A Truly Great Friend

Hello, it’s Sue of the Dies R Us Design Team and today we are making a Happy Mail card using Karin Joan Misses dies and stamps by Studio Light.

This slimline easel card was inspired by some made by Jennifer McGuire. Elements from both sets were used to create the paperdoll and an action wobble spring. 

Cut from the Betty die set:

  • One head and shoulders from skin colored cardstock making sure to not loose the ears which cut separately as is the head
  • One blouse using just the shoulders and neck section of the die, cut the blouse from a patterned paper. Then using v die cut the v-neckline
  • One collar and button placket from white cardstock. (Save the button circles for another card)
  • One long bangs from your choice of hair colored cardstock

Cut from the Tasha die set:

  • Two arms from skin colored cardstock (Glue them together for sturdiness)
  • One arm from patterned paper as a sleeve (Fold back hand and trim to form sleeve cuff. I covered my cuff with a scrap of white cardstock.)
  • One long hair piece from your choice of hair colored cardstock

Cut four Hellos from Hello die.

To assemble the paperdoll, begin by stamping and heat embossing the facial features using the stamps from the Tasha set. (I colored the tongue with a pink gel pen and the teeth and eye highlights with a white gel pen.) Play with the layout of the hair pieces, ears and head. Once you have the position using a pencil, mark the location of the head and ears on the long hair piece. Glue the ears in place using a fine tipped glue bottle then glue bangs in place. Glue top half of head to long hair piece making sure to leave the lower half without glue. 

Adhere collar and button placket to front of blouse. Glue blouse to shoulders and neck piece. (I used Nuvo drops for the buttons and let the piece dry overnight before going to the next step.)  Using the fine tipped glue bottle, attached the head to the neck. Glue the long hair to back of shoulders.

Assemble arm and sleeve as directed on cutting instructions. (You may want to cut an additional sleeve and cuff if it will be seen on the backside.) Add the action wobble spring to the back of the arm.

To make the card base cut two piece of patterned cardstock 8 1/2 x 4 inches.  Score one piece across the short end 1/2 inch. Fold and glue the tab to the end of the other piece. Score and fold the top flap of card base at 2 3/4 inches to form the easel.

Glue three hellos together to form the easel stop that will be glued to lower card base.  The fourth hello will be used for decoration on the card front when closed.

Position paperdoll and arm piece on the easel portion of card front. Make sure that the hand is within the card front when closed. Adhere paperdoll and arm to card making sure to only glue lower half of paperdoll to easel.  The arm’s elbow needs to not touch or catch on the card base.  (I ended up having to trim a small tip of the elbow on this card to make it wave smoothly.)

Now you have a card that will wave a cheery hello.

“A truly great friend is hard to find, difficult to leave and impossible to forget,” is the sentiment stamped on the back of the envelope.

Hope this fun card has put a smile on your face and provided some inspiration for your crafting. 😊

Supplies Used from Dies R Us:

Additional Supplies Used:

  • Pink gel pen
  • Patterned papers from Recollections, Hot Off the Press
  • Colored paper scraps from my stash
  • VersaMark – Watermark Stamp Pad
  • Recollections -Detail Embossing Powder – Ebony
  • Nuvo Dream Drops – Cloud 9
  • Papertrey ink – Quoted: True Friends Stamp Set – 3374
  • Stamin’ Up Classic Stampin’ Pad – Blueberry Bushel
  • No. 10 – Neenah Social – Bare White Techweave Envelope

Mother and Daughter Cards

Mothers and daughters can be so alike and yet not see it.  Here are two cards made for a woman who has recently received a job promotion and a birthday card for her 13-year-old daughter.

Both cards are made using a Studio Light stamp and die set designed by Karin Joan called Betty. It is much like creating paper dolls. The main head and shoulders die cuts four individual pieces -head, 2 ears and the neck and shoulders. I laid out the position of the hair, ears, facial features stamps as well as the jewelry stamps before I did anything else. Next, I stamped and heat embossed the facial features.

The three hair dies can be combined in a multitude of ways to create different looks. Both the mother and daughter cards use the back full hair piece placed at different heights to create long or short hair. The front bangs pieces are different. The daughter’s hair is accentuated by a large bow.

The set comes with several collar line options. I have used the V-neck for the mother and the off-the-shoulder cut for the daughter. For jewelry on the mother, I’ve used a flower hair pin stamp for the earrings (stamped and heat embossed before the head was glued over the hair) and the heart and chain stamps for the necklace.

For the sentiment on the mother’s card, I used the sentiment stamp included in the Betty set to stamp and heat emboss the “She believed she could, so she did!” and die-cut the “Happy Birthday.” (The words on the stamp “so she did!” are so fine, I found that they didn’t heat emboss well, so I stamped that line in black ink and then cut it out and glued over the blurred embossed one.) Next the sentiment was die-cut using a scalloped stitched rectangle from Tutti Designs. For the daughter’s card, a Poppy Stamps “Happy Birthday” die was used.

Both cards used layered mats of printed papers on both the front and back covers. Inside the cards have been left blank for personal messages.

Thank you for reading. If you enjoyed this blog post, please like it and follow the blog. 😊

Supplies Used: