made sure to color enough on the sky and the ground beneath him so I could die cut my panel with a circle die. I used a black glaze pen to get some shine into his eyes, and once the black was dry, I added a dot of white Gelly Roll 05. I die cut a white ornament using the Snowflakes and Ornament die set from Hero Arts, and glued my colored panel on top, before working on the rest of the card.
For my background, I used the Magic Snow Cover die from Mama Elephant to die cut from Powder cardstock from Concord & 9th. I adhered that to a top fold white card base and glued my ornament in the center with a couple of layers of cardstock behind it for a little bit of dimension. I die cut a sentiment from white cardstock using the Jolly Holiday Greetings die set from Concord & 9th. I die cut the back from Champagne cardstock, also from Concord & 9th and added the complete sentiment to my card with a little dimension behind it, before finishing off with a die cut bow in the same cardstock color, die cut using the Gift Bows die set from Kristina Werner.
Simple palette for this one.
Papirmølla 