Hello crafty friends. By the time you are reading this, I’ll be on Australian soil, although just briefly this time. From balmy Tokyo to Melbourne’s winter will be quite a change! I love winter though, so I’m not too sad about an extra time in the cool.
Today’s cards are simple to make and very versatile. They don’t rely on having exact supplies, or perfectly matched items. Nor do they need a lot of decision making about colour and design. But the end result is very pretty.
I used strips of patterned paper roughly 1 1/4 inches wide, and then a wider strip of plain background paper. Then, using either a similar coloured ink, or embossing powder, I stamped the images onto three inch squares of card before matting them with the same background paper. The floral images I used came from the Brooke’s Bouquet stamp and the Orchid Bloom stamp. They are both absolutely stunning. You can see other places where I’ve used these stamps here and here. (or the videos here and here) Both of these stamps have enough fine detail to stand alone as a line sketch, which is why they work for these cards, but I have coloured them the previous times I’ve used them.
When putting down the square panel, I needed to add some paper under the right hand side to even it up with the left, which had the two layers of paper. There are two different sentiments – a three layer Hello die (which also exists as a two layer die, which is more widely available). The other sentiment is a mix of the word ‘birthday’ from this stamp and a sentiment strip from the So Extra Black sentiment strips.
That’s all for these cards today. I hope that you’re inspired to reach for this sketch idea when you need a card in a hurry, or just want to play around with a monochromatic colour scheme. if you’ve enjoyed these cards and would like to see more, feel free to visit my Instagram page. Not all the cards I make get the full ‘blog treatment’!
Until next time.
Blessings,