Hello there!
It's the first release of the new year at The Greetery! Welcome to day 1 of preview for the Nature Lovers Collection! There are some LOVE-ly things in this collection (see what I did there?....since there are lots of Valentine-y things coming out....!) and I can't wait to show you! The photo above, is a little preview of what I've made to share with you today, so let's dive right in, shall we?
Lots of the products in this release, work beautifully together (as is typical of everything at The Greetery!), which makes it so easy to mix and match them for virtually endless creative possibilities!
For this first card, I started out by die cutting and stamping lots of those cute heart wreaths from the new Mini Boxwood Heart stamp set and die, and layering them on a red card stock panel, to create my background pattern. Inside the hearts, I stamped some of the small sentiments from the Mini Boxwood Heart stamp set.
PRO TIP: You can approach a background pattern like this in a few different ways. You could put the hearts on the red background and simply trim them off around the edges, and then layer it on your white card base. OR, for a fun twist, you can trim off the edges, and then adhere those bits to the card base before popping the red panel on the front with foam adhesive. This gives the background some extra dimension and a bit of added interest. It makes the recipient stop and think, "How'd she do that?! The pattern is continued on two levels!"
I die cut the word "love" with the new Let's Have a Word: Love die, and popped it on a strip of card stock that matches the pink ink.
PRO TIP: I could have just added the word "love" without the strip of card stock behind it, but it got a bit lost in the busy-ness of the heart behind it. Adding the strip of card stock provides some separation between the word and the background, thus making the word a little easier to read. This way, it can really shine! It doesn't even need to be exactly as tall as the die cut word.....just tall enough to help the word be read a bit easier.
I'll be sharing a little video of this PRO TIP on my Instagram Stories today, so head over there to see this tip in action!
Notice the left side of the card? You can really see how that background pattern is continued from the red, popped-up layer, down to the card base behind it.
{Love supplies -- click on thumbnails}
Ok, so I've used lots of new goodies on this card, starting with the new Boxwood Heart Details and Boxwood Heart Base dies, to create that lovely layered wreath! And I've got a tip for how you can add multiple colors to your wreath, like I did here, in a snap!
PRO TIP: The Boxwood Heart Details dies come in a set of separate little branch dies, so that you can layer them as you see here, to get a really textured, layered look to your wreath. So when the dies arrived, I left them wired together. I simply cut out all the layers from white card stock, with one pass through my die cut machine. Then, I left them all in the negative card stock I'd just cut them from, and simply blended on two different greens in stripes across the entire group of die cuts. Just use your blending brush to blend on the first green in a stripe across the entire left chunk of die cuts, add another swath of that same green in a strip down the middle of the whole group of die cuts, and then blend on another stripe over on the right side of the whole group. Then, take your second color and blend on stripes between the first stripes.....again, they're all still in the blob just as they came out of the die cutting machine. Blend the ink over the whole group! THEN, when you've got color on all of them, pop them out of the negative card stock and the result is a lovely variegated wreath with shading and dimension! And the coloring was done in literally a minute!
In the center of the wreath, I stamped the "love" from the new Love Is stamp set, as well as the "you". For a fun dimensional twist, I stamped that LOVE twice -- once on the kraft panel, and once lined up directly behind it on the white card base. That way, the tails of the word show on the base, sticking out on either side of the kraft layer.
I also stamped a sentiment from the new Love Song Sentiments set, on a piece of aqua card stock, and added it just below the wreath.
I added a die cut LOVE on top but slight off-set from the LOVE I stamped on the kraft layer!
PRO TIP: Stamping the word behind the matching die cut, creates a shadow effect!
I finished this one off, by adding some enamel dots to the wreath, to serve as berries. I wanted to keep it fresh and a bit wintery, but you could easily swap those out for red berries, for more of a Christmas-y look!
{Love You supplies}
Ok, one more for you today!
This one features the new Wood Slice Hearts dies. How sweet are these?! I can see layering these behind lots of things!
I die cut my hearts from white card stock, and then blended ink on them with my ink blender brushes. It's such a fast way to add color to your die cuts. I did a dark brown on the back layer, and a lighter tan color for the top layer. I topped them with a branch and bird, and then added another of the sentiments from the new Love Song Sentiments stamp set! (I love this one!)
I accented the sentiment with a few branches and a heart, also from Love Song Sentiments, stamped directly on the card base.
{I Found The One supplies}
You'll find lots more inspiration over at The Greetery Blog today, and you can also visit my friends on the Design Team for even more projects to inspire you!
Thanks so much for spending a bit of your day with me! I appreciate you being here!
OH! There's a $50 Greetery gift card giveaway today! All you need to do to be entered to win, is leave a comment here on my blog! Tell me anything! Favorite product so far? Favorite project from today's post? When was the last time you made something with paper? Whatever you want....hope you're the winner!!
I'll be back tomorrow with more to share! I hope you'll join me!
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