Designer Showcase

Hi everyone! I am really excited to share another project with you this week. Shellie and Mary-Ann are taking a little break from designing for the next few weeks so I’m going to try and fill in. I know…it’s a tough job having to ‘play’ with these great new products but somebody has to do it. LOL!

All kidding aside, the new Spellbinders Fair Isle Pendant and Borderabilities sets have been calling to me ever since they arrived so I decided to make a card and coordinating box for an upcoming birthday with them. They were great fun to work with and the whole project went together really easily.

I started by selecting some papers from the K & Company Madeline paper pad. I like the vintage look and soft colors in these designs so I had six coordinated papers selected in no time at all. My next choice was our new 100 lb. smooth white cardstock for the box and card base. This cardstock is sturdy enough to hold up to lots of layering without loosing it’s shape. Perfect for this card because of the large center embellishment.

To accommodate the  borders that I wanted to add and the Fair Isle ‘flower’ I made the card 5 1/2″ x 5 1/2″ . The box is 6″ x 6″ and 1 1/4″ deep so the ‘flower’ sits in it nicely. All you need to make the box top and base are two sheets of 8 1/2″ x 11″  100 lb cardstock.  Scoring the ‘flower’ and  the box were done with my Scor Pal. It’s a must have for any project like this as it gives a nice crisp score line and makes precise folding so much easier.

The borders on the card front were made with the Fair Isle Borderabilities. I die cut two border strips and then cut them in half and attached them to the back of the green patterned paper. The main flower was made with two of the Fair Isle Pendants and a little fancy scoring and folding. For a finishing touch I added pearls in the corners and center, they always seem to go so well with this type of project.

Then it was on to the box. The base and top were assembled from the white cardstock. Then I cut strips of pink and brown patterned paper and used my Fiskars Threading Water Border punch to create a scalloped edge along one side.  Scor Tape was used to adhere the side pieces first, then the large piece of patterned paper on top and then the brown border strips. I finished by adding four corner pieces (the smallest accent from the Fair Isle Pendant set) with foam dots and a plum pearl accent.

All I have to do now is figure out what to write on the inside of the card (that’s always the hardest part for me), tuck in a gift certificate and deliver it on the special day.

Hope you enjoyed this little project. Thanks for stopping by and have a wonderfully creative week!

Products Used :

• Studio K Ultra Smooth 100lb Cardstock  – White
• K & Company Madeline Paper Pad
• Spellbinders Fair Isle Pendants S4-270
• Spellbinders Fair Isle Borderabilities S4-244
• Fiskars Threading Water Border Punch
• Pearls – Champagne & Plum

One of the items we have in our Hot Deals this week is the Windsor 8″ x 8″ paper pad from SEI so I thought it would be fun to show you some easy and elegant cards that you can make with these lovely papers. The designs have a somewhat formal feel and would lend themselves really well to invitations, birthday,  masculine, anniversary or condolence cards. And of course they would be fantastic for vintage or family scrapbook pages.

This paper pad includes 48 papers total (two of each design or color). There are 16 sheets of patterned papers with foil accents, 16 sheets of coordinating patterned papers and 16 sheets of canvas textured cardstock with a white core. I like the white core because you can emboss and then sand them to give more dimension.

All the cards started with an ivory cardstock for the actual card base and then I used only cardstock and papers from the paper pad to create the top layers and embellishments. This made it really easy to select designs that went together.

To make things even simpler I used the same Spellbinders Nestabilities and  Just Rite Stamper set to create all the cards. By switching up the patterned papers, the card orientation and the basic design elements I was able to create these cards in no time at all.

Some finishing touches were add using some of our new 5/8″ ivory taffeta ribbon and beautiful deep yellow pearls. And, I just couldn’t resist adding of die cut flourishes.

A set of these cards would make a great gift for someone or you could have them ready in your own stash for when you need a card in a hurry.

Hope this gives you a litle inspiration.

Products Used:

• Windsor 8″ x 8″ paper pad
• Spellbinders Nestabilities S4-248 – Labels Thirteen
• Spellbinders Nestabilities S4-116 – Small Standard Circles
• Spellbinders Nestabilities S4-114 – Large Standar Circles
• Just Rite ‘Just A Note’ Set – 1 5/8″
• Fiskars Border Punch – Sunburst
• Fiskars Border Punch – Diamond
• Bosskut Dies – #0980 Flourish & #0736 Flourish II
• StazOn Timber Brown ink pad
• May Arts 5/8″ ivory taffeta ribbon
• Pearls – Yellow #SB797