[Disclosure: This post contains some Amazon affiliate links.]

As many know, I started pandemic life with a challenge to myself to make a card a day.  I sort of fell off with this challenge but nonetheless looking over my photos of cards from the past year, I count over 150 handmade cards!  Some were sent to friends while others were gifted for others to send.  In any case, the challenge inspired me to step outside my comfort zone and try new techniques and combos.  More than anything, it has provided a respite from the monotony of stay-at-home life. Today, I bring you my latest series of cards which evolved as I started playing with certain colors and dies.

As I have mentioned on Instagram, lately I have been super into using glitter pastes with stencils. This combines my favorite sparkle effect with interesting textures and there is also something about spreading the paste over the stencil that is very relaxing! Today’s first card started with my new mum stencil (scrapbook.com) together with Bo Bunny Glitter Paste in Pink Punch.

Then, I used my Impress Happy Bday die with Bazzil Cardstock in Blueberry Sour. I did a second cut on Solar White to layer behind the blue to give it a shadow effect and then went over all of it with Diamond Glaze to give it a shiny effect. Love how the navy/fuchsia combo really popped!

In fact, I loved this color combo so much, I decided to play around with more florals using the same colors (and leftover paper scraps). So, I grabbed my Flora Fauna Lined Flower Trio dies, which as you will see I used on all of the remaining cards. Using the Neenah Solar White, as a base, I cut the flower out of my favorite fuchsia cardstock, PaperTrey Ink Raspberry Fizz, the pistil out of Bazzil Blueberry Sour, and the leaves out of Simply Chartreuse. Then I made them all into stickers using my Create-A-Sticker for easy application and arranged them in a cascade on the white background which I then mounted on a navy 4-bar card base. But it felt like something was missing. So, I decided to bring in some shimmer. I grabbed some glittery gold cardstock, technically called Copper Shimmer that I think I found at Joann and my Savvy hello die.

Now that I had fully envisioned this color palette (and had lots of paper scraps going), I decided to play around with the various combinations of these dies and colors. While I cut the flower out of Raspberry Fizz again, I decided to cut the pistil out of the gold and place this over some May Arts ribbon over a Chartreuse base mounted on Blueberry Sour. Then I finished this off with this Kindred Spirit stamp stamped in Navy Fresh Ink.

Next, I used some vellum cardstock to create a more airy card with a regular piece of printer paper cut slightly smaller for the inside. No need to attach these, just line up the score line and then I wrapped some navy twine around the seam and tied. Finally I embossed “Have a Beautiful Day” from the Concord & 9th “Brighter Days” stamp set in gold.

Finally, for my last card I switched up the combo again but all using the same palette. The HELLO stamp is from an old American Crafts clear set. I embossed it with denim embossing powder.

I had a lot of fun letting my color palette be my guide and playing around with different combinations. When you aren’t feeling inspired, consider letting your color combo inspire you. You never know where you might end up!