You Make My Days Brighter

Each month, Operation Write Home has a challenge, sponsored by Our Daily Bread Designs. This month's theme is "Sentiments." I decided to feature a greeting in this digital stamp set from Doodle Pantry. I felt the casual font style of the greeting went well with the playful angles in the dies I chose to use.

I used a sketch from My Favorite Things, that corresponds to their "Blueprints 15" die set. I die cut my pieces, using left-over patterned paper scraps I had on my scrap desk. (I'm really trying to keep scraps out of my bulging & overflowing scrap files, by using them in cards first!) I also used a scrap piece of dark brown cardstock to die cut the circle and background, and glue behind the blue strip. I inked around the edges of the striped banner piece with Walnut Stain Distress ink, to help it stand out from the chevron panel. After I finished my die cutting, I adhered all the pieces, except for the greeting panel, onto the background piece.

For the greeting, I first created a blank canvas in Photoshop, the size of the yellow die cut panel. After drawing lines to mark the angles of the right and bottom edges in the die cut, I placed my greeting on the canvas. I did distort the greeting just a bit, lengthening the right side only, so it would better follow the wonky angle on that side. I made sure not to overdo it though! Finally, I printed it directly onto my die cut piece, and adhered that to the card front. I did ink around the edges of the card front with more Walnut Stain, just where the patterned papers are, to make it stand out a little more when I placed it on the card base. All that was left to do then was to mount the front to a cream A2-size card base! I will be sending this card on to Operation Write Home.

I'm also entering this card in Simon Says Stamp's Wednesday "Anything Goes" challenge.