Cards for Friends

Hello everyone!  My blog is being a bit neglected right now while I am taking a class.  I got way more than I bargained for and spend several hours a day and pretty much my entire weekends doing my homework.  I think in the end that I will be happy I took this class, but it's keeping me so busy I have not had as much time to spend making cards and participating in challenges.  I am taking a break this morning long enough to write this post.  I'm also hoping to have a few more in the next 3 or 4 days.

Today's card is for a challenge that is new to me called CAS-ual Fridays. CAS-ual Fridays is another stamp company.  I don't have any of their products but by participating in their challenges I have a chance to win some.  I have seen quite a few of their products that I would like to have. This week's challenge is to make a card for a friend. This card was made to send to one of my best friends in Texas. I have learned to love stamping but I still like an occasional card made using only die cuts which is what I did here. Once the die cutting is done you can get right to assembly.

I have these pretty coordinating papers and I wanted to use them together to create a card.  The papers all come from a collection from Hobby Lobby's Paper Studio Line called "Mint To Be Fab". Half of the papers in this pack have gold foiling on them and ya'll know how much I love my Gold. The papers are done in shades of peach and mint for the most part although there are several black and white patterns that will work well for masculine cards.

I started my card by making a top folding card base from Stamper's Select White Cardstock.  I used a variety of dies to create my card starting with MFT's Blueprints 15 for the background Stitched Rectangle Panel.  The vertical piece was die cut using MFT's Horizontal Stitched Strips, matted with a thin Gold Foiled Border, and the banners were cut using the Tag Sale: Quilted Die from Papertrey Ink. I cut about half of the banner 6 times so all of the gold triangles were facing the same direction.

To keep everything simple, I used a Prima Hydrangea Flower with a little jewel added to the center and die cut the Simon Says Stamp Smile Circle Die.  I really wanted a vertical word but I don't have any.  In fact, I don't remember seeing any so I'm thinking I need to design a few.

This card was originally made for The Challenge Sketch this week but The Challenge has come to an end for now. Lesley has a new baby girl and is finding it impossible to keep running The Challenge while being a new mom.  Family comes before everything else and she'll still be doing her Sugar Pea and Verve Design Teams. I'm also not doing much linking to products at this time but will get back to it as soon as I possibly can.  In the interim, there are links in my sidebar to Simon Says Stamp, Papertrey Ink, Altenew and Concord & 9th.  For now, I better get back to my homework.  I'm hoping to have a new card for tomorrow as well!

Thank you so much for stopping by today.  Please bear with me while I am taking this class.  It will be finishing up in about 1 month.