Category:

TGIF

TGIF – Quick & Easy Summer Inspiration with Laurie

by Betsy June 11, 2021

written by Betsy

Happy Friday! Laurie is here for this week’s TGIF with a bright and summery (and quick!) card that will have you wanting to grab an ice-cold glass of lemonade and head into your craft room. It’s so hot here…sounds like a great plan to me!

Hello friends! It’s Laurie here with today’s TGIF! If you know me, you know I love a good quick and simple card. I adore white space and I love tossing in bright colors! Two of my favorite Greetery stamp sets are Just Mason Around and Lemon Blossoms. They were made perfectly for each other….and for a clean and simple card!

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This card was so simple to make. Using washi tape, I masked off the edges of the card front. I grabbed a light teal ink and just lightly blended around the edges with a little heavier hand in the top left corner. I love how this technique frames the card but leaves the white space.

Next, I stamped out the mason jar. If you ever have any trouble lining this up, start with the darkest ink first. Basically, going backwards in your stamping order makes each of the top layers super easier to line up. Then using the open faced die, you can die cut the jar for the perfect result every time! I actually did the same thing with the lemon slices. Seeing that dark ink detail in the center made the other layers easy to line up.

After everything was stamped out and die cut, I arranged the lemons around the mason jar and added in the little bloom for a pop of pink. The last step was adding in a sentiment. A little tip….stamping out several sentiments from any of The Greetery’s Sentiment Suite Sets and die cutting them ahead of time makes for quick card assembly. I usually have a pile of sentiments to pick from whenever I sit down. It’s nice to look and see which sentiment fits with the card before adhering it down.

That’s all from me today! Hope you have enjoyed today’s cards and tips! Have a great day!

June 11, 2021 8 comments

TGIF – Wildflower Stationery Set with Angelica

by Betsy June 4, 2021

written by Betsy

Happy Friday! Angelica is joining us today with some inspiration for creating your own set of pretty stationery, perfect for gifting. Her project is amazing! Enjoy…

My elderly neighbor has a birthday coming up, so I decided to make her a gift. If you know me, you know I LOVE to make card sets. And surprise! That’s exactly what I did for Miss Laura. She doesn’t get out much, so I thought cards and postage stamps would be a perfect gift to help her stay in touch with her loved ones.

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Starting with BotaniCuts Wildflower Mix, I die-cut several watercolor panels, and painted them with Mijello Mission Gold Watercolor paints. I glued the flowers together, and grouped them in little bouquets. I “tied” the bouquets together with the small twine ribbon from Fit To Be Tied Die Collection.

For the Blue background, I stamped Painterly Stripes Background onto TE Blue Corn card stock, using Blue Corn ink. I attached the panels to card bases, and got the Postal Frame panels ready.

For a dainty sentiment, I used a stamp from the gorgeous Pretty Postmarks Stamp Set. I set the sentiment up in my MISTI, and stamped all of the Postal Frame panels the same. Once finished, I attached the white panels onto the card bases, and glued on the bouquets.

For the gift box, I started with a 12×12 card stock, and trimmed it to 9×9. I picked a stamp from Summer Sketches stamp set to stamp a background with. Once finished, I used my Envelope Punch Board to make an envelope box. There’s lots of tutorials on YouTube on how to make an “Envelope Maker Box”. Jennifer McGuire has a great one, and that’s the tutorial that I followed. You can find it HERE.

To close the flap, I made a belly band. I cut white card stock to 1.5″ x 11″, and scored lines at 2″, 2 3/4″, 7 1/4″, and 8″. I folded the band on the scored lines, and glued the ends together.. I stamped a Sentiment Suite: Birthday sentiment onto the band, and added a last minute strip of blue card stock for added interest. I finished the band with my last flower bouquet.

I can’t wait to get this over to Miss Laura’s. I left enough room in the box for some postage stamps, and might even go find a pretty pen to match! I hope I have passed on some crafty inspiration… Thanks for joining me today!

June 4, 2021 29 comments

All TGIF

TGIF – Reflections Tri-fold with Kelly

by Betsy May 28, 2021

written by Betsy

Happy long weekend! I hope there are crafty plans in place. 🙂 Kelly’s here to jumpstart your weekend with a gorgeous project using our new Reflections set…

Hello and welcome to this week’s TGIF feature! It’s Kelly here today sharing a fun shaped tri-fold design with a belly band! I’m enamored with the new Reflections stamp/die set and couldn’t wait to try using it for this tri-fold design! It was easy to put together, but DID require a little planning. I’m hoping that I can walk you through step-by-step easily so you can try your own!

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To begin, I cut two panels from white cardstock measuring 4 ¼ by 5 ½ inches and then die cut the outline using the new Reflections die. I die cut one a little further down on the panel and one up a little bit higher so that when the card is assembled, it gives the realistic illusion of a forest. Once the two panels were cut, I went ahead and stamped both panels using assorted Distress Oxide inks. As you can see on the panel on the right, I varied the shore line to keep it visually interesting.

Once that was done, I was able to get the base for my tri-fold design put together. I cut a piece of Kraft cardstock measuring 5 ½ by 11. The two panels that fold in measure 3 ½ inches, but I ended up cutting them as I will explain in the next steps, but you’ll want to begin with these measurements. I placed the first panel on the left fold butted right up against the bottom and corner and then carefully placed the die directly around the trees, and secured it with washi tape. Once it was secure, I removed the stamped portion and ran it through my die cut machine. You’ll repeat this for the second flap, but you’ll need to leave it hanging off the edge of your die cut machine so it doesn’t cut through the back of the card. It might seem confusing reading it, but when you go to make your card, you’ll understand!

I used an Exacto Knife and a ruler to remove the pieces that I didn’t need along the fold. From there, I went ahead and glued the two stamped panels in place, using the die cut portion of the Kraft base as my guide. From there, you will see that you have pieces hanging over the edge that will need to be cut straight with your paper trimmer. Once I had it all squared up, I got to work on the inside!

I die cut the middle size of the Crimped Frames and added some blue ink blending around the edges for a sky. I stamped the sentiment, which is from the Sentiment Suite: Thinking of You stamp set, directly onto the panel. The smaller sentiment at the top AND the sentiment for the belly band are from the same set. I used the Sentiment Suite: Basics die for the little banner piece at the top. The belly band is just a strip of the same Kraft cardstock with the sentiment stamped in the middle and then scored slightly larger than the width of the card so it can easily slide off and on.

I finished off the card by adding some watercolor details to the trees, sand, and water. While I don’t enjoy needing Sympathy cards, I do like having a few on hand. I really like this particular stamp set for a sympathy card because flowers, etc. aren’t always the perfect choice, even if we want them to be (wink!). Thanks for joining me today and I hope you get a chance to try your own shaped tri-fold design!

May 28, 2021 19 comments

All Sneak Peeks TGIF

TGIF – Lemon Happiness & Man Made Sneak Peek

by Betsy May 21, 2021

written by Betsy

TGIF! We have some fun things going on today! First of all, a sneak peek of a new collection coming to the shop next week Tuesday (May 25th) called Man Made. It’s a fun assortment of masculine products for Father’s Day and all year round. I can’t wait to show you more on Monday, but for now, here’s a peek!

Next, Dawn is here for a super fun TGIF that will definitely brighten your day!

“So, it’s true that inspiration really can be found anywhere, and can strike in an instant! I was watching Joanna Gaines Instagram Stories the other day, where she was sharing the new summer install at their Magnolia store, and I LOVED the wall display she shared. I snapped a quick screen shot, and then used that as the inspiration for this first card! Head to my blog to see the inspiration photo, but it was an easy card to get started with, because I got to pull out the beloved Lemon Blossom stamp set.

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After that, I set out to figure out how to recreate Magnolia’s fun tiled wall. Can you figure out what stamps I used to create this vintage-tile-look background?

Once I got to creating with these sweet lemons and blossoms, of course I couldn’t quit. So, I whipped up a pair of cards using a bright, fun color combo, too.

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Often times, it just takes one spark of creativity to really get you going and then, the projects can really start to flow out of that!”

May 21, 2021 24 comments

All TGIF Video Tutorials

TGIF: Spring Tulips + 2 New Videos + Save the Date!

by Betsy May 14, 2021

written by Betsy

Happy Friday! I’m popping in with a project and a couple of videos for today’s TGIF post. Before we get to those, just a little heads up that we have some new products coming to the shop soon! A week from today I’ll be sharing a sneak peek of our new Man Made collection…it’s a fun collection of masculine-themed products that will be available in the shop on Tuesday, May 25th.

We’ll be sharing lots of projects and revealing the new products on Monday, May 24th before they go up in the shop on Tuesday. I hope you’ll join us!

Now on to some videos and a new project! We were so busy getting everything ready for our Anniversary sale and release, that there just weren’t enough hours in the day to squeeze in my usual release videos. I had a chance to put a couple of them together for you for today’s post, though!

My first video is perfect for today, since I’m heading to our local tulip festival parade this afternoon (if the rain holds off!). It showcases our BotaniCuts Tulips die that was released a few weeks ago as part of our Spring Market collection.

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In this video I’ll show you how to put these blooms together, and also one of my favorite coloring methods. I’ll be creating some bright red and yellow variegated tulips, but you could use the same method for any color combination, or even just a monochromatic color scheme. One of the most beautiful things about tulips are all of the colors they come in!

I used the technique in the video to color two sets of the BotaniCuts Tulips to fill up my card front.

To create my background, I sponged Tumbled Glass and Blueprint Sketch Oxide inks onto some textured watercolor paper. I spritzed it with water to add texture, and also added some darker blue splatters using watercolor paint.

I arranged my tulip blooms, leaves, and stems to look like a whole garden of tulips is coming up from the bottom edge of my card. I finished it off with a simple sentiment stamped in black ink across the top. This “caring thoughts” sentiment is from our Holding Hands set.

Lastly today, I have one more video for you! There have been some requests for an assembly video for the Market Baskets die. I actually recorded this before the release, but did not get a chance to edit it. I don’t have a new project for you today using these dies, but hopefully you’ll enjoy this how-to video. 🙂

Thanks so much for joining me today! Have a great weekend!

May 14, 2021 24 comments

All TGIF

TGIF – Graduation Inspiration

by Betsy May 7, 2021

written by Betsy

Happy Friday! I hope your week was awesome and your weekend ahead is even awesome-r! 🙂

I’m taking a turn for today’s TGIF and sharing a few more graduation cards I created using some of the new products from our Spring Market collection.

I mentioned in my post last week that since my daughter is a Junior this year, she has several friends graduating. She gave me a list of cards she will be needing, along with their favorite colors. I had fun putting these together with them in mind…

One of the girls likes dark jewel tones, so I decided to pull out the black magic technique I shared a few months back.

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The florals were all stamped with the AlphaBuds Bold Floral Details set using the technique linked in the video above. I laid out my AlphaBud Bold Florals in my MISTI so that I could use the same layout to create multiple cards. The numbers here were cut from gold paper using the Bold Numbers die. I heat embossed “class of” using the Digit Sentiments set.

As I mentioned above, I arranged all of the floral stamps in my MISTI so that I could create multiples of the same layout. Here I made the same card, but this time in lighter blues and greens – another of the girls’ favorites.

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This time I diecut the numbers from white cardstock and just sponged them with a bit of Tumbled Glass oxide ink for a lighter, brighter look. I also added some colored pencil shading to the florals.

Because I get bored making the same thing too many times, this last one has a different layout. This time I used the AlphaBuds stamps along with the coordinating dies to create more layers. The request for this card was bright colors, so I sponged my numbers with some bright Oxide inks, and also stamped the florals in bright colors.

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For the background of this one I pulled out my Macrame Openwork Base die to cut the chevron design, which I backed with some yellow cardstock just to add a touch of color. I also added a border along the edge using my Macrame Borders & Tassels die.

Well that wraps up my graduation card showcase for today! I enjoyed making these and I hope the girls enjoy receiving them. Have a wonderful weekend…and a special shout-out to all of the moms! I hope your weekend is extra special. ❤️

May 7, 2021 20 comments

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TGIF – BotaniCuts Bouquet with Norine

by Betsy April 30, 2021

written by Betsy

TGIF everyone! Norine is here with us today, but before we get to all of the details of her beautiful project (a work of art, really!), just a couple of quick notes…

First of all, thank you all so much for your overwhelming response to our sale and latest release! We are so grateful for you!

Please note that due to the volume of orders, it’s taking us a bit longer to get through them. We’re working through them in the order they were received and are doing our best to get everyone’s orders out as quickly as possible, but the wait may be a little longer than you’re used to for our typical releases. Thank you for your patience! 😊

Also note that today is the last day of our 2nd Anniversary sale! Our sale ends tonight (4/30) at 11:59pm EDT. The whole shop is 15% off, with select items HERE an additional 15% off!

Now for Norine’s beautiful TGIF project that is going to inspire you to pull out your BotaniCuts dies!

Hello Greetery friends! Did you enjoy the Spring Market release this week? I hope you were able to order all the stamps and dies your hearts desired!

I have another card to share today that started as a Spring Market reveal card but quickly grew out of control, with more variety of dies and stamp sets on one card than you would think even fits!

It’s a card that reminds me of what my counter looks like when someone gives me a bouquet of pretty flowers – with all the jars and vases out to see what fits and suits best.

Of course, I started with some BotaniCuts Tulip flowers and went from there. I knew I wanted to make a (news)paper wrapped bouquet but then I got thinking how much nicer it would be as a bouquet of several of the different BotaniCuts die sets. So I added a yellow BotaniCuts Rose and coral BotaniCuts Lily to the mix. I love the added variety of leaves in the bouquet as well.

For all of the large flowers I die cut the shapes from white cardstock then inked the individual parts with ink blender brushes. Before assembling the bouquet I put each bloom together temporarily, to make sure they were properly shaded in the right spots and that each petal showed up against the petal it lay next to. Differently to the larger flowers, the Wildflower Mix die cuts are Copic colored to give them a pale blue green tint, like Baby’s Breath.

The next step was to stamp the layers and die cut the vessels. I used the Bottled Up, Pitcher-esque and Just Mason Around stamp and die sets to create the sealer jar, green bottle and pink pitcher with floral decorative design.

To create the paper wrapper for the bouquet, I cut a piece of kraft tissue paper approximately 4” square, and stamped on it with a text stamp. Then I folded it corner to corner with the text showing on the outside, and with the short triangle tip pointing down, placed the bouquet on the tissue and folded the two side points across the stems and upwards, then folded the right side corner down. I wrapped some thin jute twice around the folded paper and taped it in place on the backside so it won’t slip.

To assemble the card, I die cut a panel from white cardstock using the Crimped Slimline Frames die and positioned all the containers and flower bouquet on the panel, overlapping the edges in places. I cut a card front from blue textured cardstock to cover the front of a folded card base and adhered all the layers together.

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I would be completely delighted to receive an actual bouquet like this, but also, equally delighted to get one in paper form! Thank you for stopping by and have a wonderful day!

April 30, 2021 26 comments

All Sneak Peeks TGIF

TGIF – Spring Daisies with Keeway + Spring Market Sneak Peek #1

by Betsy April 23, 2021

written by Betsy

Thanks so much for stopping by today! We are ready to kick off a busy few days here at The Greetery! Today we’re sharing our first peek at our newest collection coming to the shop on Wednesday, April 28, called Spring Market…

Here’s a little peek of some of what’s to come! School is almost out for the year, but we’ll have your crafting abc’s and 123’s covered with these pretty new products…

I can’t wait to share more – I’ll be back tomorrow with another sneak peek and we’ll kick off the full reveals on Monday! Our new Spring Market collection will be available to purchase in the shop beginning at 10am EDT on Wednesday, April 28.

Now for some TGIF fun…Keeway is here with a springy project that will brighten your day right up!

Hello friends! Keeway here to add some bright and happy inspiration to your day! We’re in the
middle of Spring and flowers are slowly blooming all around me. That got me inspired to bring
together a field of colorful flowers.

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I started by die cutting all the variants of daisies with the Oopsie Daisy Die. I already had in
mind to create a slimline sized card, so I used the die cuts to figure out my arrangement across. I
also picked out 5 colors I wanted to stamp the daisies in: blue, purple, pink, orange, and
turquoise. With my arrangement planned out, I then started to stamp the flowers with the Oopsie Daisy set, making sure to vary them so that no same color is next to each other and spread out across the card to good
balance.

I also love, love, love to add dimension to my cards with foam tape. However, these flower
stems are thin and can be quite laborous and difficult to cut your foam tape into super thin strips
to add behind it. You can also opt to layer it with more die cuts, but that is also laborous and talk
about waste of good paper! To solve this issue, I decided to die cut a frame using the Crimped
Slimline Die. I die cut the larger frame out of white card stock and then the smaller frame,
leaving me an open frame to work with that will have provide good support underneath the
stems.

I like to add a touch of ink blending to my projects, and so I did just that for the background.
This was ink blended with Broken China and Tumbled Glass distress oxide inks. I then added
my frame next with foam tape and my stamped daisies thereafter.

The last piece is to add a sentiment, and I wanted to pick something bold that can stand out in
front of this colorful field of daisies. The Greetery has so many options to choose from, but I
ended up decided on using the Birthday Blooms stamp set. I stamped the sentiments in black ink
and used the Birthday Blooms Die to cut out the large ‘birthday’. The ‘happy’ was die cut out with
the fishtail banner from Crimped Slimline Die using partial die cutting technique to shorten the
length of the banner. I added these to the bottom right corner of the card to finish this card.
I really loved how this card turned out and hope you do too!

Thanks for joining me today and I hope you have an incredible weekend!

April 23, 2021 47 comments

All TGIF

TGIF – Lovely Blossoms Sympathy + Save the Date…

by Betsy April 16, 2021

written by Betsy

Happy Friday everyone! I hope there are crafty plans on your weekend horizon! I think I’ll be camping out in my craft room working on some things we have coming up here at The Greetery! Speaking of which…a little save the date announcement before we get into the terrific TGIF project Heather has for us today.

We hope you’ll join us for some festivities as we release our newest product collection and celebrate our second birthday! The festivities officially begin on Monday, April 26, but we’ll be popping in here on the blog a few times next week with some sneak peeks and a fun announcement. I hope you’ll join us!

Now let’s turn it over to Heather, who’s sharing some beautiful sympathy cards with us today…

Sympathy cards are my least favorite to make, but the ones I need most often. I think this every time I make them, but I also know how necessary they are and how much comfort that they can bring to our friends and loved ones who are experiencing a loss. I created a few cards to have ready when I need them using the beautiful flowers from the Lovely Blossoms set.

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I choose a soft lavender ink color for the blossoms and instead of layering lots of different ink colors together, I used a white pigment ink to add the lighter lavender layer. Layering white ink over a color will give you a tint of the ink color underneath and give your image a whole different look than layering darker ink colors. I used the same lavender ink that I began with for the shading detail layer. The result is a soft and pretty pastel bloom that is perfect for the calm and comforting feeling that I was going for on this card. You will also notice that I used white pigment ink to add the details on the leaves.

The lavender blooms are added onto a kraft cardstock background that I stenciled using the Berry Branch Stencil with modeling paste. Using a paste instead of ink adds a lovely textured effect to the background. I added the paste just to the middle of the background and while the paste was still wet, I sprinkled a bit of white glitter onto it to add a touch of sparkle.

The ‘with sympathy’ sentiment is from the Caring Cross Stamp + Stencil set and it is stamped onto the larger notched banner from the Crimped Slimline die collection using a dark brown ink. This card size is called Mini Slim and it measures 3.5″ x 6″, a bit shorter than the popular Slimline size.

I am a big proponent of creating more than one card while your supplies are out on your craft desk. As I created the elements for my card, I did enough to create four cards. Now, when I need a sympathy card, I have these pretty floral cards ready to send a heartfelt message of love and comfort.

Thank you for joining me today!

April 16, 2021 19 comments

All TGIF

TGIF – Dreaming of Summer with Wanda

by Betsy April 9, 2021

written by Betsy

TGIF! Wanda is here today and if you thought you had spring fever, Wanda’s taking it one step further and making us long for summer with her gorgeous project…

Hello and Welcome to TGIF here at The Greetery! Wanda here today sharing some of my favorite things! I live in California and last week we had a high temperature of 86 degrees! Well, that got me to thinking about Summer, and pina coladas, so I created a Summer card to share with you today. Never too early to plan ahead for the season, and work with some of my favorite themes… I am always inspired by vintage postcards, and I absolutely love vintage Hawaiiana too. Well, combine those two things with lots of wonderful stamps and dies from The Greetery and you have today’s card! A tropical postcard card!

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I started by die cutting several of the small stamps dies from the Pretty Postmarks Dies, one of the larger stamp pieces and the circular postmark piece. I used watercolor paper for all the pieces of this card except the card base. The card base is made from Woodgrain Cardstock from my stash in A2 size. I also die cut several palm dies from watercolor paper. Once I had my elements all die cut, I had fun water coloring with Distress inks and the awesome Destination stamp sets.

I chose the elements that made me think of summer: Palm Trees, flowers, and that cute woody wagon with the surfboard. I stamped with Distress Inks and then used a water brush to ‘paint’ over the stamped images to look like water coloring. I also splattered everything with brown ink to look vintage. I edged all the pieces with light brown ink. For the base layer, I die cut the large Postal Die from watercolor paper and brushed on some blue ink mixed with a lot of water.

For the palm leaves I also used Distress inks and a water brush. Such an easy technique that gives great results! Everything is attached to the card using foam squares for added dimension. For the sentiment, I used the Pretext Dies and stamps from the Lemon Blossom stamp set to write out ‘happy summer’ on two different tabs.

To finish off I will wish you Aloha! I hope I’ve inspired you to look at your stamps in a new way and try something different. Thank you for spending some time with me here on The Greetery Blog today. Wishing you a beautiful weekend full of happiness and creativity! Take care friends.

April 9, 2021 15 comments