It's a very rare occurrence, but I didn't make a single card in August. The cards I posted were all made in July before we left on our vacation. So when I sat down on Thursday to made a couple September birthday cards, it had been awhile. Luckily, I won a $25 gift certificate to Papertrey Ink during their Stamp-a-Faire event, so I had ordered the new Mini Market Kit: Color Pop Autumn which arrived just before we left.
When I was making the first of the birthday cards, I felt it needed just something extra, so I tried a technique I saw recently on Jennifer McGuire's blog using die cuts as embossing plates. It worked beautifully and I was very happy with the results. The card itself, however, is too busy for the CASology challenge which focuses on very clean and simple, so I made a second card for the challenge with the same technique, but no patterned paper.
Here's the first card:
And a closer view, since the light was better when the card was laying flat.
Everything for the card except the gingham patterned paper (My Favorite Things) came from the Color Pop Autumn kit. I added a few rainstones at the end as well. I love the preprinted die cuts which come with these kits which make for some quick and easy cards.
Here's the card for the challenge. Everything in this card came from the kit.
The stitched edge is embossed with Simon Says Stitched Rectangle dies which I used twice on the first card---to cut the patterned paper and then emboss the edge of the card.
And finally, the other birthday card I needed. For this one, I cased Betsy Veldman's card when she used one of the patterned papers from the kit and just stamped the outline images.
No stitched embossing on this one, although in retrospect I think it could have used it.
It's a holiday weekend here, and we have a few plans, but mostly a lot of free time and a long list of projects to work on. Hope your weekend is going well.
