July Thank You Cards

Hello, Crafters.

I hope you’ve had a great weekend.

I can’t believe it’s August already! Where has the year gone?

It’s
the time of the month when I show my appreciation to all my customers
by sending out thank you gifts, thank you cards, hostess gifts and
more. ☺

Tomorrow you’ll be able to buy the Limited
Edition Thoughtful Branches Stamp Set and coordinating dies.

(Please
note, this bundle is only available until 31st August 2016, or whilst
stocks last).

I chose this stamp set to make my thank you cards so I could show you something else that can be done with this set.

The trees in all the photographs except nos 4 to 6, have been stamped in the same way using the same stamps.

The actual cards I’ve used are from our packs of 20 Notecards & Envelopes.

They’re a bit smaller than the regular A6 sized cards and are 3.5″ x 5″.

When I make Thank you cards, I normally keep then to single layer cards.

To make the majority of these, I started by stamping the sentiment towards the bottom of the card using Soft Suede ink.

This is my favourite style of sentiment stamp because it does’nt matter if it’s not perfectly straight! LOL!

Using the same ink, I stamped the tree trunks, positioning them so the final image would look centrally balanced with the sentiment.

I changed to the grass stamp and Garden Green Ink.

I positioned the stamp so the grass touched the base of the right hand side tree so it didn’t look as if it’s floating.

Using the same ink, for the leaves, I inked the stamp that’s looks like a collection of large solid circles.

I stamped once so the top image was over the top of the tree, and moved the stamp down a bit and stamped again.

I repeated this process a second time, aiming for different areas that hadn’t yet been stamped.

I found this gave a good amount of fullness to the trees.

The last four photographs show some Just A Note cards I made using the same design but changing the sentiment.

I’d had two of my One Sheet Wonder Wallets left over from team training swaps because there were two no shows on the day.

I decided to make some cards to put inside to sell at my next craft show.

One wallet was in Garden Green – that was convenient ☺ – and the other one was Elegant Eggplant.

When I changed the colour, I found that stamping the image four times was too heavy.

I changed to one stamp and then another
stamp without re-inking and then one more full colour.

I still think it looks quite a bit darker than the green but it works.

The sentiment is from the Perfect Picture Stamp Set and was chosen because that’s the sentiment I’d used on the front of the wallet.

If you look at the tree trunk of the Elegant Eggplant tree in photograph 9, you’ll see I fell a bit short with the grass stamp and the tree looks like it’s floating!

Photographs 7 & 8 are cards where I experimented using the birds that come with this Limited Edition Bundle.

I stamped them in Soft Suede and then die cut them.

In the end I decided I preferred the cards
without the birds and didn’t do any more.

Photographs 4 to 6 shows the first Thank You card I made using the single tree image from the Thoughtful Branches Stamp Set.

I’m really pleased with the result but decided against it for this month’s Thank You Cards as it looks like a Christmas tree.

I may well use this design for my October or November cards with a bit of something added to make it look really Christmassy.

I hope I don’t forget about this idea! LOL! Maybe I should make them now!

I’m going to digress a bit now! I saw a card although I can’t remember where or who made it – I think it was on Facebook!

The creator had used this tree and stamped several of them (at a guess I’d say six or eight) in a circle with the tree trunks all pointing towards the centre.

She had then punched out circles and adhered them over the trunks and it looked like a beautiful Christmas wreath.

The card was absolutely fabulous and was another great way to use this set.