Nature Mini Card Set & Box

Hi Friends! Can you believe it? I did it! This is the last challenge of the SCS Love Fest that I needed to make!!! This is for the Taylored Expressions Love Fest challenge, A Little Love Goes A Long Way, and the challenge was to create a set of 3" x 3" cards, or smaller. I've been meaning to do this anyway, because I like to include a little card when I mail a package to someone, but kept putting it off. Now, it's done!

Here are the cards in their own little box, all put together.


And, here are each of the cards, individually. For these cards, I stamped my "nature" images with white Colorbox ink, then heat embossed with white embossing powder. With spring just around the corner, I chose an Easter-y palette, and used white cs as my base. If you know me, you know I love distressing, but I didn't want a dirty look, so after tearing the edges of each image panel, I inked the torn edges with Distress Inks that were the same color, but a few shades darker than the cs. After inking, I spritzed my craft mat with water and dragged the inked edges through it to give them a water stained look, and also to weaken the edges so I could roll and tear them just a little bit more. ;) I embossed just the front of each white card base, then glued the images on, leaving the edges free to hang out in all their distressed glory. I added one color-matched rhinestone to a corner of each card, alternating the corners so that all four corners ended up being blinged.

For the box, I used Beth Beard's tutorial here. I covered the sides with the same embossed design as the cards, and instead of making a handle, I added a rhinestone in each of the 4 colors I used for the cards. Beth decorated the front of her box with a button, but I used a nature quote on a die cut and put two little Swarovski crystals on each end of it. I didn't have any envelopes for these cards, so I used my Enveloper to made some, and that was quite a challenge. They needed to be slightly larger than regular 3x3 envelopes since the distressed cs on the front of the cards is bulky, but they need to be small enough to fit inside the little box. It's amazing how precise the measurements have to be to get certain sized envelopes. To create a 3-3/16" square envelope, I had to cut the paper at 5-13/32" square. Just 1/32" off, either way made the envelope unusable for my purposes!!! Amazing!

Well, I think I'll go take a nap, now. :) I've been running on just a couple hours of sleep for the past few days, trying to get all these challenges completed.

Thanks for stopping by, and I hope you have a wonderful day!

I'll be entering this project in the following challenges:

Splitcoaststampers Love Fest Challenge: LOVEFEST2013I (A Little Love Goes A Long Way, sponsored by Taylored Expressions)
Flourishes Timeless Tuesday #209: All That Glitters (FTTC209)
Simon Says Stamp: Anything Goes

~Hugs,

 

Stamps: Nature's Pace, Nature Walk (Stampin Up)
Paper: Bazzill
Ink: Colorbox, Distress Ink
Dies: Labels 25 (Spellbinders)
Accessories: Decorative Tile Set embossing folder (Cuttlebug); embossing powder (Zing); rhinestones; Swarovski crystals; foam dots
Size: Cards: 3 x 3

Thanks for visiting my blog!

To have Ink Up delivered to your inbox,

subscribe in the box at the top right of the page.