How to Make an Easy Card For Someone Special In Your Life

I love making cards, but I love making them even more when I am making a specific card for a specific someone – and today it is all about how to make this easy card for someone special in your life.

This past week has been truly life changing – not just because I had to try out a different brand of coffee or something like that – but seriously life altering, life changing – exciting, scary and our family going down a different path.  As we get more used to it and after a small amount of dust has settled on it – AKA me sharing a condensed version of it rather than blabbering on and on and not making any sense and going on and on and causing you to wonder how I even manage to get up in the morning – I will share about it – know that it is all good!!!

One of the biggest things has been with our Emily.  She is my amazing daughter and I am so proud of her.

She and I always do this thing when I leave town – we have our code word or words.  Each time it is a new code word but it means “I miss you, I love you and I am thinking of you.”  Sometimes they are a funny, sometimes serious, sometimes she picks them out, sometimes I pick them out.  We started it a few years ago as a diversion.  I had met my mom at the halfway point between our homes for Emily to go stay with her for a weekend.  Emily was very excited, but was also sad to part with me and was crying.  I was trying to get her to start crying and got her thinking about a word that would mean all the things above, so when she was missing me, she could send me a text from my mom's phone and I could reply the same way.  And it is our thing now.

I am back home, and after a night of great sleep – meaning in my own bed and not a twin bed with itchy sheets – I was in my stamp room this morning and wanted to make my daughter a card telling her how proud of her I am for what she has done this past week.

So as I was making the card, I was struggling with what sentiment to use.  Really struggling – was it just ‘love', was it ‘way to go'?  As I was digging through some stamps, there it was – the perfect sentiment – it was our code from the weekend – “You & Me”.  I had no idea I had this sentiment.

This was from this weekend:

Once I had the sentiment – then I chose my layout – and then I just needed some patterned paper.  The paper would then give me my colors.  Emily loves this patterned paper – it is the Sweet Sorbet from Stampin' Up.  That gave me the colors of Coastal Cabana, Basic Black, Pistachio Pudding and Crisp Cantaloupe.

Do it make sense to you that once you know WHO the card is for, the WHAT it should look like comes easier?  The card flows faster – and BETTER?

I went with a simple layout – The base is Pistachio Pudding (4-1/4″ x 11″) and a piece of Whisper White is on top – 4″ x 5-1/4″.  Three little strips that are 1″ x 4″ of patterned paper are on top of that, but I put the stripes down first, and then layered the next piece on top, covering up a bit of the bottom, and then repeated that again with the 3rd pattern.

Next it was time for the texture – a strip of Crisp Cantaloupe that was zipped on through the Big Shot using the Square Lattice Embossing Folder.  Before that was applied to the front of the card, a piece of Basic Black 1/8″ Taffeta ribbon was wrapped around.

I tied a perfect bow using the 10 Second Bow Maker and attached my bow using a glue dot.

Now we are on to my fave part – the sentiment.  The rest is all the pretty, but the sentiment is the driving force of this card.  I could have just stamped the sentiment in Crisp Cantaloupe, but instead I stamped a flower behind it.

There was another step in the stamping of the flower.  I “Stamped Off” the image once on my scratch paper before stamping it on my card stock in the Coastal Cabana ink – so ink it up one time, stamp on your scratch paper and then onto your card stock.  That was die cut with a 1-7/8″ circle from the Circle Framelits and then the 2″ Basic Black circle was die cut using the Circle #2 die.  Add a 2-3/8″ Scallop Circled punched piece behind and ta-da!!!

Seriously, that is all it took to make this card.

Here is the list of supplies:

Stamps:  Cheerful Bee (Heidi Grace)

Ink:  Coastal Cabana, Crisp Cantaloupe (Stampin' Up!)

Card Stock:  Coastal Cabana, Crisp Cantaloupe, Basic Black, Whisper White, Pistachio Pudding  (Stampin' Up!)

Patterned Paper:  Sweet Sorbet (Sale-a-Bration item, Stampin' Up!)

Accessories:  Big Shot, Square Lattice Embossing Folder, 2-3/8″ Scallop Circle Punch, Circles #2 Die, Circle Framelits, Scallop Border Punch (Stampin' Up!)

Other Accessories:  10 Second Bow Maker

For the inside of the card, I went with a piece of Whisper White 4″ x 5-1/4″.  Then I added another strip of the polka dot paper that was 1″ x 4″.  Behind that went a strip of Coastal Cabana that I used the Scallop Border Punch on and slapped those bad boys onto that white rectangle – and just like that my card was done!

I know that my daughter will go cocoa for Cocoa Puffs when she opens it later today.  She will be shocked that the sentiment is our code word and the colors from her favorite paper pack will make her beam.

Not only was it a fun card to make, but it was made even more fun by making it for her.  And I adore it – I hope you do too.

I also hope that this blog post:  How to Make an Easy Card For Someone Special In Your Life,  helps you and inspires you to make a specific card for a specific person!