Birch Press Design

Category: Contour Layers

  • A Blue Hibiscus Summer | by Crystal Komara

    A Blue Hibiscus Summer | by Crystal Komara

    Hello crafty readers! This is Design Team member Crystal Komara here sharing a very detailed card using the beautiful Tropical Hibiscus Contour Layers. Now, contour layering dies have been around for a while now, but in all honesty, it’s taken them a little while to grow on me. I go through my love ’em and hate ’em phases. Well, I am currently in my die cutting era right now! I can’t stop, because each card comes out so elegant and gorgeous, it just makes all that die cutting and piece work worth it!

    Card details:

    The base of this A2 sized card is made from 80 lb. Neenah Solar White Smooth cardstock. I then cut a 5 1/4″ x 4″ piece of royal blue cardstock and adhered it directly to the card base.

    Next, I went to town just die cutting all those hibiscus layers (from three different colors of blue) and then the leaves in two shades of green. Really, I don’t measure or count anything as I’m doing all that die cutting, I just keep cutting and then put it all together in the end. Yes, I always have leftover and mismatched pieces, but I just add a couple of the “extras” to the inside of the card and any leftover pieces go in my scrap bin for another time.

    Once I adhered all the flowers and leaves together and situated them on the card in a visual appealing way, I added the sentiment. I used the Big Hello Vintage Sentiment die. I die cut the bottom layer from white cardstock and the top layer from royal blue cardstock. I adhered both layers together with a fine-tip liquid adhesive. Lastly I adhered the entire sentiment to the card using 3M foam for added dimension.

    Now, is this card “perfect” – goodness NO! I bet you didn’t realize that I splattered silver ink all over the card when I intended on splattering gold. Do I love it? No. But there was already so much work done that I wasn’t about to start all over. And, let’s be real, no one would ever know but me! Shhhh. . .

    Thanks for visiting and have a wonderfully creative day!

    Supplies

    57486 Tropical Hibiscus Contour Layers

    57550 Hello Vintage Sentiment

    SP1005 Ocean Blue 6×6 pack

    SP1003 Lush Green 6×6 pack

    SP1002 Sunny Orange 6×6 pack

  • Summer Ocean Blues | by April Antonio

    Summer Ocean Blues | by April Antonio

    Hello friends! Design Team member April here today sharing a beautiful, bright, blue ocean inspired card using the Budding Twigs Contour Layers die set. I visited the beach last month and was inspired to create something ocean-y.

    Here’s how I pulled this card together:

    I cut a piece of heavy-weight white cardstock down to A2 card size. is made from 80 lb. I used on of my favorites, the Pinpoint Contour Plate to cut a background from the Memory Box Lagoon 6×6 cardstock pack and layered that onto the card base.

    Next I cut the three layers of the Budding Twigs Contour Layers die set from three different colors from the same Lagoon cardstock pack. I glued the layers together following the included guide, making sure to alternate colors, and adhered each finished twig onto the card front. The blue background with the budding twigs reminded me of seeing coral underwater!

    I used the Big Hugs Vintage Sentiment die and shadow die to cut the ‘HUGS’ and adhered it to the front of the card. I used two different shades of brown I found in the Memory Box Earth Neutral 6×6 cardstock pack.

    I finished off the card with some fun gemstones from the Winter Fantasy Fairy gemstone set. I really enjoy paper-piecing and this card was fun to pull together! I hope you are able to have fun and do something creative this weekend.

    Supplies

    57547 Big Hugs Vintage Sentiment

    57529 Budding Twigs Contour Layers

    57511 Pinpoint Contour Plate

    Supplies

    sp1010 Lagoon 6×6 pack

    sp1009 Earth Neutral

  • Purple Rose | by Rosemary Dennis

    Purple Rose | by Rosemary Dennis

    Hello everyone! Rosemary here on the blog today with a card that was a bit of an experiment for me, lol! Let’s have a look at what I made.

    I started my card by going through the stack of contour layering dies I have pulled out in order to use to make cards and settled on the Dainty Rose and Leaves set. I have had this set for awhile, but I don’t think I have used it yet. I die cut all the pieces from white cardstock and then decided what ink colors I wanted to use. I don’t often use purple so I settled on that and pulled out coordinating purple inks to ink up all the layers of the rose. Two shades of green were used for the leaves. The I assembled all the pieces.

    Since I have been into adding texture the background of my cards I pulled out the Grace Layer A plate and embossed a rectangle of white cardstock I had die cut with the die. I wanted to try something a little different so I pulled out the Gilded Grace Outside Stencil set. This set of stencils was designed to coordinate with the Gilded Grace hot foil plate, but it also works with the Grace Layer A plate.

    I used a grip mat to hold the stencils and cardstock in place as I did the stenciling. I only stenciled a portion of the background as I wasn’t sure how things would turn out. I’m actually pretty pleased with the end result. The interesting and unique thing about the Grace Layering dies is that the centers of each die cut out allowing three different looks. I decided to die cut the center portion of the layer A die and layer the larger circle on top of the embossing. I adhered flower to the center of the smaller circle and popped it up in the center using thin foam squares.

    Here are the different products I used to make the card. I finished things off with a sentiment from the Crystal Lingo stamp set.

    I hope you enjoyed today’s experimental project! Thanks for stopping by and have a wonderful day!

    Supplies

    57499 Dainty Rose and Leaves Contour Layers

    42035 Gilded Grace Outside Stencil Set

    56080 Grace Layer Set

  • You Are Something Special | by Crystal Komara

    You Are Something Special | by Crystal Komara

    Hello readers and happy 1st of July! Welcome to summer here in New England (or wherever you might live). This is Design Team member Crystal Komara here today sharing a floral card featuring the Early Blossom Contour Layer Dies in varying shades of purple.

    I love placing colorful flowers against a black background. It really just makes the colors POP! And this card is a great example of how you can use any color palette you want to make a statement. Maybe purple isn’t your favorite color, these flowers would also look beautiful in pink, red, yellow or orange – the options are endless.

    Card details:

    The base of this A2 sized card is made from 80 lb. Neenah Solar White Smooth cardstock. I cut a 5 1/4″ x 4″ piece of black cardstock and adhered it directly to the card base. I stamped the sentiment in the upper left corner using the Brush Sentiments Clear Stamp Set. I stamped the sentiment in Versamark ink and heat embossed it using white embossing powder.

    Then I set out to die cut ALL those flowers using the Early Blossom Contour Layer set. There is no rhyme or reason to my die cutting madness, I simply just keep cutting flowers from three different colors of purple cardstock and leaves from two different colors of green cardstock! Yes, sometimes it seems like I just die cut flowers for minutes at a time! I don’t count, I don’t assemble as I go. Yes, typically this leaves me with lots of “extra” pieces leftover. I often use those extra pieces to decorate the inside of my card, or I save them in a scrap pile!

    Once all the die cut flowers are glued together (in this case, the Early Blossom Contour Layer has three layers), I then arranged all the flowers and leaves on the card in a pattern that looked pleasing to the eye before finally gluing them all down to the card.

    I hope you have enjoyed today’s vibrant floral card! Thanks for visiting and have a wonderfully creative day!

    Supplies

    CL8158 Brush Sentiments clear stamp set

    57520 Early Blossom Contour Layers

  • Hugs & Roses | by Rosemary Dennis

    Hugs & Roses | by Rosemary Dennis

    Hello friends! Rosemary here on the blog today with another card full of layers and texture. This time I used multiple tried and true Birch Press Design dies and one hot foil plate set for my card. Let’s have a look at what I created.

    Quite sometime ago I pulled out multiple Birch Press Design floral die sets that I had not used in awhile (or never!) to use on future cards. I went to this pile and pulled out the Rose Bunch Contour Layers die set as I had actually never used it on a project before. I then pulled out my Memory Box 6×6 cardstock pads and chose the Greenery and Blush pads to use for the flowers. Three darker shades of red and three shades of green were pulled from the pads to use for all the die cutting.

    Once I had those items selected I selected the die set I wanted to use for the foliage to go with the roses. I decided to go with the Oval Leaf Branches Contour Layers die set because of the variety of little leafy branches in the set. I used the lightest shade of green for the smaller branches and then the two darker colors for the larger branches. I die cut everything and then assembled all the various pieces.

    As I indicated I’m kind of into adding more texture to my projects and one way is with embossing. Birch Press has so many different dies that can be use for embossing on cardstock. For this card I decided to use the Wiegela Leaf Contour Layer die set. I used the main die to emboss my off white cardstock panel. I then layered on the roses and all the little branches. Layering the branches did require me to cut some of the branches apart to get the look I wanted, but that is one of the things I like about die cuts. The ability to modify them as needed!

    The embossed panel shown with the card was my first impression. It turned out okay with a little bit of cracking, but I decided to do a second one and this time I spritzed the panel with a little water before embossing it. The second one turned out perfect! Unfortunately I covered up most of the embossing, but the embossing was more there to just add another element.

    I finished off the card with a foiled sentiment from the Sugar Script Sentiments 1 hot foil plate and die set. I love the little touch of gold that it adds to the card. Well, that’s it for me. I hope you enjoyed today’s project. Thanks for stopping by and have a great day!

    Supplies

    BPF503 Sugar Script Sentiments 1 Hot Foil Plate and Die Sets

    57495 Rose Bunch Contour Layers

    57525 Oval Leaf Branches Contour Layers

    57515 Wiegela Leaf Contour Layers

    sp1011 Leafy 6×6 pack

    sp1012 Blush 6×6 pack

  • Monochromatic Hugs | by Rosemary Dennis

    Monochromatic Hugs | by Rosemary Dennis

    Hello everyone! Rosemary here today with a sweet monochromatic card that I had so much fun creating! I used lots and lots of different Birch Press Design products, as well as some products from Birch Press Design’s companion company, Memory Box. Let’s have a look at what I made.

    I recently did a little bit of organizing of my Birch Press Design products and as I went through them several items I hadn’t used in a while (or maybe I hadn’t even used them yet!) kind of popped to the forefront as items I could use to make the card for today’s post. I started with the Big Hugs Sugar Script die set and the Perky Bloom Contour Layers die set. Then I started looking through all my Memory Box cardstock pads and realized that I had not used the pad called Blush. Now that I had my starting point things really got going!

    I went with a light coral pink and a dark coral pink from the Blush pad. I die cut all the pieces from the Perky Bloom from both sheets and then alternated the colors. This resulted in two flowers. I decided to go with the one that has the light coral pink bottom layer for this card. I had a previously die cut stamen piece that I had cut from yellow cardstock. I like the little pop of yellow. I also die cut the Big Hugs from the sheets. Since I had used the light coral pink for the first layer of the flower I decided to use the dark coral pink for the shadow layer of my sentiment.

    When I layered the flower I used a combination of liquid adhesive and thin foam squares to give the various petals additional lift. Once I had the flower finished my creative juices really got flowing! I decided to die cut a piece of paper from the Memory Box Gladiola Plaid 6×6 pad to cover the front of my card base. I went with a piece that has a hint of yellow in it to tie in the yellow stamen in the flower. Then I die cut white cardstock using a Curved Cap Pinpoint Layers die. At this point I decided that I wanted to add some texture to the white panel so I looked through my background layering dies and landed on the Arista Layer B die. I love the detailing in this layer of the die set. So I embossed it using my die cutting maching. I offset the die to the right side of the panel for additional interest.

    I layered this panel on the card front using thin foam squares. I liked the look of the flower on top of the embossed image, but I wanted even more texture! So I pulled out the Fuddle Leaf Branches die set and die cut the smaller branch and layering pieces from thick vellum. The layering pieces were adhered with liquid adhesive. Then I arranged the flower and the little branches on the white embossed panel.

    At this point I thought I was finished, but nope, lol! I wanted to add one more thing! A sweet little vellum dragonfly! I used the smaller dragonfly from the Simple Dragonfly Contour Layers die set and cut all the pieces from the heavy weight vellum I used for the little leafy branches. A tiny coral jewel was added to the body for the final touch!

    I absolutely love how this card turned out. I started with a simple idea and just let my creativity go! It is so fun to do that and something I need to do more often. I hope you enjoyed today’s card. Thanks for stopping by!

    Supplies

    57418 Arista Layer Set

    57500 Fuddled Leaf Branches Contour Layers

    57531 Perky Bloom Contour Layers

    57138 Big Hugs Sugar Script

    57487 Simple Dragonfly Contour Layers

    pp1027 Gladiola Plaid 6×6 pack

    sp1012 Blush 6×6 pack

    94646 Curved Cap Pinpoint Layers

    94672 A2 Rectangle Frames Die Set

  • Delicate Hello | by Rosemary Dennis

    Delicate Hello | by Rosemary Dennis

    Hello everyone! Rosemary here on the blog today. Can you believe that May is almost over? I can’t! Time is going by too fast. Today I’m sharing a card that I created by combining two contour die sets to get more mileage out of them. Let’s have a look at what I made.

    I have wanted to use the Birch Press Design Crystal Lingo stamp set for along time. The large image in the stamp set is a fun one and great for creating backgrounds. So one day I got out some pens I have that have liquid watercolors in them and created a ton of background. I started by embossing the crystal image on watercolor cardstock with white embossing powder and then coloring them with one color per image. Now I have multiple background that I can create with. As I was thinking about the card I wanted to make I decided to use two of the panels I created. I chose panels in a sort of coral pink and one in light yellow.

    Above are the two panels I used after I cut the pink one in half and die cut a piece from the light yellow one.

    Now it was time to decide on what dies to use. I knew I was going to use the small Vintage Hello Sentiment die set so I needed to keep the dies I used more on the delicate side. I went with the Phlox Blooms and Leaves Contour Layers and the Hillside Branch and Bramble Contour Layers die sets. The smaller flower in the Phlox Blooms set was perfect to add to the Hillside Branch die where the little berries are supposed to go. To color the flowers and branches I used the same watercolor pens that I used to create the backgrounds. The pinks on the flowers turned out darker than the background strip, but I think that is okay.

    I die cut all the pieces out of watercolor cardstock and colored them with the pens. Once they were dry I assembled them using liquid adhesive.

    Here is a close up of all the flowers after I assembled them and then arranged everthing on my card front. I had a little scrap of the pink background left over so I decided to die cut the bottom layer of the Hello Vintage Sentiment from that scrap and the top layer from white cardstock. They were together with liquid adhesive and adhered to the card front with a combination of liquid adhesive and small foam squares to finish off my card.

    I really like how my floral branch turned out and glad that I decided to try combining these two die sets. Thanks for stopping by and have a wonderful day.

    Supplies

    57507 Phlox Blooms and Leaves Contour Layers

    57550 Hello Vintage Sentiment

    57524 Hillside Branch and Bramble Contour Layers

    cl8155 Crystal Lingo clear stamp set

  • Happy Birthday Bloom | by Crystal Komara

    Happy Birthday Bloom | by Crystal Komara

    Hello crafty readers! This is Design Team member Crystal Komara on the blog today sharing one of my most recent card creations using the Perky Bloom Contour Layer. This bold and oversized flower has quickly become one of my favorite contour layering dies from Birch Press Design this release.

    Card details:

    The base of this A2 sized card is made from 80 lb. Neenah Solar White Smooth cardstock. I dry embossed a 5 1/4″ x 4″ sheet of black cardstock using the Blooming 3D embossing folder from Memory Box Company (a sister company of Birch Press Design). This is one of my favorite embossing folders. I adhered the black embossed cardstock directly to the card base.

    To create the flower, I used light pink, dark pink and yellow cardstock. I die cut the Perky Bloom Contour Layer multiple times from each of these colors of cardstock and then kept layering them to see which color combination I liked best. The good news was I die cut so many colors that I have plenty of other pieces leftover to make more cards! When I was satisfied with the flower, I adhered the flower to the card using 3M foam adhesive for added dimension.

    For the leaves, I used the Wiegala Leaf Contour Layers. I die cut the leaves from two different shades of green cardstock and layered the two together using a fine-tip liquid glue. Lastly I heat foiled the sentiment using the Sugar Script Sentiments 2. I used the ‘happy birthday” sentiment from this set. I heat foiled white cardstock in gold foil. Then I used the coordinating die cut to cut the sentiment out. I adhered the sentiment to the card and then added a couple clear rhinestones to resemble watery dew drops.

    I hope you have enjoyed this beautiful birthday card. Thanks for visiting and have a wonderfully creative day!

    Supplies

    57531 Perky Bloom Contour Layers

    57513 Curved Leaf Branch Contour Layers

    57515 Wiegela Leaf Contour Layers

  • Eloquent Alcohol Ink Butterflies | by Crystal Komara

    Eloquent Alcohol Ink Butterflies | by Crystal Komara

    Hello Birch Press Design readers! This is DT Member Crystal Komara here today and I’m so excited at how today’s card turned out. I’m going to kind of toot my own horn here, for just a second, but it currently is my absolute favorite card! I know, I know, this changes over time and with each new card that I make, but for today, I’m gonna let this card have its moment and shine as my “favorite!”

    I have long used alcohol inks in my card making. I think they make for beautiful background and accent pieces. If you’d like to see more examples, please click on any of the following descriptive links:

    ~Alcohol Ink Leaves

    ~ Alcohol Ink Easter Eggs

    ~Alcohol Ink Birthday Balloons

    ~Alcohol Inks Hearts and Butterflies

    ~Alcohol Ink String Art

    When I have the time, I sit down and make a ton of alcohol ink art pieces, I’m talking like anywhere between 50-100 pieces at a time and then I put them in a bin and tuck them away. When I need to make a “quick card,” I simply pull from the pre-made bin and finish my card. Many of the alcohol ink backgrounds I create often feature rainbow colors, similar to today’s.

    Card details:

    The base of this A2 sized card is made from 80 lb. Neenah Solar White Smooth cardstock. I then cut one of the pre-made alcohol ink pieces down to 5 1/4″ x 4″ and adhered it directly to the card base. Next I created two butterflies using the Eloquent Butterfly Layering set. The first butterfly was made from pink cardstock and the second butterfly was made from orange/peach cardstock. For both of the butterflies, I die cut Layer A (the top layer) from white cardstock. I adhered the butterflies to the card using 3M foam adhesive for added dimension. Lastly I added a couple clear rhinestones on the body of the butterfly for even more sparkle.

    I hope you will enjoy this card as much as I do! Now excuse me while I go make twenty more of this one to send to friends!! Thanks for visiting and have a wonderfully creative day.

    Supplies

    57426 Eloquent Butterfly Layer Set

  • Vintage Hugs | by Allison Frazier

    Vintage Hugs | by Allison Frazier

    Hello, Birch Press friends. I am excited to be back on the blog today sharing this bold card featuring some new products! There are some great new word dies that just came out, and I chose one of my favorite sentiments of all time – hugs.

    I really was in the mood for a different and bold color palette, and the new Glimmering Gladiola paper pack from Memory Box was just what I needed as a jumping-off point. I chose some purple paper with a gold foil leaf design as my background. I took some darker purple ink and blended that around the edges of the panel before glueing it onto an A2 card base.

    Next, I used the new Sunrise Cardstock pack to pick four different colors of orange/yellow to create the layers for the Perky Bloom. This flower is so easy to assemble, and I love it in these colors! Instead of choosing large leaves to complement the flower, I chose some smaller leaves from the Tiny Tuft Flowers and Leaves die set. I cut these out of purple card stock and adhered them to the card base underneath the flower.

    The Big Hugs Vintage Sentiment is fun because you can assemble it in different ways. For my card today, I used the base layer die to cut purple card stock. I then took that base layer and die cut it with the detail layer die in order to create the purple outline. Finally, I glued that outline onto a white base layer. I stamped the subsentiment “sending” with VersaMark ink onto purple cardstock and then heat embossed it with white embossing powder. I splattered the card with white paint before adhering both of the sentiments with liquid glue.

    To finish the card, I added some purple and orange fairy jewels around the design. I hope this card brings a smile to your face! Thank you so much for joining us today.


    Supplies


    57531 Perky Bloom Contour Layers
    57547 Big Hugs Vintage Sentiment
    57501 Tiny Tuft Flowers and Leaves Contour Layers
    CL8143 Lingo Thanks clear stamp set
    SP1008 Twilight Purple 6×6 pack

    Supplies


    PP1028 Glimmering Gladiola 6×6 pack
    sp1013 Sunrise 6×6 pack
    jwl004 Autumn Fairy Jewels