In the middle of thinking about and making Father's Day cards, I realized I also needed to be thinking about my oldest daughter's birthday card! The idea for my card came from a June card class by the Stampin' Up duo, Luci Kirschbaum & Dar Peterson. We learned to make two cards in one by die-cutting a lacey floral die out of white cardstock to use as a stencil on white card front panel, creating a negative inked floral bouquet. We were to use our blender brushes to ink and colorize our blossoms with three lovely ink colors, but I decided to use four: Polished Pink, Orchid Oasis, Starry Night, and Parakeet Party for the leaves. What gorgeous colors these are together. Our white cardstock stencil ended up very prettily ink blended as well and became the focal die-cut for the second card. This is the version I decided to finish for my daughter!
For the card front, I adhered four 1/2" black paper strips spaced 1/2" apart and horizontally across the white cardstock front panel, starting in middle...find the white cardstock middle before starting to adhere black strips. Next, I adhered two 1/4" black strips at the top and bottom, but also left 1/2" of the white cardstock showing. I adhered this card front panel to a black mat layer with a narrow 1/8" border. I add two more base layers...the black card base and a Gorgeous Grape mat layer in the middle of the base and the card front. My inked Artistic lacy flower was adhered at this point and other finishing touches added. I was super pleased with my finished look...black and white always dresses up any card...such a classic combination!
In my search for challenges to help me with my card's design, I found 14, which are listed below:
1) F4A643 - Free 4 All Challenge/ Songs About Summer - 6/17/22. Challenge: find a song about summer and let it inspire your card. I found a fun song on the pre-school site, Milkshake..."Summer Fun...Flowers in the Garden." It's a catchy tune with a video of the singers in a bright and colorful summer garden.
2) MIX490 - Mix-ability Challenge/ The Unexpected Medium - 6/17/22. My cards focal point is a cardstock die-cut that I used as a stencil to create a negative flower image on white cardstock. The ink-stained "stencil" was too pretty to throw away, so I made a card using this piece of paper medium. Other mediums: dye-ink for ink blending and sentiment stamping; Copic markers: coloring basic rhinestones; computer-ink for inside verse; Sharpie marker for edge coloring on black stripes.
3) AOCC22 - All Occasion Card Challenge/ June 2022 - 6/1/22. An ongoing/monthly challenge that encourages you to set goals ahead for each month to help you complete and mail your cards more timely! A much needed June birthday card for my oldest daughter.
4) USEIT2022 - Use It Challenge/ June 2022 - 6/1/22. An ongoing/ annual challenge that requires you to use OLD/ DUSTY and long unused items and/or OLD/NEW items purchased, never used, and seemingly forgotten! My OLD/NEW: Artistically Inked stamps (sentiment)/ Artistic Dies. These were purchased in April 2021; it was time to open them us and use them!
5) WORD0522 - Monthly Fan Club Challenge--May 2022/ Bring May Flowers - 5/15/22. Central theme is to think florals, florals, florals. My card is for the WORD challenge for first letter elements used in the word BUDS. B=Birthday, Bling; U=uppercase letters; D=dies, dye-based ink; S=stencil (homemade), stamping.
6) MMJ422 - Messy, Mixed & Joyful/ April Prompts - 4/1/22. Choose 2 prompts to use on your card, such as stencil, anything you can smear. I've used a stencil and dye-based ink, which I've smeared with my blender brushes.
7) CAS629 - Clean & Simple Challenge/ Think Spring - 3/15/21. Challenge: Create spring...flowers, colors, anything spring! My card shows beautiful spring flowers that might be seen every spring in my daughter's beautiful garden.
IC793 - Inspiration Challenge/ The Happy Housie - 2/13/21. I found this DIY project on making a black & white table runner...great inspiration for my card's front stripe: DIY Black & White Table Runner!
9) FS707 - Featured Stamper/ She's Arizona Maine - 8/23/20. I found this stripe BG inspiration that I love...classic B&W! It definitely confirmed I wanted black & white stripes in the background!IC757 Sending Love! Of course, I kept the B&W stripe background, but changed the stripes to a definite uniform geometric look. Kept the flower idea, but changed it to a multi-color, lacy, blended ink die-cut. Sentiment a strip rather than a framed circle.
10) MMTPT620 - Teapot Challenge/ Pink & Purple Flowers - 5/26/20. Challenge: Use pink and/or purple on your card. My card uses bright pink and blue-violet purple for its colorful flowers.
11) SC767 - Sketch Challenge/ 9/18/19. Sketch Tweak: Card design switched to a vertical card rather than horizontal. Strips are two colors...black and white, rather than three. Center rectangle is represented by my floral, ink-blended die-cut.
12) WT738 - Ways to Use It Challenge/ Stencils - 5/2/19. Challenge: use a stencil on your card. My floral focal piece was a cardstock die-cut stencil I used to ink-blend and create a negative floral piece onto white cardstock for another card. I am recycling my inked cardstock stencil for this card.
13) ABC11I9 - Alphabet Challenge/ Letter I - 5/1/19. Challenge: show on your card any item that starts with letter of the week. My letter I = Ink-Blending for the technique used on my floral die-cut.
14) TLC715 - Technique Lover's Challenge/ EOINA: Stenciling - 11/5/18. Challenge: Any stencil technique. I made a white cardstock die-cut floral stencil and used it to blender brush its floral pattern onto another piece of white cardstock. The focal floral is the ink blender brushed flowers that was used as my stencil for the other card. The end result of this technique is that you can make two cards with one blender brush inking!
Registered: February 19, 2011 Location: Fullerton, CA Posts: 9499
Thu, Jul 07, 2022 @ 10:35 AM
I love the bit of drama that bold B&W stripes add to a card and they work wonderfully on this one. Those flowers are beautiful -- would love to see the card you made from the stencil too -- and that small tab with the nailheads adds a great finishing touch. Sure your daughter will adore this paper garden. Great card.
Splitcoast Dirty Dozen Splitcoast Challenge Host Proud Fan Club Member
Registered: April 11, 2016 Location: Posts: 27854
Sat, Jul 16, 2022 @ 5:15 AM
Love the bright flowers on the striped BG. Such a striking card. Happy day
------------------------------ The Difference Between Try and Triumph Is Just A Little Ump Wednesday: Alpha Challenge
Thursday: Ways To Use It Challenge
Monthly: MMJ Challenge….get inky and have fun
IC793 - Inspiration Challenge/ The Happy Housie - 2/13/21. I found this DIY project on making a black & white table runner...great inspiration for my card's front stripe: 
