Roof Garden x 13 Cards

Several months ago I decided to treat myself to the SU! Accents & Elements Roof Garden set (retired), which consists of 12 sheets of self-adhesive die cuts that come in an alterable silver tin. This weekend I finally sat down to see what I could accomplish with the die cuts, and the end result is thirteen cards I'm pretty darn proud of.

I'd like to let the pictures speak for themselves, but to be honest the photos are pretty lousy. The problem (besides having an inexpensive camera which was given to me as a gift) is that light tends to bounce off of these slick die cuts, more so than off regular cardstock. If the white flowers and stuff seem to be glowing, that's why. Still, I hope you can get an idea of how great these cards look in real life. If you'd like a better view of the pics, click on them to enlarge.

My other "oops" while taking the photos was in neglecting to take pictures of the insides. I suppose I could say I'm leaving that as a mystery to surprise the recipient(s) of the cards, but I'm just too darn tired to pull out the camera again tonight. I used Bodacious Bouquet, Fresh Cuts, and the single posy from the Three for You Punch Box kit to make coordinating accents on the card insides and envelopes. Really, I did!

Colors: Not Quite Navy, Baja Breeze, Basic Grey, Kiwi Kiss, Whisper White
Other stuff: Sakura Gelly Roll in Stardust; Not Quite Navy brads, white "Dot Candy"; Martha Stewart Classic Butterfly punch; paper piercing tools; self-adhesive half-back pearls in assorted sizes; white taffeta ribbon; Keytag punch; Scallop Edge punch; several non-SU! stamps for sentiments




















I'll be creating two sets out of these 13 cards and listing them in my online store tomorrow, so "stay tuned" if you're interested!

Update: These cards are now available for purchase at Roof Garden Set 1 and Roof Garden Set 2. Thanks for your interest!

A CASE of Fresh Cuts

I ran across a card by Tangii Crain while looking through cards posted on SplitCoastStampers.com using the Fresh Cuts set -- and just had to CASE it. (CASE = Copy And Selectively Edit.) The combination of colors and design really caught my eye.



I learned as I was assembling my pieces that Tangii's card is bigger than my selected size of 5-1/2" x 4-1/4", so that forced me to do a little fudging to make it all work for my own cards.



Each of my four cards are slightly different, but the materials used are pretty much the same. Colors are So Saffron, Brocade Blue, and Sage Shadow. On one of the cards I used a saffron design from the Palette o' Prints DSP that was offered by SU! last year, but for the others I used a stamp from the Priceless set. I tried one card without the blue grosgrain ribbon. On another I layered the ribbon on a panel of the Palette o' Prints paper. The main image on the fourth card is cut into four sections instead of nine because I was chatting with someone while working and wasn't paying attention to what I was doing. (Oops!) I'm quite happy with this batch of cards, and only wish the photos would do them justice.

Fresh Cuts, First Pass

A package from Stampin' Up! landed with a thud outside my door last evening.
The Fresh Cuts stamp set and 4"x4" laser cut notecards are finally here! ...along with the Punches Plus Classy Brass embossing template. Hooray!



I decided to break down and take advantage of this month's SU! Fresh Cuts special after gawking at all the cards posted on the SplitCoastStampers site using these materials. I anticipated ripping my package open and flying through the 15 notecards like the wind. Instead, I sat at my desk and stared, and stared, and stared... and finally agonizingly put together these two cards.



I first made a notecard using the Spring Silhouettes DSP (which you can see through the punched out petals), the 5-Petal Flower punch, and the Spring Blossoms punch. Colors are Wild Wasabi and Certainly Celery. In the center is a green bit of bling.






I was pretty darn pleased with my efforts so far, but then I think I raised the bar a bit with my next card. I wasn't too sure of myself at first, but I learned that Wild Wasabi, Rose Red, and Taken with Teal work quite well together. Once again I used the punches and the green rhinestones. I pulled out my Punches Plus Classy Brass to paper pierce around the "for you" oval. The template slipped the first time (grrrr!!), so I had to flip the card base around and do a bit of damage control on the inside of the card. A quote from the Friendship Flowers set layered on DSP saved the day.