My husband and I are going to a wedding at the end of March and when The Paper Variety’s challenge photo came up, I thought now is the time to make that wedding card!

I took two pieces of inspiration from this photo: the marriage theme and the color green. The actual wedding invitation’s theme of hydrangeas gave me the other piece of inspiration for this card.

Recipe

card size measures 5.5 by 8.5!
die & machine: Sizzix (paper sculpting lilac die)

cardstock, chalk: Stampin’ Up
stamps: Stampin’ Up (sentiment), Hero Arts (background)
ink: Ranger
glue stamp pad: Tsukineko
glittter flock: Hampton Arts
ribbons: Stampin’ Up (grosgrain, sliver cord), stash (sheer)
sealant: Krylon
other: stick

I re-purposed the lilac die from Sizzix into a hydrangea. I cut 4 of the base lilac shapes and trimmed them down to a more circular shape then overlapped the four circles to build a much larger circle. I hid the seams on the large circle using the many small flowers cut with the die. I cut the smaller flowers with a purple cardstock, chalked the edges a different shade of purple and chalked the flower centers a light blue shade. This gives the flowers more depth. I just kept layering on flowers of different sizes to add depth and then I sealed with a matte sealant spray. For the background I used my glue ink pad to ink up a leafy type background stamp really well. I quickly added sparkle flocking to the glue to give it texture and shine. Once my background was dry I adhered it to my card. I then glued the real stick in place and added the flower head over the stick using multiple layers of foam adhesive. I tied on some lovely ribbons for elegance and stamped my sentiment on a flag shaped tag. I chalked the edges of the card and flag for a final touch and adhered everything together.

Try re-purposing your dies to make a shape different than what they were originally intended for!

I am the leader of a 4-H club and we do several community service projects every year. This time we created cards for Valentine’s that we will donate to a Assisted Living Facily. I made a few sample cards for the kids to see from the selection of materials I chose. Here were my examples…

And here is what the kids came up with…

Supplies: card bases, big box of paper scraps, heart punch, scallop punch, paper trimmer (and due to requests a circle punch and a flower punch). It is pretty easy to craft with kids if you give them a finite collection of materials to choose from.

I got word in the mail last week that our dentist has decided to retire. She ran a one-woman dental office with very personal service. The staff has been fabulous and knows us by name and asks about our kids and our vacations. It is sad to have her go but know that she has given much service over the years. I decided to make her a happy retirement card and turned to The Paper Variety’s current sketch challenge to come up with my design.

Check out the sketch

And my interpretation…

Recipe
stamp, cardstock, blue pattern paper, paper flowers: Stampin’ Up
punch: Martha Stewart Crafts
resin flowers: Making Memories
pearls: Want 2 Scrap
ink: Ranger
other pattern papers: stash

I scaled the sketch down to fit the size of a card and eliminated a few elements to prevent overcrowding. As you can see I replaced the stars with flower elements for a feminine feel and I chose colors and patterns with a more vintage feel since her whole office was decorated in vintage items: doll houses, curios and wall papers. I will drop it off in her office for the staff to deliver to her as a new dentist has already taken over her practice. Here’s hoping the new dentist is just a nice!

As I was about to toss that CD that came in some junk mail, an idea struck. What if I tried to die cut it with my Sizzix? Hmmm. Would it just crack or would it work? Guess what? It worked! After I tried this cut I realized that the Moxie Fab World blog is having an innovative die cut challenge. What a perfect entry for this challenge! I am very excited about this technique. The CD adds a really fun shine, iridescence and thick texture to a project. Check it…

Notice all the color reflecting off the butterfly? So awesome. Here is another view. Notice that even when the CD isn’t iridescent, it is still very shiny, like glass.

I do have a few tips for you if you want to try this yourself. First, only steel-ruled dies will work. You will not be able to use wafer thin dies. You need the strong, chunky blades for cutting this thick material. You’ll need to roll the die through the machine slowly to prevent the material from cracking. I only have a manual machine so I don’t know how an electric one would work. And the biggest tip about working with CD’s is that you have a rather small usable area on the CD. As you’ll notice in the photo below part of the inner text ring of the CD was cut out by my butterfly die. It didn’t bother me. I added a bit of black ink around the whole butterfly to help incorporate the “mistake” a little better. You’ll need to use a fairly small die if you want to avoid the inner ring of the CD, like I did with the flowers. I did use a pair of craft scissors to trim the CD down to a size that better fit through the die cutting machine. I cut the CD slowly with the scissors, again to avoid the material cracking. Finally, the CD material did stick in the flower die when I pulled it out of the machine. I just used a pair of needle nosed pliers to gently pry the material out.

Recipe
cardstock, sentiment stamp: Stampin’ Up
steel ruled dies: Stampin Up (butterfly), Tim Holtz (tattered flowers)
ink: Ranger (distress), Tsukineko (StazOn for butterfly edges)
tissue tape: Tim Holtz
gems: Want 2 Scrap
foam dots: Therm-O-Web
other: junk mail CD!

I hope you find this technique as exciting as I did.