Women

It’s A Mystery – A Birthday Card for an Avid Mystery Reader

| ullycatdesigns

This is a card for the Relatively Thoughtful March 2025 Challenge using the two page free digital download from the Independent Women “AUTHORS” paper set.

Cardbase: Start with a purchased side-fold A7 (7×5-inch) card. Cover the front with two strips of the narrow decorative papers and one 3.5×7-inches of the wallpaper print. Use scrapes to created the tab strips at right top and bottom. (I printed one set out and realized my yellow ink cartridge was empty, so the card back uses that paper. The front of card uses the set printed with all the full color cartridges.)

Oval Opening: I centered my 3.125-inch oval die over the cut out rectangle of Agatha Christie positioned them where I wanted them to go on the card front and carefully taped the die down while removing the picture. With the card open, I cut the oval through just the card front.  Glue the picture to the inside of the card centering it through the oval window.

Decorations: Add floral images fussy cut from the digital papers. Cut out three tags for the back of the card. Use a fine black pen to draw strings on the tags.

Mystery RT032025Download

Sentiments: Here are the sentiments I used for the card. Free download.

Envelope:  The card fits into an A7 (7×5-inch) size envelope with a fussy cut tag from the papers glued to the back flap.

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Thank you for experiencing this blog post.

I hope this inspires you and makes you smile.

Please like and leave comments 😊

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Disclaimer: Karen Burniston products are provided free of charge by the manufacturer for review and use. All other items were personally purchased. Compensated affiliate links used where or when possible, meaning I will receive a small percentage commission from these manufacturers at no cost to you. This will allow me to add more content to my YouTube channel and help out a lot. Thank you.

Materials Used:

Dies

  •  Tutti Designs – Stitched Nesting Ovals

Papers

  • 65lb. Smooth White 8.5×11-inch Cardstock
  • White 8.5×11-inch Computer Paper
  • Purchased A7 Cardbase and Cream Envelope

Ink

  • Pigma – Mircon 01 Fine Tip Pen – Black
  • Ink Jet Computer Printer

Adhesives

Tools

  • Die Cutting Machine
  • Paper Trimmer
  • Stamping Blocks used as paperweights
  • Scissors
  • Paper Masking Tape
  • Hole Punch (For tags)
  • We R Memories – QuickStick

A Truly Great Friend

| ullycatdesigns

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

| ullycatdesigns

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.

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Supplies Used: