Hello crafty readers! This is Design Team member Crystal Komara here to inspire you today with a birthday card using a lot of texture from glitter paper to alcohol inks. It’s also in my favorite color – blue! And. . . it sparkles!
The base of this A2 size card is made from 80 lb. Neenah Solar White Smooth cardstock. Using Plate A only from the Viola Layering Plates, I cut this background from white cardstock and adhered it directly to the card base. ( I actually cut two of these backgrounds, so that I could fussy cut some of the flowers to add to the balloons). Using Layer Plate C of the Floral Balloons I cut two balloons. The first was from silver glitter paper and the second was from a little scrap piece of an alcohol ink background that just happened to coordinate!
I fussy cut two of the flowers from the Viola Layering Plate A and adhered them to each balloon. I adhered each balloon to the card using 3M foam adhesive for added dimension.
I die cut the sentiment using the Make a Wish Sugar Script die. I die cut the bottom layer from blue glitter cardstock and the top layer from white cardstock. I adhered the two layers together with a fine-tip liquid adhesive. Lastly, I adhered the entire sentiment to the card using 3M foam adhesive for added dimension.
I hope you like today’s card! Thanks for visiting and have a wonderfully creative day!
Hello, Birch Press friends! Today, I am sharing a Father’s Day card using the predictable plaid paper but adding in some unexpected floral elements. I admit that, when it comes to making masculine cards, I almost always reach for plaid paper. In my defense, I love plaid, too! Especially when it’s part of a plaid paper pad from Memory Box. I decided to add in some non-traditional elements to this card by adding florals and a heart. After all, men like flowers, too! My husband and his father are avid gardeners. Without him, my yard would be full of plastic plants because this girl does not have a green thumb!
I started my card by picking out my plaid paper. This particular piece is from the Woodsy Plaid paper pad, which I don’t think is available anymore. But, Memory Box always has some great plaid pads every season, so there is plenty to choose from. I trimmed that plaid paper down to 4″ x 5.25″, and then I used one of the dies from the Banner Heart Layer Set to cut the heart out. Any of the layers would work, since you’re just cutting the outline of the heart out. I then popped this plaid panel up on foam tape and attached it to a white panel before adhering it to my dark gray card base.
Next, I went through my stash of floral dies to find the perfect ones that would frame the heart opening. I chose the Sylvan Berries and Leaves Contour Layers set. I cut the berries out of two shades of purple card stock, and I cut the leaves/stems from two shades of green card stock. I assembled all of the pieces with liquid glue.
For my sentiment, I cut the Love Honey Script from black glossy card stock. I cut two additional layers out of white card stock to layer behind the black one in order to give it more dimension and stability. I left enough room between the outline of the heart and the foam tape so that I could tuck the ends of the stems behind the opening. I added liquid glue in some strategic spots so that I could also have some of the leaves and berries loose and dimensional. I added small pieces of foam behind various spots of the “love” sentiment and glued the rest of it to the plaid panel. I stamped the “you, dad” subsentiment from my stash and added that to the panel, as well. The original stamp says “I love you, dad” – I just masked off the beginning of it when I stamped it.
To finish the card, I added some clear fairy drops around the floral elements. I hope this card puts a smile on your face and inspires you to perhaps start adding florals to your masculine cards, too! Thank you so much for joining us today.
Hello, Birch Press fans! Toni here with you today sharing a rather tranquil thank you card. Such a calming, spa-like color palette, don’t you agree? I don’t use a lot of blues but, man, this combo is one I love.
I started the card by cutting out the BPD Dazzle Mini Frame Layer A in a sturdy white cardstock and adhering it to a linen textured card front.
I cut the Sylvan Berries & Leaves as well as the Jovial Blooms & Leaves Contour Layers out of Memory Box Stormy Blue 6×6 Paper and kraft cardstocks.
For the sentiment, I used the Thank You Noted Script Hot Foil Plate & Die with Spellbinders White Glimmer Hot Foil. It’s very subtle, both in coloring and nestled amongst the leaves.
I hope you enjoyed today’s card and have a great rest of your week!
Hello Birch Press friends, it is Natasha here today and I am sharing a colorful celebration card using the beautiful Eloquent Butterfly layer dies! I had a lot of fun creating today’s card, so let’s get started!
I started by cutting out each layer of the Eloquent Butterfly die set. I started with layer C using a piece of card stock from my scrap bin. Once the layer was die cut, I added a pink spray to the butterflies for added texture. Then I die cut layer B using the Memory Box Fresh Aqua paper pad. I chose an aqua shade of card stock from the pack. I added a blue and pink dye ink to each butterfly, spritzed with water, then added gold metallic watercolor splatters. I then die cut layer A using white card stock. I then added distress oxide ink, embossing powder, glaze, and foil to the top layer for added texture and interest.
I then adhered each layer together using liquid glue. I then die cut the antennae for the butterfly using the Butterfly Basics die set. I die cut 2 antennae using the Memory Box Vintage Pastel Mirror pad. I then adhered these using liquid glue. I set my butterflies aside to create my background.
For the background I chose a colorful gelli print from my background stash. I then ran this through my die cutting machine with the Memory Box Ringadings embossing folder. I added some gray dye ink to the folder as well to add texture to the dry embossed background. Next I trimmed the panel with my deckle edge trimmer, distressed the edges of the panel, and then added distress ink around the edges for more interest. I then adhered this panel to an A2 card base.
To complete my card I adhered the butterflies to the card front, then chose a sentiment strip from my stash to complete my card. I had a lot of fun creating this colorful celebration! I hope you enjoyed it too! I will be back soon with more crafty inspiration!
Hello, Birch Press fans! Toni here with you today sharing a card suitable for a patriotic birthday (in the US), congratulations, retirement or even an invitation to a Memorial Day BBQ.
This card was so easy and fun to make. Who doesn’t like spattering and shiny things?
I started the card by cutting out the Piped Icing Star from a blue cardstock which I had embossed with a simple linen-type pattern. I then spattered the surface with Copic Opaque White (for stars or confetti).
Next I cut out a Linear Triangle in white which I positioned so that it created a striped background for the red foil cardstock beneath to peek through.
My final touches included adding the Let’s Party Sugar Script sentiment and a sprinkling of shiny star sequins.
I hope you enjoyed today’s card and have a great rest of your week!
Hello crafty readers! This is Design Team member Crystal Komara here with you today and I’m really excited to share my card with you because it’s one of my favorite color palettes! First, let’s take a look at the inspiration for today’s birthday card:
Yes! My color inspiration came from a Pinterest photo from an architectural website. Kind of wild, right? What I liked about this photo was that these are colors I would not normally have considered ever putting together, and yet they work beautifully! Now, while I don’t want these colors in MY house (hello, neutrals girl here!) I found they worked well for a card.
Card details:
The base of this A2 sized card is made from 80 lb. Neenah Solar White Smooth. I also cut a 5 1/4″ x 4″ piece of the same white cardstock to be used as the first base layer. Using all three layers (A, B, and C) of the Floral Balloon Layer Set, I die cut four of every balloon in teal green, min green, light pink, gold glitter and magenta pink cardstock. (I really didn’t know how many balloon pieces I would need, so this gave me plenty to mix and match!) I really could have made two cards with all the pieces I had leftover.
I then began to play around and see what colors I liked layered over each other. I also toyed around with the balloon placement on the card. There was no real method to my madness, I simply kept rearranging until I found a layout that was pleasing to my eye.
Using the Make a Wish Sugar Script word die, I cut the thicker shadow portion from darker pink cardstock and the thinner top portion from white cardstock. I layered the two together with a fine tip liquid glue and then used 3M foam adhesive behind to sentiment to adhere it to the card with added dimension.
I hope today’s post inspires YOU to find inspiration from the world around you! Thanks for visiting and have a wonderfully creative day!
Hello, Birch Press friends! Today, I am sharing a couple different methods that will enable you to stretch the use of your dies. You can use each method separately, or you can do what I did, and use them both on the same card. The best part is that it results in a bonus card! You can’t beat a 2 for 1 technique, right? All you need to get started is a background die. My cards feature the Flora Plate Layer Set.
The first thing that I did was to use Plate C from the Flora Plate Layer set to emboss a piece of lavender card stock. It’s really easy to emboss your card stock with a die instead of cut it – you just need the rubber embossing mat and embossing plate for your die cutting machine. You place your card stock on top of the rubber mat and then place your die on top, cutting side down. It’s a really fun way of creating texture on your card stock.
Embossing with a die is the first way I stretched the use of my Flora plate. The next method is just as easy. Simply cut a piece of white card stock using the die in the traditional way and then use it as a stencil! Specifically, I used it as a stencil to color the embossed panel that I created with the first method. I just put the white die cut panel on top of the lavender embossed panel and secured it with tape in a couple places so it wouldn’t move. It’s really easy to line up the die cut pattern with the embossed pattern, since they’re the exact same. I used two shades of purple to ink blend over my “stencil,” going from a lighter color in one corner to a darker color in the other corner. Once I was finished, I used a purple alcohol marker to color the center of each embossed flower on the panel. I also added a dot of white gel pen to enhance the dotted pattern around each flower
To decorate the front of this card, I created three flowers using the Phlox Blooms and Leaves Contour Layers set and the same lavender card stock that I created my panel with. I inked up the edges of the flowers and the flower interiors with the same two colors of ink that I used to stencil the background. For my sentiment, I foiled the “You Are Loved” hot foil plate with purple foil. I added a clear fairy drop to the center of each flower.
Instead of discarding the panel that I had used as a stencil, I used it to make a bonus card. I used my purple inks to smooth out the ink blending that I had already done when I used it as a stencil. I adhered the panel to a white card base and then hot foiled another sentiment. This time, I used the Hello Sugar Script hot foil plate and die, along with silver hot foil. Once I hot foiled the sentiment onto white card stock, I then took the foil remnant and hot foiled that using a solid hot foil plate. That is why the silver foil is on the outside, and the word itself is white. I added a sub-sentiment from my stash.
To finish my bonus card, I added a clear fairy jewel to the center of each flower on the panel. Just to recap – the purple die cut panel on the top card in the image above was used to stencil the embossed panel on the card pictured behind it. I love how these turned out, and I hope they put a smile on your face. Thank you so much for joining us today!
Hello everyone! I have a soft pastel card to share today that I created with glitter papers from the Memory Box Delicate Pastel Glitter pad and many different Birch Press Design dies. Let’s get started!
Birch Press Designs has so many wonderful layering dies and I just love going through them and finding ones that can also be used for embossing. As I was working on my idea for the card I flipped through my dies and came across the Arista layering set. I took one look at Layer B and knew immediately that I wanted to use it to emboss the background. I just love all the detail that is embossed into the background. (The embossing sandwich that works for me is my the diecutting platform, one cutting plate, a tan embossing mat, cardstock and die with the cutting side placed against the mat and a few cardstock shims.) I also knew that I wanted to use the Mixed Berry Contour Layers dies and the Simple Dragonfly Contour Layers. The Phlox Blooms and Leaves Contour Layers are so pretty and work wonderfully with the other dies.
I die cut the flowers and leaves using white cardstock for the bases and then a sugary pink from the Delicate Pastel Glitter pad to the top layer. A pretty yellow from the pad was used for the flower centers. The glitter portion of the leaves were die cut from a light yellowy-green and layered on. I used yellow for the berry stems and a lighter pink for the berries. The above photo shows the general idea of the layout.
The base of the dragonflies were die cut from white and the layers from glitter papers. Going to be honest and tell you that when I started to put the dragonflies I got confused as to what layers went where. I got a bit frustrated with myself, but eventually I got them put together correctly. I used pink glitter paper for the small dragonflies and the larger one is a pretty light peach color. I used a sentiment from the beautiful Kind Hearts stamp set. It was heat embossed on vellum using silver embossing powder so it was stand out against all that white.
I cut the vellum into a strip and then wrapped part of it behind my panel and secured it with liquid adhesive. After that side had dried I secured the other side with liquid adhesive, as well. Then I started adding all the flowers, leaves and berry stems. The large flowers were popped up with thin foam squares. Everything else was adhered with liquid adhesive making it easy to tuck them into place. I finished with the dragonflies.
If you have yet, I hope you will look through your Birch Press Design layering dies and find ones that can be used to emboss the background of your projects. I think you will just love the look! Thanks for stopping by!
Hello crafty readers! This is Design Team member Crystal Komara here with you today sharing an idea for some CAS (Clean And Simple) quick and easy masculine cards. I don’t make masculine themed cards often, but it is always nice to have them on hand. By using a beautiful pack of paper and some shadow word dies, these five cards came together all in about half an hour!
Card details:
The base of these A2 cards is made from 80 lb. Neenah Solar White Smooth cardstock. I cut 5 1’4″ x 4″ pieces of foil plaid paper and then cut 1/2 from the center of each card. I adhered the plaid paper to the top and bottom halves of each card leaving some white space in between for the sentiment. (*Side note – unfortunately this exact pack of paper I used from Memory Box Co. is no longer available, but you can view other beautiful packs of paper from the same company here). Memory Box Co. is a sister company of Birch Press Design.
I used a variety of sentiments to make these cards work from all occasions like hello and thanks. This card is so simple and basic that you could use any style of patterned paper and any sentiments. Plus, they’re so quick and easy you’ll have a batch of cards in no time.
Thanks for following along and have a wonderfully creative day!
Hello, Birch Press fans! Toni here with you today sharing a simple thank you card using one of my favorite colors combos, aqua blue and kraft.
I cut out the Wispy Blooms as well as the Sylvan Berries and Leaves Contour Layers in white and kraft.
I then sponged the Wispy Blooms and the Simple Butterfly with just a touch of Distress Oxide Peacock Feathers (I think Salvaged Patina is a great substitute).
I stamped the Kind Hearts sentiment in black then framed it with the greenery (blue-ery?).
I added a few stems from the Sprouting Crocus Contour Layers in kraft to fill in a bit.
I hope you enjoyed today’s card and have a great rest of your week!
