Category: Flowers

  • 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

  • Bold and Bright Florals | By Natasha Vacca

    Bold and Bright Florals | By Natasha Vacca

    Hello Birch Press friends, it is design team member Natasha back on the blog today. Today I am sharing a colorful floral design with you using a few favorites from Birch Press! So let’s get started!

    I started by die cutting 3 die sets: Star Flowers Contour Layers, Rose Leaves Contour Layers, and the Peeking Flower and Leaves set. I die cut each of these sets using watercolor cardstock. Once they were die cut I added color to each of the florals and leaves using Lindy’s Magicals. I allowed each layer to dry before adding more color. I then added shine to each of the layers using gold magicals.

    I made sure each layer was completely dry, then I added more depth to each layer by adding dye ink to the edges of the leaves, as well as the floral layers. I then adhered all the layers together using liquid glue. I added foam tape behind the large leaves and then set these aside to work on my card panel background.

    I started with a piece of pattern paper from the Gladiola Plaid paper pad from Memory box. I then found 2 coordinating pieces of paper from my stash. I ripped each of these peices for a distressed look and inked the edges using Vintage Photo distress ink. I adhered the layers of pattern paper together using liquid glue and then trimmed the panel with my deckle trimmer. I inked the edges using Vintage Photo Distress ink and then adhered the panel onto a top folding card base.

    I then arranged the florals and leaves onto the card panel and once I was happy with the layout I adhered the layers using foam tape and liquid glue. I chose a Happy Birthday sentiment from the Happy Birthday Foil Greetings White Tabs set. I also inked the edge of the sentiment with Vintage Photo and then adhered this with foam tape. I had a lot of fun putting today’s card together and I hope this card inspires you to combine your die sets!

    Thank you so much for stopping by! I will be back soon with more crafty inspiration!


    Supplies


    57505 Star Flowers Contour Layers
    57522 Rose Leaves Contour Layers
    57494 Peeking Flower and Leaves Contour Layers

    Supplies


    pp1027 Gladiola Plaid 6×6 pack
    st006 Happy Birthday Foil Greetings White Tabs
  • 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

  • Sending Hugs & Smiles | by Crystal Komara

    Sending Hugs & Smiles | by Crystal Komara

    Hello crafty readers! This is Design Team member Crystal Komara here today sharing a cheerful and uplifting slimline card made using the Eloquent Butterfly Layering set:

    I chose to create a slimline card because these butterflies are decent sized and I wanted to add multiples of them to this card. Because I used a black cardstock base, I also wanted lots of color from the butterflies to really stand out against the dark base.

    The base of this slimline card measures 8 1/2 ” x 3 1/2″. It fits inside a regular #10 business sized envelope.

    I hope you have enjoyed this cheerful and uplifting card! Thanks for visiting and have a wonderfully creative day!

    Supplies

    57426 Eloquent Butterfly Layer Set

    CL8158 Brush Sentiments clear stamp set

  • 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 Vintage Sentiments with Florals |By, Natasha Vacca

    Happy Birthday Vintage Sentiments with Florals |By, Natasha Vacca

    Hello Crafty friends, it is Design Team Member Natasha Vacca here today. Today I am sharing the beautiful new Happy Birthday Vintage Sentiment die set. I paired this with the beautiful Anemone Bunches 3D embossing folder from Memory Box. So let’s get started!

    I started by creating the floral card panel using the beautiful Anemone Bunches 3D embossing folder. I ran the folder with a piece of Hammermill cardstock through my die cutting machine. Once the paper was dry embossed I started to ink the floral background card panel. I used a combination of Distress Oxide Inks, as well as some Dye Inks to color the florals, leaves, as well as the background.

    I continued to color the dry embossed background, until I had the colors and texture I was looking for. Once the background was complete, I trimmed the panel using my deckle trimmer. I then added more distressing using my distress tool and then inked the edges with Vintage Photo Distress Ink.

    Next I added splatters to the card panel using gouache from my stash. Once the splatters were dry, I adhered the panel to a top folding card base. Next I die the the sentiment – Happy Birthday Vintage Sentiment. I die cut the shadow layer using white cardstock. I then inked the shadow layer using Distress Oxide Ink. Next I die cut the Happy Birthday sentiment 3 times using a green cardstock from my stash. Before I die cut the 3rd layer, I heat embossed the panel, then die cut the sentiment from the embossed panel. I then adhered the letters together from the Happy Birthday sentiment and added the sentiment to my card front.

    I had a lot of fun creating today’s card and I hope you enjoyed it! I will be back soon!


    Supplies


    57551 Happy Birthday Vintage Sentiment

    Supplies


    ef1042 Anemone Bunches 3D Embossing Folder and Cutting Dies
  • Bold Hello | by Rosemary Dennis

    Bold Hello | by Rosemary Dennis

    Hey there! Rosemary here on the blog today and I’m sharing a card that took me way out of my comfort zone! My card uses the “blackout” technique that I have been seeing on blogs and Instagram. Full disclosure it took me quite a few times to get a panel I was happy with, but it was fun trying out this new technique.

    For this technique you start out with a panel of white (or some other light color) that you emboss with a 3d embossing folder. For my card I used the beautiful Open Studio/Memory Box Gracious Floral embossing folder. After much trial and error I settled on using white distress heavy stock cardstock. After trimming down my panel to A2 size I misted it with water, placed it in the embossing folder and then ran it through my diecutting machine. I let my panel dry thoroughly before moving on to the next step.

    For the second step in the process you apply to the debossed (or backside) of your embossed piece. As you can see I used distress inks and detail blender brushes to apply the ink. With this technique you can get fairly messy with the application of your inks because in the next step you will be engaging in what to me was the scarry part, lol!

    The scarry part is applying the black ink (the reason it is called the “blackout” technique)! I learned through trial and error, again, that you have to apply the ink with a firm swiping motion on the cardstock. If you are too timid with the application of the ink you run the risk of getting alot of black ink in places you don’t want it. Now as you can see from the photos the ink does get left in certain areas, but that is because parts of the embossed image are not as deeply embossed as others. I hope that makes sense.

    There were still spots where I did not get full coverage and for those areas I used a small black ink cube and used a corner of the cube to apply the ink. Using the corner allows you to get into those small areas without getting more ink on your image. To finish off the card I used the new Big Hello Vintage Sentiment die set and a sentiment from the Crystal Lingo stamp set. I die cut the bottom layer of the Big Hello Vintage sentiment from heavy weight vellum and the top from Memory Box glossy black cardstock. I used liquid adhesive was used to adhere the pieces together and to the front of the panel. I heat embossed the sentiment in black on vellum, die cut it and adhered it with rolled up medium sized glue dots.

    Overall, I’m pretty happy with how my blackout panel turned out. It got me out of my comfort zone and trying something new. Was it perfect? No, but that is okay because this is a handmade card after all! Thanks for stopping by and have a wonderful day!

    Supplies

    57549 Big Hello Vintage Sentiment

    8155 Crystal Lingo clear stamp and die set

    EF1026 Gracious Floral 3D Embossing Folder and Die

  • 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

  • Let’s Create ATC’s |By, Natasha Vacca

    Let’s Create ATC’s |By, Natasha Vacca

    Hello Birch Press Friends, it is Design Team member Natasha here today! Today I am sharing ATC’s – Artist Trading Cards! I had a lot of fun creating these, so let’s get started!

    For today’s project I started by creating the background for my ATC’s using the Anenome Bunches Embossing Folder. I used the folder on my gelli plate to create the background. The background was created using acrylic paint and a dry embossed panel using the embossing folder. I just love the texture this provides and it gives you another idea and way to use your folders!

    I trimmed down the panel I created into 2 ATC size pieces. Next I took a piece of scrap paper I had saved from the Magnolia Grove Paper pad. I used my fingers to tear the paper. I love the distressed look this gives! I then adhered this to my ATC panel and added splatters to the background using black and gold ink. I then inked the edges of each panel with a dye ink. I then set these aside.

    Next I started to work on my flowers using the Prime Peony Duo Contour Layers die. I die cut the flowers and stems using the Greenery and Blush Paper Pads from Memory Box. Once these were die cut I used dye inks in my stash to add more depth to each die cut. On the center of the flower I heat embossed this piece using gold embossing powder. Once everything was inked, I adhered all the layers together using liquid glue. I completed the ATC’s with Birthday Sentiments from the Happy Birthday Foil Greetings Black Tabs set. I love these foiled sentiment strips!

    Thank you so much for stopping by today! I will be back soon with more crafty inspiration!


    Supplies


    57504 Prime Peony Duo Contour Layers

    Supplies


    st007 Happy Birthday Foil Greetings Black Tabs
    pp1022 Magnolia Grove 6×6 pack
    sp1012 Blush 6×6 pack
    sp1011 Leafy 6×6 pack