Hey, y’all! Stephanie Vittorio here again from Coffee Stamps Chaos with a fun set of cards to make this month using stencils to emboss card stock.
We are going to create a set of cards that can be gifted or kept and used for your own personal use. I personally think this would make a great gift for someone who perhaps isn't able to get out and visit their loved ones or needs their spirit lifted during these unprecedented times. Who doesn’t love to receive happy mail?
I have a massive stash of sentiment dies, and they seem to be multiplying, but I haven’t used all of them. So this is a great project to get you using supplies you likely have on hand if you’ve got a craft space or you’re like me and you hoard all the things. I seem to always lean toward sentiments over shapes in general because the perfect sentiment is necessary for the perfect card, am I right? In any case, I don’t feel like it’s possible to have too many dies, card stock or really any craft supplies.
For this project you will need the following supplies:
- Cardstock Warehouse Cardstock Papers
- Sirio Ultra Black
- Bianco Pergamenata Parchment
- White Birch Wood Veneer
- Black MirriSparkle Glitter
- Slate Colorplan
- Barely Pink
- Starch White Speckletone
- Berrylicious Pop-Tone
- Paper Cutter
- Die cutting machine with an Embossing Mat
- Stencils (of your choice) - I used the following:
- Gina Marie Designs Stencils
- Slanted Bricks
- Boho Arrow Tails
- Fossilized
- Flower Swirls & Leaves
- Sentiment dies of your choice
- Adhesives
I start my projects by preparing my card stock. I choose my card bases and cut them to size depending on the orientation I want to use - for this project I did vertical card bases, so I cut my card stock in half long ways at 4 ¼ by 11. To do a horizontal card base, you’ll cut it at 5 ½ and score at 4 ¼”
EMBOSSING USING STENCILS
To emboss using stencils, I layer on my die cutting machine in the following order from bottom to top: embossing mat, scrap paper (will help add extra dimension to your final product), card stock you want to emboss, stencil, then top with the embossing plate. Crank away, and when you take it out you will have an embossed panel! See! Easy peasy! This gives new life to stencils!
DIE CUTTING SENTIMENTS
Next, I die cut each sentiment in Black MirriSparkle. I always take a black marker to the edges of my die cuts if they have white backing so it won’t show. To give my sentiments more dimension, I die cut each sentiment 2x in Sirio Ultra Black and adhere them to the back of the Black Sparkle sentiments. You can skip this step if you like a flatter look.
DIE CUTTING PANELS
Now you need to cut down your pieces to assemble your cards. I trimmed my embossed pieces to 3.75"x5" and my mats to 4"x5.25" so I can layer them on my A2 size cards. (A2= 4.25'x5.5") You can do this with rectangle dies, or just a paper cutter. Adhere these layers together in the color combos of your choice.
Next, adhere your sentiments to your Pergamenata Parchment using a glue pen or liquid glue - press and hold for about 5-10 seconds to ensure adhesion.
Then tear (or cut) the parchment into the shape you want for your card.
Put foam tape on the backs of your main panels and adhere them to your card bases. Then glue parchment/sentiment layers to the fronts of your cards.
ADVICE CENTER
- I get two standard card bases per sheet of card stock, regardless of orientation
- For layering purposes, I generally take one sheet of each color of Cardstock that I’m not using for card bases and cut it into quarters, ending with 4 ¼ x 5 ½ panels
- any excess panels can be stored in a basket and used for future projects - this is how I store cut Cardstock.
- I stick to 8 ½ x 11 Cardstock since most cards I make are A2 - 4 ¼” x 5 ½”.
- Stencils store easily in 6x6 scrapbook sleeves and this makes seeing them much easier! I put a simple sheet of printer paper in between mine so I can store two per sleeve.
- I also label my stencils and die sets so I know which company they are from.
- Label all the things! 😉
Thank you for joining me today for this fun project!
I hope you enjoyed this tutorial and I hope you will share your creations using Cardstock warehouse papers with us so we can oooohhh and aweeee over your projects!
You may even be featured on the Cardstock Warehouse social media platforms. You can use the hashtags #cardstockwarehouse & #makesomethingbeautiful for a chance to be featured on our Instagram and Facebook pages!
If you’d like to, you can follow me on social media to see what I’ll make next at the links below my name. I would love to see what you create! I love to support and encourage other crafters!
Make Something Beautiful!™
Sincerely,
Stephanie Vittorio
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