Every card maker needs a good set of basic sentiments.  Over the years I’ve collected a lot of them.  Mostly they’ve come as part of a set with images, but not all.  My current favourite sentiment-only stamp set is Celebrating You.  This set of 16 sentiments covers most celebrations, and the fonts used are simply gorgeous.  They’re crisp and clear and neat (I’m not keen on many of the ‘looser’ script styles).  Today I decided it was time to make an anniversary card, and Celebrating You was there once again.

DECORATIVE DOILIES

I began my project with the fancy doilies. These were both created using the Encircled in Beauty Dies. The larger one was die-cut from a piece of Vellum Cardstock, while the smaller one uses Thick Very Vanilla Card.

After cutting them out I decided that the smaller one needed a little colour so I pulled out a Merry Merlot ink pad and a Blending Brush. Then I remembered a project I’d made a while ago using these same dies as a mask. So before going any further I cut a 4″ x 5-1/4″ piece of Very Vanilla Card and found a Very Vanilla Medium Envelope.

Now I placed the Very Vanilla doily across the bottom right corner of the Very Vanilla layer. Holding it carefully in place I used the Blending Brush to add ink to that section of the doily and allowed the ink to extent past the edges. Then I moved the doily so an un-inked part of the doily was across the top left corner of the card. I repeated the process adding ink to more of the doily and once again stenciling the design on the card. Turning to the envelope I did the same thing, adding the doily design to two corners on the front. Finally I put the doily on some scrap paper so I could finish inking the doily itself.

With the doily done I needed to create my card base from Merry Merlot Card. After cutting the card at 5-1/2″ x 8-1/2″ I left it on my Paper Trimmer with the long side at the top. Then using the scoring blade I scored the card at 1-7/8″, 2-1/8″, 2-3/8″ and 4-1/4″. I folded it only along the 4-1/4″ scored line and I had a card base with an interesting scored detail on the front.

CELEBRATING AGAIN

Now I was ready for the “Happy Anniversary” sentiment from the Celebrating You Stamp Set.

First I stamped the sentiment onto a scrap of Thick Very Vanilla Card using Merry Merlot ink. Then I cut it out using a die from the Ornate Frames Dies set. Before attaching it to the card front I then added a line of three Cherry Cobbler jewels from the Holiday Rhinestone Basic Jewels pack. Doing this now allowed me to make sure they were securely fixed to the sentiment.

With the sentiment done I was ready to assemble the card.

First I used Multipurpose Liquid Glue (Tombow) to add the Very Vanilla layer to the inside of the card base. Then I glued the layered doilies onto the card with the glue hidden behind the Very Vanilla doily. Finally I added the sentiment to the doily layers with Stampin’ Dimensionals and my project was complete.

As I was making this card I thought I needed something behind the doilies to ‘anchor’ them but didn’t want anything distracting. I think my solution of adding three scored lines down the centre of the card front works really well. Please leave a comment below and let me know what you think.

PRODUCT LIST

BUNDLE BONUS – I bought the Encircled in Beauty Dies in a bundle with the Encircled in Friendship Stamp Set (not used today). Buying them using a single ‘bundle’ item number meant I saved 10% off the cost of ordering them separately. I’ve included links for both options below in case you want to explore these.