Aloha, all!
I hope you will join me in wishing a Happy Birthday to my sister-in-law and fellow Stampin’ Up! Demonstrator, Deb! Deb and I have a lot in common, two items of which are that (1) we both have February birthdays, and (2) that we both joined Stampin’ Up! as demonstrators 10 years ago, though I missed signing up in February by 1 day. But I still consider February my Stampin’ Up! Anniversary month because that’s when we both really started doing what we’ve been doing for 10 years!
I made the card I sent to Deb while I was in the midst of discovering all the luscious designs in the new Bubbles & Fizz Designer Series Paper set that anyone can get FOR FREE by purchasing $50 worth of Stampin’ Up! products during this year’s Stampin’ Up! Sale-A-Bration. I was not immediately enthused about this paper as all I saw in the Sale-A-Bration brochure photograph was bottles and bubbles (thus the name). But once I started seeing other demonstrators showing off the BACK SIDE of these papers, I made sure that I ordered some (for FREE of course) for myself. You’ve been seeing some of that paper in some of the Valentine Cards that I’ve been making, and you’ll still see more in the next week or two.
Once I made this card for Deb, I decided that this would be a good card for a swap in which I participated last week. I’d been struggling with another set of Designer Series Papers to come up with a design that wouldn’t use too much of any one sheet of paper as most packs only have two sheets of any one design. As I had to make TWENTY cards for the swap, that was not going to work if I used one design for my background. But when I can use three different sheets of paper, all of a sudden I have plenty for such a swap.
Besides the Designer Series Paper on this card, the ribbons that I used are also in the Sale-A-Bration Brochure, in the Shimmer Ribbon Pack of 3 spools of ribbon – one each of Calypso Coral, Bermuda Bay, and Basic Gray. For this card I used the Calypso Coral and Bermuda Bay to coordinate with the papers on the left and right of the background.
Two other products can be found in the Stampin’ Up! 2018 Occasions Catalog. The first is the sentiment that is part of the Picture Perfect Birthday Stamp Set. Then there are the Tutti-Frutti Adhesive-Backed Sequins pack, from which I used 3 of the Lemon Lime Twist sequins to coordinate with the middle section of the Designer Series Paper. (I did not use these on the swap cards as that would have required 60 sequins – plus the 3 for Deb’s card – that the 50 of each color in the pack would not have covered.)
For the sentiment layer, I stamped onto Lemon Lime Twist Cardstock using Bermuda Bay Ink. Then I die-cut the stamped image and the Whisper White Scalloped Oval Mat using the Layering Ovals Framelits. All of these products are in the Stampin’ Up! 2017-2018 Annual Catalog.
Finally I layered the Decorated Designer Series Paper layer onto Whisper White Cardstock, and then layered that onto a piece of Lemon Lime Twist Cardstock, before adhering the whole set onto a card base of Whisper White Cardstock.
Here’s a tip for making multiples of a card with this kind of a Designer Series Paper Layout. First figure out how wide you want your layer to be. Then divide by 3 (or whatever number of papers you’re going to use in your layout). Cut strips of paper that wide, tape them together on the back using plain old ordinary Transparent Tape, then cut all three (or whatever) strips together across the top and bottom to fit the height you need for your card. That way you will have a straight line across the top and bottom for your card front.
I’m having such a good time with this paper set that I might almost have to spend another $50 soon to get more (FREE, of course). But wait – there are going to be some more products that we’ll be able to get FOR FREE in the middle of this month. Watch out for notices about this – I was able to buy the new Sale-A-Bration products so I could show them off early. That’s a benefit of being a demonstrator – just like Deb and me!
