fall cards – ConstantlyCreating.Me

Welcome to my blog for Stamp with Amy K’s Inkin’ Krew Blog Hop for Tuesday, August 13! We have a great lineup for you today. Thanks for stopping by to see what I created. 🙂

With the seasonal change coming soon, this month’s blog hop theme is “fall frenzy.” So I have a thinking of you/just for you sunflower card to share with you today using Stampin’ Up’s “Painted Harvest” and “Rare Blessings” stamp sets.

I decided to use last week’s Atlantic Hearts Sketch Challenge—Sketch #328—to give me a basic idea of construction. I don’t use sketches often because I usually just design straight from my brain based on what I’m feeling with the products I see in front of me, but I’ve had a busy weekend (okay, month). I’m thankful I can turn to a sketch or a Pinterest pin for less-than-ideal crafting times when I need to come up with something quickly in either design or time. So here is the sketch image I worked from.

And I was also inspired by a card from my teammate Leslie Larkin (leslielarkin.com) that was posted on our team Facebook page last month. After I saw her card, I wanted to make one immediately. I love the black-and-white flower with the color around it (she used Memento Tuxedo Black ink with Lovely Lipstick paper, cardstock, and gems).

So without further paragraphs, let’s get to my card! Although I had to create it in a crunch, I found several ideas vying for realization as I looked through my current DSP and video chatted with a crafty friend. I didn’t have time to make the five cards I wanted to, so I’ve had to back-burner most of them. I did pull out supplies to make a second card following the same sketch, so I’ll make that and post it another day. Here’s the one I put together for today. (Be sure to catch the updated picture at the end!)

What I ended up using was a Terracotta Tile card base, a sheet of striped paper from the “Come Sail Away” DSP pack (Mossy Meadow color), and a sheet of flowered paper from the Mosaic Mood Specialty DSP (Crushed Curry, Garden Green, Mint Macaron, Terracotta Tile, and Very Vanilla colors). It is a specialty DSP because half the sheets in the pack have Spot UV gloss on the paper to showcase various designs. In the paper I used, the flowered circles have the gloss on them.

I thought the Mosaic Mood paper would work for the scalloped piece on the sketch because the flowered circles are all in a row and have radiating circles around each flower. I just took my scissors and fussy-cut around the largest circle of each flower in the row, up to where it touches the next circle. It seemed the fastest way to move forward on the card and stop all the overthinking I was doing.

The striped Mossy Meadow paper from “Come Sail Away” pulls out the Garden Green from the “Mosaic Mood” paper and balances everything visually. For some reason, I always think stripes go on the bottom. I suppose that’s one of my “ruts” in card-making. However much I tried to argue with that while designing the card, in the end it was easiest to cave and promise myself that I’d try something new later.

Once I had the stripes glued down and the top portion cut, I tried to find a way to use the beautiful 1/2″ Poppy Parade Textured Weave Ribbon in my “current product accessories” bin. I began using the ribbon the way it comes off the roll but didn’t like how it was the same width as the flowered/scalloped border. I needed something thinner, but I only have so many ribbons and twine options right now. So I put some heavy-duty Tear & Tape Adhesive down on one side of the ribbon and did my best at folding it over in half (it’s kind of tricky, actually). And then I located the 1/8″ Glubers glue line I’d cut in half previously for another card. It comes in 1/4″ strips, but as I’ve mislaid my 1/8″ red-line tape, I made do with the other—twice now. Tear & Tape Adhesive would have worked for that as well, but I already had the other one cut and waiting for me.

The metallic brads are basically just decorative. Since I hadn’t yet adhered the flowered piece to my card base, I could still punch a tiny hole on each side of the ribbon, place the brads through the holes, and fasten them at the back before gluing the paper. I’m considering them to be two of the gem places in the sketch, with the third located on the tag. My brads are miscellaneous from my stash, but Stampin’ Up has a great set of Metallic Brads in the current catalog, so I’ll add them to the list of supplies at the end.

Then came the tedious part of the card—figuring out which colors to use for the two-step photopolymer “Painted Harvest” sunflower. I know I’ve saved some color swatches for this sunflower in Pinterest, but for some reason I thought it would be faster to use the colors I’d narrowed down and stacked on my table rather than search in my Color Combos and Sketches board. Hindsight is 20/20.

I wasn’t entirely sure how the stamping was supposed to go, so I got some scrap paper and started “playing” with the two darker ink colors I’d pulled—Early Espresso and Soft Suede. I did several of both colors as the base. Then I opened the two ink colors in my stash that matched the paper the best—Terracotta Tile and a very old (but perfectly juicy) Ruby Red. I need to get a Poppy Parade ink pad yet. I wasn’t sure which color would work best with both the Poppy Parade ribbon and the Terracotta Tile in the paper.

After too much experimentation, including tone-on-tone and color mixing in the brighter colors, I chose to go with the Early Espresso/Ruby Red combination. The Terracotta Tile is more orange than Poppy Parade, and the Ruby Red has a better balance of an orange and something rosier or pinker when both Terracotta Tile and Poppy Parade are on the same card. The flower spots that have Terracotta Tile in them on the DSP are small enough it doesn’t seem to matter much. I had originally picked a Soft Suede/Terracotta Tile combination, but I didn’t stamp the center quite right on the best piece and royally messed it up when trying to fix it, per my usual. Anyway, that color combination works too.

The center of the finished flower is tone-on-tone Early Espresso. Stamping the center of the sunflower was a little challenging to line up at first, but the more I “practiced,” the better I got at it. So just keep trying while you figure out how it works. After I chose one of the images I’d stamped, I then fussy-cut around the finished sunflower and added pop-up foam dots to the back of it. I’m just now realizing that I probably should have added leaves as well. But I’m calling this card done. Maybe I’ll add leaves before I send it. That’s for another day.

For the “Just for You” tag from the “Rare Blessings” stamp set, I used Early Espresso ink and a scrap of Crumb Cake cardstock. The stamp set is one of the new cling sets, so I had to put it together first with the new stickers (that actually stick to the block!). I actually kind of love doing that with the new stamp sets. 🙂 After that was done and I stamped it on the Crumb Cake, I cut down the tag and snipped up the middle at the left with my scissors to make a banner end. Then I took a Really Rust Stampin’ Write Marker (retired) and added some faux stitching in a thin border just inside the edges of the tag. I would have used an Early Espresso marker, but something happened to mine and I no longer have one. The Really Rust is close enough to the Terracotta Tile that it still matches. And, finally, I added a Terracotta Tile gem from the 2019-2020 In-Color Faceted Dots embellishment pack to the tag as one of the gem spots in the sketch.

I’m not sure what is going on the inside yet. The card is going to a friend who recently lost his mother. I need to look for the right sentiment before I send it with a delayed memorial gift. It’s been a busy year here. But at least I’m one step closer in getting the card and gift sent out the door.

UPDATE!: I decided to add some vellum leaves from the Magnolia Lane Memories and More Card Pack around the flower. I fussy-cut them and colored them on the front and back (to make them darker) with my Dark Old Olive Alcohol Blend marker. (I don’t have the Mossy Meadow Blends yet, so I made do.) The sentiment on the inside reads “With Deepest Sympathy” and is from the current Golden Afternoon stamp set. I stamped it in Crumb Cake. I also ran one of the sticker border strips across the bottom of the inside from the Magnolia Lane Memories and More Card Pack. NOW I’m finished with the card. 🙂

That’s all for today. Stay tuned for the next card using “Painted Harvest” and Sketch 328. Thanks again for visiting! Feel free to post questions or comments. Below the list of blog hop participants of my Stampin’ Up team members are the products I used in my card. You can purchase any of them through my online store here—or just click on the picture—and if you use the host code 3W7RXKCU when you check out, I’ll send a free gift your way! Also, if you happen to need a current Annual Catalog or the upcoming Holiday Catalog (which should arrive on my doorstep tomorrow), I’m happy to send you one! Just use the Contact Me link at the top of the main page.

To continue with our blog hop using the arrows, click Previous to view Paula Vincent’s offering or Next to view Karen Ksenzakovic’s card. Or you can click any of the links below to go directly to any demonstrator’s blog.

Jaimie Babarczy: https://wp.me/p79UhD-32A
Terry Lynn Bright: https://wp.me/p8fxPh-ak
Mary Deatherage: https://wp.me/p5snyt-8YX
Akiko Sudano: https://wp.me/paOv8E-hO
Shirley Gentry: https://stampinwithshirleyg.com/?p=6855
Karen Finkle: https://karenscardkorner.blogspot.com/2019/08/stampin-up-accented-blooms-thinking-of.html
Paula Vincent: https://cockeyedcrafter.com/?p=160
Connie Troyer: https://wp.me/p8xvI6-E
Karen Ksenzakovic: https://wp.me/paaNf4-RH
Amy Koenders: https://wp.me/p2SFwf-gGt

Product List

Plus the Golden Afternoon stamp set and Magnolia Lane Memories and More Card Pack!

It’s probably no surprise that I’ve been running a lot lately. For months, really. Certain seasons in life just seem to end up that way. Or maybe it’s just that I try to do too much with whatever energy I have. Either way, I made this card on the go, while I was on vacation with family.

The point in dragging some of my craft room south with me was that, being a new Stampin’ Up Demonstrator, I needed the practice in explaining how to make cards to people who were at least slightly interested yet uninformed about how the tools are actually used or how cards are put together. My mom and my aunt were graciously my guinea pigs. (And I apparently need more practice, as I did not inform them about how much glue to use until it was too late!) Still, I couldn’t take the entire craft room, so I had to also be creative and intentional about what I brought and how I used it. I had a lot of SU with me, but in the end I only used two SU items for this card.

After our session was over and they wandered away or off to bed, I found it hard to drag myself away from the now-messy “craft” table. Fifteen cards, one ignored book deadline, and a few hours later, I finally made myself go to bed too. But I got two lemon cards made for a current card order (out of six), two birthday cards, one sympathy card, and ten cards from the Designer Tin of Cards Stampin’ Up kit I bought last year and brought with me – just have to add the sentiments, since I didn’t know I was supposed to bring things besides Christmas (sometimes I feel like I’m playing the old “telephone” game with how much information I receive from others). I don’t think I’ve ever made fifteen cards in one sitting before. Although that number would be fewer if I’d actually stamped the sentiments too. 🙂

So this is one of the birthday cards I made. I just wanted to put it together before I forgot the idea in my head or mislaid all the pieces that matched. I guess the number of cards or the late hour was getting to me, because this was the last card I created – quickly, too. It’s not quite my usual style and yet it is still detailed, which is what I do best. I would have chosen different pieces to coordinate if I’d had more time or supplies at hand – but it’s perfectly fine as is too.

I had neglected to pack cardstock or card bases among all the fun embellishments and beautiful paper, so when I happened to find myself at my favorite vacation Hobby Lobby (it’s a yearly pilgrimage, really – I live too far away from one to go regularly), I grabbed a box of premade bases too. Back at the house, during our craft session post-Hobby Lobby, I opened up the folder where I keep all my “UK magazine” papers. My mom purchased a couple of UK “free gift” craft magazine subscriptions for me this year for my birthday 😀 and I’ve purchased single issues occasionally too. The UK papers are generally either thicker or thinner than any other papers in my stash and coordinate with whatever came with them, as a set. Thus, I store them separately so that I don’t mangle or lose them. Truthfully, they’re just very special to this Anglophile.

I had been told that my aunt wanted to make a fall or Halloween birthday card, and the large orange-flowered UK paper was one piece under consideration. When she decided to go a different direction, I liked it too much to put it back. And it matched one of the new card bases perfectly. It was also double-sided, showing pieces of wood on the other side.

I found a dark blue/almost black background piece from a blue-and-yellow Paper Studio pad I’d bought at Hobby Lobby (thanks to the lemon cards), so I put it down onto the card base as a mat layer. And after I cut the orange-flowered paper incorrectly, I decided there was too much of the dark layer showing…so I then put down some gold-striped washi tape between the two, directly on top of the dark mat. The washi was from the SU Designer Tin of Cards kit, which I’d already worked with earlier that night. I suppose my philosophy was “Use what’s in front of your nose.” Anyway, it worked. The washi gives another nice layer and blends with the dark and the light. I merely glued the flowered piece on top of those washi strips.

I flipped over the flowered paper to use the wood side. I didn’t have the time or inclination to dig through what I brought to find other papers that matched. Usually I think too much about what goes onto the cards, so “slapping it down and moving on,” as my friend A encourages me, is still a new and freeing feeling. Flowers go with wood, right? I didn’t like the way the washi edges overlapped, though. I also didn’t want to waste my “special” UK paper. And I wanted to show more of the wood anyway. So although I never create “photo corners” in card layouts, I did that night. I hand-cut one without measuring it and then held it up to a cropped piece of paper and cut off the three other corners in succession, using the first one on top as a guide (very technical, you see). And then I used the wood side for a banner underneath where the sentiment would be too, as a way to display more of it and yet not cover up the beautiful flowers.

Some people use a triangle or banner punch for the ends. For me, I snip up the middle of it with scissors and then angle in from each side to the center. It’s not perfect, but no one ever notices and I never feel like it has to be perfect (oddly enough). It’s faster and takes less supplies anyway. Crafting is expensive enough; sometimes it’s nice to get back to the basics and the simpler times of crafting, before all the collecting of the supplies started.

Since I hadn’t brought general sentiment stamps with me, I had to resort to what I had for finishing off the front, which was a separate set of UK paper in the same folder. That issue included sentiments, banners, and borders in the paper instead of just background designs (and a lot of blue and pink!). It matches in theme, at least, and the greens are close too. Besides, I’d rather have a card finished than not. I was going to make it work. 🙂

So I decided that the “Happy Birthday” sentiment matched well enough, figured out the placement on top of the vertical banner, popped it up with foam dimensionals, and then thought I needed more detail to the card – some extra little embellishment that wasn’t paper. Nearby was some baker’s twine with a gold strand running through it. I’ve been on a kick to use up things in my stash lately, so because it too was in front of me, I found myself wrapping it around the banner to get rid of it. I have a hard time liking those metallic strands intertwined with the baker’s twine anyway. The strands always separate and leave me frustrated when working with it. Little by little, I’m learning what I can do without….

I kept the inside simple with just two vertical strips of the gold-striped washi beside each other, running down the side edge of the card, without a sentiment inside. I can always add one later if I choose. For now, I’ll stick it in my stash and be grateful that I have an extra card already made up as a time-saver for later. (Sadly, I’m already going to have to use the sympathy card I created the same night, though I had no one in mind then.) One day I do hope to have a stash I can pull from when occasions arrive. These days I end up creating more for orders than I do for my own use. Not necessarily a terrible problem to have, but one that has drawbacks….

Thanks for stopping in and reading about my recent crafting adventures! Once I have sentiments on some of the other cards, perhaps I can blog about those too. I’m hoping I can get more crafting and blogging done in October. For now, it’s back to yet another book deadline for me.

I’m a Stampin’ Up Demonstrator!

I’m a Stampin’ Up Demonstrator and would love to help you purchase or use crafty items, so please let me know if I can be of assistance! Click here to shop with me now in the online catalog–or request a physical catalog at the top!

Photo Gallery of Past Work