First Class

Well, hello! I've been taking a little break from card making the last couple of weeks (just because I felt like doing other things) so I haven't had much to post on my blog. But today I'm going to share four cards made with the First Class stamps and dies from Ellen Hutson.

This stamp set includes a variety of images and sentiments that look like postage stamps. I stamped and die cut each image twice and colored them with alcohol markers, using the same color markers for all the images so they were easy to mix and match. I also used a casual, scribbly style to color so I didn't have to worry about them looking perfect. Then I divided up the colored images to make four cards.

The first two cards are birthday cards with the same layout. I embossed panels of colored card stock for the backgrounds, splattered them with gold paint, and adhered them to white card bases. I glued five of the postage stamp images onto the embossed card stock and used foam tape to add the "Happy Birthday" stamp in the center. For embellishment, I added a linen thread bow at the top of each card and finished with a few gold sequins.

This card also has a layout similar to the previous two. It has a horizontal orientation rather than vertical, but I used an embossed background and five images. I didn't add gold splatter to the background, but I did rub a watermark ink pad over the embossing to help the raised parts stand out. It's hard to see in the photo, but there is some looped gold thread behind the images near the upper left corner.

For the last card I used a map embossing folder for the background. Again I rubbed a watermark ink pad over the embossing. I wrapped some black-and-white baker's twine around the card front and, using foam tape, I added four of the images in a grid pattern. I finished the card with a few clear droplets.

Thanks for stopping by! I hope it won't be too long before I'm back again! :)