Stamping images is my favorite way to create a lovely design for a card front. But it’s not the only way to create a card that I’d be proud to send to any of my friends or family. Using Designer Series Paper is a great way to decorate a card with very little muss and fuss. That’s why I’m definitely taking advantage of this month’s Stampin’ Up! Designer Series Paper Sale.
During the June 2023 Designer Series Paper sale, all of the papers on pages 129 to 132 in the Stampin’ Up! Annual Catalogs are on sale for 15% off. Even the online-only “Hello, Irresistible” paper set is on sale! I’m definitely going to be taking advantage of this sale myself, and hope you will, too!
6” x 6” Designer Series Papers Are Great for Cards
You’ll notice that four of the Stampin’ Up! Designer Series Papers on sale are 6” x 6.” I personally love that size of paper as it’s much easier to have lots of different prints out on my work table while I’m designing cards. But I also find it much easier to cut a piece of paper that fits on a card front from the smaller sheets of paper.
But What Do You Do With the Scraps?
One downside of that 6” square, though, is that I’m frequently cutting pieces of paper that result in leftover thin scraps. For example, when I cut 3-3/4” x 5” pieces of those 6” square papers there’s a 1” strip that’s left over on one side. Not wanting to waste a pile of 1” strips when I finished my last project, I started laying them out to see what I could do with them. Here are three cards that I made with 1” strips of the new Inked Botanicals Designer Series Paper.
Each of these cards uses the same Stampin’ Up! products:
¨ One card base, Very Vanilla Thick Cardstock, 5-1/2” wide by 8-1/2 high, folded at the top.
¨ One piece of Lost Lagoon Cardstock, 5-1/4” wide by 4” high
¨ Five strips of Inked Botanicals Designer Series Paper, each 3-3/4” by 1”
¨ One strip of Very Vanilla Cardstock, 3-3/4” x 1” (optionally trimmed to fit sentiment)
¨ One piece of Lost Lagoon 1/4" Bordered Ribbon, 20” long
¨ Sentiment from the Go To Greetings Stamp Set.
And remember– you can use any papers and colors you have in your stash!
Laying Out the Design
When I created the two cards with the woven strips, I laid the strips out first without gluing. First I made some light pencil marks to help guide me when I adhered the strips to the cardstock. Then I figured out which pieces could be glued to the cardstock first. After I finished weaving strips, I completed any gluing that was necessary.
As you can imagine, there are many ways to use those 1” strips of paper! You can have lots of fun making your own designs to use as much of each sheet of paper as possible!
And One More Idea for Those Even Smaller Scraps
Have you ever heard about “inchies”? An inchie is just what it sounds like – a piece of paper that’s 1” square. These were really popular several years back, especially when there were 1” designs on designer series papers or stamp sets. What made me think of them were all those smaller pieces of Designer Series Paper that I was about to sweep into my waste basket. Many of those were an “inchie,” at least when it came to their size.
Why not use them to make yet another card front? So I simply cut a 4” x 5” piece of cardstock and laid out 20 different 1” square prints from my Inked Botanicals papers. I trimmed the 4” side to 3-3/4” and mounted it onto a 4” x 5-1/4” piece of Calypso Coral Cardstock to give the design a bit of color pop and then attached it to a 4-1/4” x 5-1/2” card base of Lost Lagoon Cardstock.
This is about as basic an inchie project as you can get. But with a bit of ribbon and coordinating cardstock, it is definitely a card I’ll happily send out to a friend.
So stop looking at all those scraps on your work table as something for the waste basket. They can be something for a really nice-looking card!
Remember Stampin’ Up!’s Designer Series Paper sale. It’s June 1 – June 30, 2023, with 13 paper sets 15% off their regular price!
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