Hi all and happy Friday! This past Monday we celebrated Memorial Day here in the US, which, along with the start of summer, always puts me in the mood to create some USA-inspired cards. One of the cards I’m sharing here today was posted on Instagram on Monday. I’ve had a few requests to share more details about that card, so that’s on today’s agenda, along with a few more patriotic cards!
I had some fun ideas for using our Rolling Hills stencil set to create some patriotic backgrounds. I wanted to experiment with using it in both the traditional way it was designed, but also in some more unconventional ways. This first card is the one I shared on Instagram on Monday (it’s also our Card of the Week, so everything used here is 15% off!). I used the striped hill stencils from the Rolling Hills set to create a flag background. This was easy to do, just by positioning the stencils in a different way than they were designed to be used.
Over my striped flag background I layered a floral panel that was done with the Print Shop: Spring Mix set, and cut with the coordinating die. The sentiment is actually from a holiday set (Comfort & Joy), I just trimmed off the bottom line of the sentiment to make it appropriate for this occasion.
Here is a little step by step for you for creating the background…
With the Fourth of July approaching fast, I decided to play around with a few more ideas, again using the Rolling Hills stencil paired with a few other goodies. This first one uses the Rolling Hills as they were designed, but stenciled in patriotic reds and blues.
I foiled some fireworks in the sky using our Glow hot foil plate, and added some small gold stars cut with the Ribbon Maker: Pinked Stars die. The sentiment was done with our Bold Alphabet dies to spell “America”, and a “happy birthday” sentiment from the Four Square Birthday stamp set.
My last card uses the stripes from Rolling Hills in a completely different way. I envisioned creating a sort of flag-blowing-in-the-wind kind of look! 🙂 I just kind of went free-form and started at the top (very much like the first card I shared in the step-by-step above) stenciling the various striped sections from the Rolling Hills stencil set, building the design as I moved along, nestling various striped sections, rotating and positioning as needed to fill in each area. I filmed the process and I’ll share a quick Instagram reel soon!
To add even more depth to the background, I used a couple of shades of ink – bright red (Festive Berries Oxide) and a deeper red (Aged Mahagony) for stenciling the stripes. To finish off the card I added some gold ink splatters and a few Rustic Stars (small and large). The “celebrate” sentiment is from the Birthday Blooms stamp set, cut with the coordinating die. The pinked edge along the bottom was cut with the Ribbon Maker: Pinked Stars die.
Thanks so much for joining me today for this fun patriotic showcase. I hope you enjoyed it and it inspires you to get creative and think outside the box and use your supplies in unexpected ways!
