This Subtles Painted Patterns Friend Card is a very easy card to make! Yesterday in my stamping newsletter, I showed a card that I planned on illustrating how you could make a quick & easy card using one of the ephemera packs at Stampin’ Up! Well, the card I made would be easy for anyone to copy, but it was one of those cards that I could not get the design to come together to my satisfaction! Many cards can be like that, but since I was trying to make a super-simple card, I was easily frustrated not getting it right in my eye!
However, THIS card came out how I expected that card for my newsletter to come out! For this card, I just chose the designer paper, the color cardstock for the card base, adhered pieces of paper and slapped on an ephemera greeting! Done! And it still looks cute!
Every year Stampin’ Up! has a 6″ x 6″ pack of designer paper with all the colors in each color family. With this catalog, those packs are all 12″ x 12″, and I love the patterns they chose! I’d like to have all the colors, but I only bought the Subtles. It’s the Subtles Painted Patterns Designer Series Paper. I really like these patterns of polka dots, little dots, lines, stripes all in a watercolored look.
For this card, I chose this pattern of Calypso Coral small dots and therefore, a Calypso Coral card base. I chose this greeting in the Sincerely Noted Ephemera Pack in the new May-August Stampin’ Up! Catalog. You get lots of different greetings in many different shapes in muted colors so you can use them in lots of ways. It is so great if you are making a card, especially a quick & easy one, if you can just grab an appropriate greeting in an ephemera pack and finish off your card with it.
After I had the dotted designer paper adhered to the card front, I pulled out the paper with the wide and narrow stripes, thinking I would put it on the left side. But on impulse, I placed it on the right side of the card and liked it. This strip is 2″ x 5 1/4″. You can choose your own measurement. Since I loved the big polka dots also, I wondered if I could use a strip of that on the card, too. I meant to adhere is a little off the left edge of the card, but forgot, and glued it in it’s “normal” place, along the left edge of the card, which was fine. I really like the three different patterns of paper on this card, and yet it was so quick and easy to do. The polka dot strip is only about 1/2″ wide.
The ephemera greeting is a lovely sentiment and is popped up on Stampin’ Dimensionals. I also added a bow, which happens to be the new Barely Blush 3/8″ Bordered Ribbon. I think it really looks good on this card with the other colors, even though it is not officially a coordinating color. I think you could easily add some iridescent gems, something clear but sparkly, to add a little bling to the card, but it isn’t necessary.
You could make several cards in this design with either the same pack of designer series paper and different patterns, or use different DSPs, then just add an ephemera greeting or quickly stamp your own, and in not much time, you’ll have a good stack of cards to keep on hand for when you need one!