Happy St. Patrick’s Day!

To celebrate, even though I’m not Irish, here is an unlikely card you could make and give someone! It’s the Hearts of Elegance St. Patrick’s Day Card. I got the idea to use a glimmery green and gold foil to make a St. Patrick’s Day card, and I think since I can make shamrocks out of hearts, the heart dies came to mind for a card. This would be an easy card to copy since I already designed it!

The card base is Soft Sea Foam cardstock. At first I was going to completely cover the card base with the designer paper layer. That meant the cardstock wouldn’t show, but since it would show on the inside of the card, I chose Soft Sea Foam, a nice light color on which I could stamp a message or write something on the inside. I ended up cutting the designer paper down to the usual size so you can do it either way. The designer paper is the Timeless Plaid 6″ x 6″ Designer Series Paper in the Spring Mini Catalog on page 25. I didn’t purchase this paper at first but on my second Spring Mini order I did, and I really like it. These plaids will be useful for LOTS of kinds of cards. They are great for masculine cards, like Father’s Day coming up in June, but certainly is not limited to masculine!

As I often say, hearts can be for any time, even St. Patrick’s Day! And if you left the little shamrock off the bottom corner of the card, couldn’t you send this to a friend or someone for no reason? It’s not really “just” for St. Patrick’s Day! Or you could even change the colors. I used the Hearts of Elegance Dies from the Online Exclusives. These dies are part of the Marbled Elegance Suite Collection. We used them a lot for Valentine’s Day but as you can see, you can use them for anything! I used the very large solid heart for the background, diecut out of Gold Foil. The next size down is the light green glimmer paper in the Festive Glimmer Paper. It is the Granny Apple Green shade but there is also Garden Green if you want something darker. And if you don’t have this glimmer paper, there are others with greens in them.

For the greeting, I chose the sentiment in the Tags of Thanks Stamp Set. I wanted to stamp it on the banner in the Mixed Labels Stamp Set but it was too tall. I stamped it in Old Olive ink and wasn’t sure how I was going to use it since it wouldn’t fit on the banner. My first thought was to cut the words apart so I cut off the first word in the greeting “so”. I actually kind of like how “lucky” is the first word you see since it is a St. Patrick’s Day card. I just trimmer around it and then looked in my dies to see what would work. Lo and behold, I found this flowery label in the Sentimental Park Dies and I liked the look of it! I diecut that in Gold Foil also and popped it up with Stampin’ Dimensionals.

I still thought maybe I needed something officially for St. Patrick’s Day besides the green color, so I punched out three little hearts and cut a stem and made a little shamrock for that bottom corner. You may have all sorts of heart punches or dies so you can use anything but I used the Bee Builder Punch that has a little heart in it!

If you want to check out some of my Oldies But Goodies St. Patrick’s Day cards, just click HERE.

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Have you tried this technique with designer paper as I did on this Bloom Impressions Sunburst Card? I pulled out this designer series paper the other day to make a card and then realized it was from Sale-A-Bration and therefore was not current. But I was really in a floral mood I guess and thought a lot of people probably chose this paper for their Sale-A-Bration freebie so maybe would enjoy seeing another idea for how to use it. It doesn’t really matter if the paper is “current” or not unless it’s something you would like to have but then I would have to tell you, “Sorry, you can’t buy it.” Normally I only use “current” products but this is an exception because I just wanted to use the paper a little more! I hadn’t made this card design in a long time but I was seeing it in several places online so I thought I would try it again.

This sunburst technique is a great way to use up scraps…or just cut into a full sheet of paper and use it! We hoard our paper too much, I think! This designer paper is the Bloom Impressions Designer Series Paper that was available free during Sale-A-Bration with a $60 purchase until the end of February.

This card has a base of Thick Basic White cardstock. The layer is Coastal Cabana cardstock, cut at 5 3/8″ x 4 1/8″ which leaves a very narrow margin of the white card base showing. Coastal Cabana is one of the coordinating colors with this designer paper. It’s a color I don’t use that much but it is very pretty!

Here’s how I made the sunburst design. I used five different papers each cut into a piece 1 1/4″ x 4″ I didn’t want it to extend very low or all the way on the card front, so that is why it is only cut 4″ long. Then cut each rectangle in half diagonally. Whichever way you do the first one, do all the others the same way. My diagonal cut goes from the upper right hand corner down to the lower left hand corner. I used my Paper Trimmer, just lining up the two corners diagonally along the cutting track. If you prefer, just cut by hand diagonally since it’s not a very long piece of paper. Then kind of plan how you want to lay out the diagonally cut pieces on your card. You will have ten pieces and two different sides to use so just pick and choose.

I adhered the pieces to a piece of Basic White cardstock cut at 2 3/4″ x 5 1/4″, and when all the pieces were adhered to the white piece, then it was adhered to the card front on the Coastal Cabana. You will have to trim off the excess paper strips so don’t try to glue directly on the card unless you are covering the entire card. First, find the center of the white piece and draw a vertical line to start aligning the paper. Put glue or adhesive on the right side of the white paper, then adhere the first strip, with the straight side, along that center line. Then add the next strip up against that to the right, and the next. Just make sure they extend past the top edge of the white paper so no white shows eventually. For this card, my last piece is very small and partly covered with the ribbon if you look at the photo. After you have the right side finished, do the left side, again lining up the straight side of one of the paper strips along that center line. Then keep adding paper strips until the white is covered.

This is what it looks like from the back with the white cardstock holding all those strips. You do want those strips to extend past the base so everything is covered properly.

And this is what it looks like from the front! Now just turn it over and trim off the excess either using scissors or your Paper Trimmer. I used a big scissors. Then you can adhere this sunburst piece to the front of the Coastal Cabana cardstock. If you want, add a piece of ribbon around the base of the sunburst piece and the Coastal Cabana and add a separate bow. This ribbon is the new White 1/4″ Ribbon in the new Online Exclusives and is part of the Botanical Textures Suite but I just bought the ribbon separately.

For the greeting, I used the Mixed Layers Stamp Set, stamped in Coastal Cabana ink. It is diecut with one of the smaller Textured Notes Dies. I am really liking these new dies! I love how each one has a different little border on the die. And just because I could, I added three Heart Sequins, because, why not?!

Here is another sunburst card I made way back in 2013!!! What is old is new again!

SHOP STAMPIN’ UP!