Polka Dots and Full of Love

Every new annual and mini catalog from Stampin’ Up! have the stars of the season that are featured in multi-page layouts and lots of samples.  But I am always amazed at the hidden gems in the catalog…and I love to design with these.  Today’s card features 2 of these hidden gems:  Stampin’ Up! Full of Love Stamp Set and Dots and Spots Die. 

I have been exploring the Full of Love stamps in this post and a few others.  But this is only the first of my explorations with the Dots and Spots!  This is a cutie…

Here is another card that is pretty clean and simple.  I think that the colors create a crispness that I find appealing to the eye…but the color schemes that you can chose are endless!

There are very few card cuts for this one – but it doesn’t take away from the richness of the design:

I used the Thick White Cardstock so that this would be a single layer card.  I decided to stamp the inside sentiment first so that I could recover from any “orientation” problem that I might make in applying the face design to the card.  (Like having the inside sentiment appear upside down and on the wrong panel when the card is open…duh…and yet I have done that multiple times throughout my cardmaking career!!)  The sentiment is from the Full of Love stamp set – which makes this design user friendly.

I stamped the letter and flowers image from Full of Love to a scrap of Basic White cardstock.  My coloring is very simple, with the darker shade of each color applied to shadow the flowers and leaves and the lighter shade of the Stampin’ Blends filling in the rest of the image.  I used Memento Ink to stamp the image.  This ink is user friendly with alcohol markers and is my go-to ink for images.

My colors for this image included Mint Macaron, Starry Sky, and Fresh Freesia.

As I have mentioned before, I find fussy cutting to be very relaxing.  So, I tend to create a lot of images to color and fussy cut and then I use them for a variety of cards.  I did the same with that.

Fussy Cutting Tips: So, perhaps I should mention a couple of things about fussy cutting.  It is relaxing to me because I do the following 2 things:

• I do NOT cut along the outline.  Instead, I cut close to the outline, but I leave a slight “halo” in the same way that dies cut out their corresponding stamped images.  It is a lot less “fussy”.
• I hold the scissors in my right hand – which is my dominant hand – and I move the image around with my left.

Between that “halo” around the image and the easy movement of the image with my left, my posture tends to stay relaxed – which lets me “watch” a movie or a video while I cut lots of images in a sitting.  See if these two tips might help you with that fussy cutting too.

I embossed the 4” x 5-1/4” Basic White panel with the Dots and Spots die.  Then I mounted the image in the middle of the card, using Stampin’ Dimensionals to give it some pop.  With the banner die from Stylish Shapes, I cut a Starry Night banner with an embossed “Hello” message in white powder.

I sing the praises of the white embossing powder from Stampin’ Up! regularly.  I think that it is some of the best on the market.

I mounted the completed front panel to the face of the card, using more Stampin’ Dimensionals.

And that’s it!  The cool blues and purples create a crisp, beautiful card to say hello and connect with a friend.  This is another good design to create gift card sets for birthday or holiday gifts if you love giving these to friends and family.

Thanks so much for stopping in to see today’s design!  I will continue to explore this great stamp set and try to pair it with other “overlooked” treasures that Stampin’ Up! offers!  Stay tuned for more…

Here is a list of the products that I used for this version of Full of Love – but remember that you can easily add bling or ribbons or anything that delights you: