I made this card for a challenge wanting welcome cards and then missed the deadline, but since we’re trying to hire some new people at work, it will come in very handy. I’m on the design team at CAS Colours & Sketches and last night I was commenting on some of the entries. One of the cards used the Serene Scenery DSP stack reminding me of its beauty and also of the fact that I’ve barely used it. So it was a no brainer to pull it out this morning.
This DSP stack is 6 by 6 inches which means that if you cut off 2 1/8 inch you have enough to cover the envelope flap to make a matching envelope and you still have a large piece for the card. I trimmed the long side to 5 1/8 inch so that I had 5 1/8 by 3 7/8. A mat of very vanilla measuring 5 1/4 inches by 4 gives a tiny border and fits perfectly on a crumb cake card base.
I added the sentiment from the retired set, Welcome Words. I’d prefer to use a current set, but I don’t believe that I have anything that says welcome. So to match, I stamped this in crumb cake – I tested this on the piece of DSP that I’d trimmed off to ensure that it would be dark enough to show. I like the rather beach look that the crumb cake adds to the weathered boards.
The two stamp sets, Pineapple and Welcome Words go together perfectly in my opinion, seeing as the pineapple is a symbol of welcome and hospitality. So I had to take the opportunity to pair them up before Welcome Words retires tonight. And since we keep adding people to our team at work, it won’t be long until I need a welcome card. This morning the set is still available for purchase.
This card didn’t turn out exactly as I was planning but then, “sometimes things don’t always go as planned” according to a sign in a hotel which had the family in hysterics and Martin and Mum using “always” and “sometimes” in the same sentence for the rest of the holiday. Firstly, I just wasn’t getting good coverage on my stamp so I went to the basement and found some 220 grit sandpaper and roughed up the surface of the stamp. Then after using the (retiring) in colours mossy meadow and hello honey and a post-it note as a mask, the join between the colours wasn’t perfect. There is actually a VERY small space between the two parts of the pineapple. As I was looking at my very vanilla piece and wondering how to ensure success, I realised that a hello honey bow in last year’s ribbon would cover the gap perfectly. And actually it improved the card – that’s what I call a win-win! I’d initially intended on embossing the Welcome but with the addition of ribbon, the card didn’t need the upgrade. I was a little hesitant over ordering the pineapple – how many pineapple cards do I need? But I’m really glad that I did. I think I need more pineapple cards than I realised and I for one am not retiring Welcome Words from my stash. It’s also going to make a great card to welcome people to my Stampin’ Up! team or to my Paper Pumpkin team.
In case you’re wondering, the envelope liner is using Botanical Gardens DSP – a perfect match for the mossy meadow.
So tomorrow’s the big day – the new catalog goes live which means that you only have today to order from last year’s and the Occasions catalog. Do make sure you have what you really want, items don’t necessarily make it to the clearance list. If you’re ordering, don’t forget to use my rewards code – AV9HEPXC – if you spend at least $45 you will receive this month’s free gift, half a roll of the dapper denim ruched ribbon, and be over 10% of the way to a free $40 spending spree. Check out the Customer Loyalty Program page for more details.
I’ll be ordering tomorrow morning so email me now if you want to get in on my product share.
The world map is one of the first stamps I bought and it was used on the first card I made for my father on Father’s Day two years ago. And I haven’t used it since. I’m not sure why. But I wanted to make another Welcome card and this stamp set called out to me. I work in IT with my brother and tomorrow one of the developers who used to work for me at my previous company is starting work where we are now, working for Martin. I’m thrilled that he’s joining us and he definitely needs a card! The Welcome Words set has come in really useful lately – I think this is the fourth welcome card so far this year. And I need a fifth because somebody just joined my (Stampin’ Up!) team.
I stamped the World Map onto watercolour paper using the archival basic black. Then, using my aquapainter, I put fairly pale washes of pacific point (I’ve recently found how perfect this colour is for skies and seas) and delightful dijon onto the paper. I matted this with a slim basic black border and then mounted it onto a pacific point card base. The Welcome is stamped in pacific point onto very vanilla which extends over the image and mat. To make the sentiment even more dramatic, I popped it up with dimensionals.
The envelope is lined using the retired backgrounds DSP brights stack in pacific point. I’m almost done with this stack and really must get the new version of it.
We had another new hire this week and I wanted to make a card to welcome him. And I wanted to reuse the colours from the new challenge at CAS Colours & Sketches. Two blues sounded like sea and sky and the coral made me think of the Picture Perfect set and the starfish. I am also continuing to play with last week’s sketch challenge which apparently really grabbed me – thanks to Jane for these.
The banner for this challenge is:
It’s quite a tricky combination in my opinion and I played with it for a while before deciding on this design. Martin asked why a starfish on a welcome card; I decided it’s because work is hard, we’re trying to do a lot with not enough people (hence the hiring) so Rod will need extra arms and hands to get everything done. A stretch perhaps…
The starfish is stamped in watermelon wonder on watercolour paper – it’s a 2 step stamp and one was stamped off first once and the other is full strength. I then fussy cut this. Why watercolour paper? Well I intended to use watercolour paper for the background and I played with it a little but in the end, after also trying white shimmer paper, I ended up with ordinary whisper white. So the background has marina mist and night of navy washed on with an aquapainter and, once that dried, I actually used Gorgeous Grunge to add the night of navy spots. I must remember to warn my sister Caro about the use of Gorgeous Grunge. It’s not something I use much at all whereas she loves it. Next I cut a square of night of navy slightly larger for the mat. I kept the squares slightly smaller than the starfish – I like the overhanging look. Before adding anything to my base of thick whisper white, I stamped the sentiment from Welcome Words in night of navy. There’s not much worse than gluing elements to a card and then messing up the stamping. Once the stamping was done, I started construction.
I popped the starfish up with dimensionals and then coloured it in with some clear Wink of Stella. I know that this pen is on backorder and I can see why – I need to get a back up one because I’m using it a lot. I used some of the retired backgrounds DSP in night of navy to line the outside of the envelope flap.
I hope that you’ll pop over to the challenge site to see what the rest of the Design Team have created with these colours and have a go yourself.
We’re having a few new people join at work and so when I saw the set Welcome Words it was a no brainer to make cards to welcome them to the team. Here’s my latest, this time using my brand new World Traveler TIEF for the background.
I happened to have a piece of pool party on my “haven’t put the odds and ends away pile” and decided to use it with the embossing folder. I love pool party with lost lagoon so quickly decided to use lost lagoon on very vanilla for my welcome banner and then border it in lost lagoon. I glued the pool party piece to a lost lagoon card base and then popped the banner up with dimensionals, using one of the lines on the embossing to help line up the banner.
I also embossed the envelope flap with the same embossing folder to match. And that’s it. A quick, clean and simple card for today. It’s funny how cards sometimes come together rapidly and sometimes take a long time. I’d spent some time last night playing with the Picture Perfect stamp set and eventually put my card to one side for later because something isn’t quite right. This card just fell together.
