That time is here...stressing over valentines for your children's classmates. I end up dreading this every year and waiting until the last minute to get something done. This year in my quest to actually organize and do things ahead of time, I decided to start my project a bit early. This also coincided with my first blog post for CutCardStock.com as an influencer. I am excited to be working with them. I purchase a lot of my basic cardstock, especially Neenah solar white papers and envelopes, from them. CutCardStock.com has a lot of variety and they can do custom cutting on site. I decided to use 12x12 sheets of their DCS white and show ways to stretch that white cardstock. Please read on to see what I made. 

I recently met a crafty friend on line and we met up to craft together. She introduced me to a great Birch Press Layered die, Adora. I’ve loved Birch Press dies but just hadn't ever used them so I quickly grabbed three colors of paper out of my scrap stash and die cut them. The Adora die has a repeating heart pattern and after I cut out the patterns, I was left with all these colorful hearts. I didn't want to waste them so I decided to make some cards but needed white as a neutral to go with my color palette. I grabbed the Altenew Radial Hearts cover die which has a repeating heart pattern and cut out a piece of Neenah solar white. I saved all these heart pieces and decided to use them on a card. Well I ended up making 5 cards and would like to explain how I made them using dies and leftovers. Please read on and note that affiliate links are used in this post. If you decide to purchase the items through these links, I get a small commission at no cost to you. Thank you for your support.

Today on the blog, I am using Altenew Layered Stencils to create unique looks to cards. I am using different blends of ink, texture paste and DecoFoil Transfer Gel. I love how the layered stencils give such a realistic impression. Please read on for how I accomplished each of these looks and tricks and tips I learned along the way.

Holidays are all about the sparkle and magic of the season. The temperatures get colder, hearts fill with cheer and there's something happy and magical about the time. The Tonic Nuvo Glimmer Paste and Newton's Nook Snowfall Stencil I had used on a previous card needed to make another appearance. The shine and dimension from the Glimmer Paste really makes the stencil design stand out. Before putting away my holiday stamps and dies, I wanted to make just another design for the season. The holidays is a time when shimmer and sparkle are expected and are not over the top for a card.

Savannah has this shirt with swipes of color that each contain a different phrase. I wanted to do something similar and thought Right At Home's Watercolor background stamp would be a great compliment to my idea. To give my cards a different look, I stamped the background with different colors of inks. Please read along for how I made 5 completely different cards using the same stamp.