This Forever Fern Card For a Friend is one that I copied from a sample in the Stampin’ Up! Annual Catalog on page 5. The other day I was browsing through the catalog and it was one of those times that samples in the catalog were jumping out at me right and left! Some days you can’t think of any idea for a card and nothing inspires you and then other times everything you see you want to make!

Since I haven’t used this Forever Fern Bundle as much as I would have liked yet, I decided to just use a sample in the catalog to get more of a feel for the stamp set and dies. This Forever Fern Stamp Set is a Distinktive** stamp set; it has a special texture that gives added depth and dimension in a single step, creating photo-realistic images. **Patent pending. To me, that means that when I stamp with it, I am impressed and marvel at the beautiful image!

This card sample is beautiful and looks pretty fancy and involved to me, but really, when I made it, it is pretty basic. There are only two stamped ferns and the greeting. The other two ferns are die cuts.

The card base is Just Jade, one of the new In Colors, and the layered designer paper is the 2020-2022 In Color 6″ x 6″ Designer Series Paper. The catalog sample uses one of the other patterns of the paper. I made several cards at once so I used different paper patterns. This one has the small circles or polka dots. When you copy a sample, you can still change some of the elements. In fact, a lot of time when I think I am going to copy something, I end up with something completely different.

The designer paper is cut smaller than usual. I cut mine at 3 3/4″ x 4 3/4″ and it is pushed over to the edge of the card rather than centered. I used my Bone Folder to curl up the opposite corners a little bit. You could do that or not do that. You could center the designer paper if you chose to.

The large fern in the background is die cut from Shaded Spruce Cardstock. If you have the Adhesive Sheets and think ahead to use them, this would be a good time on this large fern with small leaves. I used Multipurpose Liquid Glue to put small dots of glue onto the back of the large fern. The next die-cut fern I changed up a bit. In the catalog sample, it is Smoky Gray I think. I didn’t want to use gray so I used Gold Foil. I also adhered this piece with the Multipurpose Liquid Glue. You could also pop it up with Stampin’ Dimensionals®.

The two other pieces are stamped, one in Just Jade ink (stamped off once) and one in Granny Apple Green. Then they are die cut with the new Stampin’ Emboss & Cut Machine and the Magnetic Plate using the Forever Flourishing Dies. The greeting, in the stamp set, is stamped in Shaded Spruce Ink and die cut with the second smallest square in the Stitched Shapes Dies. I popped up the two stamped ferns with Stampin’ Dimensionals.

As to the greeting, the ribbon is layered back and forth behind it before being adhered to the card with Stampin’ Dimensionals. The ribbon is in the Ornate Garden Ribbon Combo Pack. The color is Terracotta Tile. If you don’t have this particular ribbon, you could use white or whatever color you have that you think will work. I ended up using two pieces of ribbon – one straight just laid across the back on a diagonal and the second piece looped on each side. I first added some Stampin’ Seal to the back of the greeting to hold the ribbon in place and then placed Dimensionals to adhere it to the card.

All in all, like I said, this is a simple card to make. Here is a card I previously made with just stamping. You can get a better idea of the look of the Distinktive stamps.

Look through the Stampin’ Up! catalogs and see what samples jump out at you. Either try your hand at copying directly, or just use them as a starting point and see where your creativity takes you. I made a few simple changes to my Forever Fern Card For a Friend so see what you choose to do!

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