October Technique Challenge

Hi Friends!

I am SO excited to be hopping again this month with my beautiful Unity friends for this month’s “Friends of Unity” Blog Hop!

This month our blog hop theme is “Techniques” and I am going to show you how to use your patterned paper scraps and sentiments to make beautiful cards in a flash! If you know anything at all about me, you know that I LOVE patterned paper and use it ALL THE TIME! It took me a VERY long time to cut my gorgeous paper up to be used and I treasure each piece-including the scraps! I also have a TON of Unity stamp kits and all of the kits come with such wonderful sentiments.

We tend to pair our sentiments with the images in the kit when making cards however they are just perfect when used alone as well! And this is what I hope to inkspire you to create with this month! So let’s get our patterned paper scraps out, grab a few sentiments and let’s get started!

Today I am going to show you two different cards that I created using the same patterned paper scraps. I hope that this will help you to see how versatile this technique is. Let’s take a look at the first card:

For this card I used an artichoke colored cardstock base for my mat and then cut three coordinating pieces of patterned paper into three strips as shown. This is patterned paper that I had in my stash from years ago and it’s double sided which makes it SUPER easy to coordinate. I glued all three strips down to my cardstock base.

I stamped the sentiment from the “Cheerful Prancing” kit onto white cardstock and used a stitched rectangle die cut to cut it out. I thought the sentiment by itself was too plain so I added some paint splatters in bronze and a blue/green color –very close to what’s in the patterned paper!

I also had an ornament punch in my stash as well so I punched out 2 ornaments in coordinating colored cardstock and ran them through my big shot using a textured embossing folder. Using scraps of another coordinating piece of patterned paper, I glued strips to the middle of the ornament just to give it a bit more color and to tie it in with the rest of the card.

Bronze string and some bling were used as accents on the card.

The sentiment and ornaments were given some added dimension by being adhered to my card using foam adhesive. After it was all put together I sprayed the entire card with glitter mist. You can’t see it at all in the picture which is sad because it is really sparkly!

This card was super easy and quick to pull together!

Ready for a different look using the same patterned paper scraps and a different sentiment? Take a look:

For this card I used a white cardstock base and cut my pieces of patterned paper into three strips and glued to my cardstock base as shown.

I stamped the sentiment also from the “Cheerful Prancing” kit onto white cardstock and cut it out using a fancy label die from Stampin’ Up! I also cut out the same label using artichoke cardstock to use as a mat for the sentiment.

I splattered a bit of coordinating blue/green ink onto the sentiment. I think I feel that too much white is boring so I’ve been paint splattering a lot lately.

A coordinating ribbon was tied around the center of the card and then using foam adhesive, I mounted the sentiment to the card as well.

I felt that it needed just a pop of color so I thought the red wooden heart button did just the trick. I added some bling to the heart!

You cant see it in the picture but once the card was completed, I used glitter spray to spray the entire card to give it some sparkle! It’s really pretty in person!

Now you can see how by using the same patterned paper strips and simply alternating the direction and using different sentiments you can create very different cards!

Let’s try another festive card using our scraps of patterned paper and a simple sentiment! Below I created a Halloween card simply by using some scraps of paper and a cute sentiment from the “Spooky Girl” Kit.

For this card I started off with an orange cardstock base and cut a piece of patterned paper 1/4 inch smaller. I glued that patterned paper to my base as shown

I cut out two squares -one from a scrap piece of coordinating piece of patterned paper and one from a piece of scrap vanilla colored cardstock. I glued both of these pieces down to my mat a bit off centered from each other. I pulled out a piece of scrap vanilla cardstock and stamped the sentiment from “Spooky Girl”.

Using stitched tag dies I cut out the sentiment using the smaller tag die and then a coordinating (slightly larger) tag from a piece of scrap black cardstock. I keep a tub of scrap cardstock and a tub of scrap patterned paper near my workstation and these pieces come in handy as you can see!

For accent, I wrapped birds nest twine around the tags and adhered them onto the card using foam adhesive for dimension . Oh, can you see the cat?! He is my extra spooky feature! It was Halloween button that I had hidden in my stash and thought it would be so cute to add it to the card.

And there you have it friends! Today I shared three examples of using patterned paper scraps and just sentiments to make quick and easy cards! Be sure to pop back in each Saturday this month as I’ll be sharing another card using this technique!

Thank you for stopping by today and I hope you leave with a little bit of INKspiraton! Before you go on to visit the rest of our lovely team’s creations, I’d love for you to leave a comment! At the end of the month I will pick a lucky person from all the comments and a prize will be given ! (Please note I have comment moderation on-you will see your comment shortly )

Please visit all of my friends on this month’s hop and leave them some love too!

Crystal

Eileen

April (me)

Dawn B

Rachel

Colleen

Dawn F

Joyce

Alaine

Robyn