Have you tried Stampin’ Up! Designer Series Paper (DSP)? I love that their paper is quite a heavy weight, much sturdier than the papercraft and scrapbook paper you generally find in stores. Plus the packs all state what colours are used so you can coordinate with Stampin’ Up! card, inks and embellishments. In addition, all the regular DSP sheets are double-sided so you get twice the options. You may find the occasional sheet in the ‘specialty’ DSP packs are single-sided, but that’s always mentioned in the description. The one thing that I find can be a challenge though is the name given to each DSP pack, for example Pansy Petals. The paper is often named with the coordinating stamp set in mind and while that is good, it can also be deceptive.

You see Stampin’ Up! know that as well as the theme we’ll probably want some generic patterns too. But it’s easy to overlook these when choosing which DSP to buy. Take the Pansy Patch DSP, as well as pretty flowers it also includes ginghams in a variety of colours. These work really well with the flowers, but for today’s simple Sunday project I wanted to showcase the striking stripes on this gender-neutral card.

JUST STRIPES

This simple card really was all about the stripes, and from that I choose Evening Evergreen and Soft Succulent for my project colours.

I began by using my Paper Trimmer to cut and score a piece of Soft Succulent Card. Then I folded it along the scored line and sharpened the crease with a Bone Folder to create my card base.

Next, from the striped Pansy Petals paper I cut three pieces, starting with one at 2-1/4″ x 6″. Then using Multipurpose Liquid Glue (Tombow) I attached the DSP to the flap of a Basic White Medium Envelope. Once attached, I trimmed off the excess DSP with Paper Snips using the edge of the flap as a guide.

TIP – I cut all my DSP pieces with the stripes vertical to create a coherent look.

With the envelope done I cut a 3/4″ x 5-1/4″ strip of the DSP and glued it along the bottom edge of a 4″ x 5-1/4″ piece of Basic White Card. Then I added a 1/8″ x 5-1/4″ strip of Evening Evergreen Card along the inside edge of the DSP. Finally I fixed the assembled layer inside the card base.

Finally I cut a 3-1/8″ x 5-1/2″ piece of the DSP and mounted it onto a 3-1/4″ x 5-1/2″ layer of Evening Evergreen Card with liquid glue, lining up the top edges. Then using Stampin’ Dimensionals I attached the layers up against the crease on the front of the card base.

PANSY PATCH

That just left the sentiment to do and I found what I wanted in the Pansy Patch Stamp Set.

Using Evening Evergreen ink I stamped “A little hello from me to you” in the space below the DSP layer on the front of the card. Placing the sentiment was easy as I could look right through the photopolymer stamp. With that my simple masculine / gender-neutral project was complete.

For some other projects created using the Pansy Petals DSP see these earlier blog posts:

• Pansy Dies for spring and summer projects
• No petals on today’s simple Sunday project
• Peekaboo Farm for a fun day in
• Pink and grey work well together

It was only after looking back at my previous projects that I realised only one uses one of the floral sheets. It appears I may have been subconsciously avoiding the flowers on the DSP. Guess what I’ll be doing later…

If you’d like to see all the patterns in all the current Stampin’ Up! DSP packs, check out this official video. Pansy Petals starts at at 5 minutes 45 seconds, however it’s definitely worth watching the whole thing.

PRODUCT LIST

BUNDLE BONUS – I bought the Pansy Patch Stamp Set with the coordinating Pansy Dies (not used today) using a single ‘bundle’ item number. This meant I saved 10% off the cost of buying the two items separately. I’ve included a link to the bundle in case you want to explore that option.