Aloha, all!
I’m featuring Stampin’ Up!’s Designer Papers in my greeting cards all during July. For the entire month, most of Stampin’ Up!’s Designer Papers are on sale at 15% off the catalog price. I’m hoping to show you that these papers can carry a whole card design all by themselves. So, even at full price, they’re worth having in your crafting stash.
In the first paragraph about each card, there is a link to Stampin’ Up! Designer Series Paper set that I’ve featured in that card. If you click the link you’ll be able to see all of the patterns in that paper set. And you can even order it right then and there as you’ll be in my personal Stampin’ Up! store!
About Those Diagonal Strips
I did not develop a set of rules for making these strips. I really do want all of the card designs that I’m demonstrating this month to be easy to make. I’ve found that, the more I start making measurements and marking this place or that, the less easy the card becomes. So, for these cards, I set one guideline: starting with a 4-1/4″ x 5-1/2″ piece of cardstock (for your card front), lay a piece of paper diagonally on the card front, angling it as you want your sentiment to be angled. Stamp your sentiment onto the card front using the paper as you guide. Then simply line up the rest of the strips at the same angle as your sentiment.
A great side benefit to doing it this way is that, if you stamp your sentiment just slightly off from the line the paper made, no problem! You’ve just slightly changed the angle of all the pieces of paper that will make up your card.
I cut the strips 3/4″ wide and 4″ to 6″ long. The papers that are going to be the first and second strips away from the sentiment should be closer to the longer size. If you’re working with a fresh piece of Designer Paper that’s 12″ x 12″, just cut a whole strip and cut it in half. You’ll need two pieces of each design.
The final step is to arrange the pieces. Once again, there’s no “rule” about how to arrange them. It’s really your choice as the designer. But I do suggest laying all of the pieces out and rearranging them to your liking before you start gluing. Oh, and when it comes to glue, for this card (as well as most of the cards in this series) I prefer to use Multipurpose Glue for adhering the pieces. The glue gives you a bit of wiggle room once you adhere the pieces, so you can “wiggle” them into place if you need to.
Pansy Petals
I used the Pansy Petals Designer Series Paper for the card on the left. I’ve found that I really like the sheet with the groupings of smaller pansies in lots of different colors for cards featuring Designer Papers. I like that I can see whole flowers, which wouldn’t be possible with the larger pansies featured in this paper set.
The other thing that I like about this set of papers when it comes to making cards is that there is a variety of darker/brighter colors as well as softer pastel colors. So the strips are nicely differentiated from each other.
For the sentiment, I used one from the Peaceful Moments Stamp Set using Evening Evergreen Ink. That set has such lovely sentiments, and this is my favorite. I added a bit of embellishment with the lighter purple pearls in the Pastel Pearls assortment.
This is the only one in this group of cards for which I made a second layer of cardstock. I thought that the Evening Evergreen cardstock would make a nice border around the strip layer. Then I mounted it all on a card base of Basic White Thick Cardstock
Hand–Penned Petals
Picking up on one of the points I made about the Pansy Petals card above, the strips in this card, featuring the Hand-Penned Petals paper set, almost blend into each other. For example, it’s really hard to see the line between the Blushing Bride and Pale Papaya strips in the corners.
For the card base, I chose Mint Macaron Cardstock. I could have used any of the colors in this set of papers. But I thought that the Mint Macaron created a better background for those pale colors in the upper left and lower right corners.
The sentiment is from the Lovely You Stamp Set, stamped using Memento Tuxedo Black Ink. Again I used two embellishments dots at either end of the sentiment. This time I used the green dots from the Genial Gems set.
Bloom Where You’re Planted
It took me a while to figure out which pattern from the Bloom Where You’re Planted set I was going to use for what I consider the main strip of paper – the one just above the sentiment. When I’m trying to figure out what in a set of papers will work with a particular size, I cut the shape I need into a piece of scrap paper. Then I move it around pieces of patterned paper to see if anything works. In this case, that strip from one of the sheets in this Designer Paper set popped out unexpectedly. I had to cut it carefully so that the main section of each image showed well.
I love the color combination in this set of papers, especially the Cinnamon Cider and Evening Evergreen combo. So I had to decide between these two colors to choose the color for my card base. As you can see, Cinnamon Cider won out. I followed through with that color to stamp the sentiment (from the Lovely You Stamp Set) and add the Cinnamon Cider square gem embellishments.
There’s More to Come
I hope you enjoyed this post! There are going to be three more posts next week with three more card designs using designer papers as their main element. Don’t miss them!
Happy crafting with papers!
