Hang in There, Friend

Another of the challenges for Splitcoast Stampers' "Hope You Can Cling To" card drive is "No Extra Postage." Basically, create an easy-to-mail card--relatively flat--that would require no extra postage to mail. Mine is a shameless CASE of a card Laura Bassen did for a lesson in Online Card Classes' "Stretch Your Stamps 2" class.

I cut a piece of white cardstock to 4.25x5.5". For the greeting, I used 2 different stamps: Technique Tuesday's "Hello Friend," & part of one from the "Up and Away" set by Mama Elephant. I cut the "hello" off the first one, and masked off the remaining border around the word "friend." After inking it up with Versafine Onyx Black, I removed the masks & stamped it in the lower right corner of my panel. Then I masked off the first part of the Mama Elephant greeting, and stamped "hang in there," again in Versafine.

Once the greeting had dried, I stamped the design on the upper part of my card. I drew a line across the panel, above the greeting, and one down the vertical center, to help me place my stamping. I used one of the stamps from Avery Elle's "Rounded Diamonds" set. I began at the bottom, using Hero Arts Fresh Peach ink. I stamped the first motif in the center, then worked out from there, using my horizontal pencil line as a guide. After that, all I had to do was line the stamps up in relation to what I'd already stamped. Easy peasy, lemon squeezy! I used all Hero Arts shadow inks to finish my rainbow pattern: Orange Soda, Lemon Yellow, Green Hills, & Cornflower.

To finish off the card, I cut a .25x5.5" wide strip of black paper, and glued it below my bottom row of stamping. I also added 3 small flower brads (from my stash) around the greeting. Then I just mounted the completed card front to a white A2 card base. This is definitely one of my more CAS cards!