Hi! Friend

One of the early challenges in this year's "Hope You Can Cling To" card drive is to "Add Some Strength." Take a piece of patterned paper to use as your background, and add something to "strengthen" it. Rather than add a product, I decided to strengthen mine by "adding" a technique: "out of the box" die cutting.

I chose an old piece of patterned paper from my scrap stash. (It may have been by The Paper Studio, but I'm not sure. I highly doubt it's available anymore, anyway.) Using one of the dies from Spellbinders' "Labels Eight" set, I chose the portion of the 12x12" sheet I wanted to use. I traced around the inside of my die on that spot, and then trimmed in to that line along a few of the flower petals. Finally, I placed my die, tucking it under the "trimmed" flower petals, and ran it through my die cutting machine. The result is a die cut panel, with the petals hanging over the edge in places!

I cut a piece of green patterned paper from my stash (manufacturer also unknown) to 4.25x5.5", and adhered it to a white A2 card base. I then adhered my focal panel to that.

For the greeting, I used 2 stamps from the "Happy Messages" set by Stampendous. I stamped them on a scrap of white cardstock with Hero Arts Cup o' Joe ink, and die cut that with another, smaller "Labels Eight" die. I adhered that in place, and this card was done!