Looking Beyond the Kit

It's early morning August 31, 2023, and it's the last day of Stampin' Up!®'s Kits Collection sale. It's a great sale - 15-30% off every kit in our Collection! You can shop for those kits in my online store: https://bit.ly/amyrichkitscollection.

During this sale I snagged the Forever Friends Card Kit, and I sure am glad I did! It's so beautiful!

I put the cards together and found that the process was fun and simple and the cards were perfect...well, almost. Notice I have corners cut off of the focal image on the first card? That's because I got ink on one of the corners, and rather than try to awkwardly cover up that one corner, I cut opposite corners off. 😂

But what happens when our kits are complete? The eight amazing cards in this class have been made and are ready to send when the time comes. Even after the cards are complete, there happens to be four extra labels in the kit, so I set to making four extra cards using four extra special flowers.

I started with our Basic White Notecards & Envelopes. Folded size is 3 1/2" x 5", so they're just a bit smaller than the standard size which makes it much easier to fill space. Because the stamp set only has three image stamps, I decided a flower, a set of leaves, and the label would fill the card perfectly. For three of the cards, I cut a layer of Basic White cardstock measuring 3 1/4" x 4 3/4," then embossed each of those three with one of the Basics 3D Embossing Folders. Each of those three cards also featured a different way of coloring the flower and leaves.

The first card - which I made during What's Up! Stampers? Wednesday on Facebook - was the simplest. I used the Night of Navy Stampin' Spot ink pad from the Forever Friends kit, stamped the flower and leaves on a scrap of Basic White cardstock, and fussy cut them out. When added to the Basic White card base, the look was so elegant I felt the need to add some rhinestones.

For the second set of flower and leaves, I again stamped the images on Basic White cardstock with the Night of Navy Stampin' Spot before coloring them with Stampin' Blends and fussy cutting them to layer onto the card.

For the third card I stamped the flower and leaves in Jet Black Staz On ink (make sure to clean it off immediately or the Staz On ink will become permanent on the photopolymer stamps). I then used Blender Pens and ink from the Lemon Lolly and Soft Seafoam ink pads for gorgeously soft color.

For the last card I decided to add Designer Series Paper as the 3 1/4" x 4 3/4" layer. The Night of Navy plaid in the piece of DSP that I decided to use really was exactly right. The flower was stamped in Night of Navy ink. The leaves were stamped in Old Olive ink. Because the ink is water-based, when a clean Blender Pen was run across the ink, the ink bled to create a color to the flowers. I did the same thing with the leaves.

I definitely feel like all four cards are beautiful in their own way, and they all use the stamp set and a label from the Forever Friends kit. So when you've made all the cards from your kit, I encourage you to look beyond the kit and see its glorious possibilities.

Happy kit creativity!

Amy