Sending Sunshine - A cute any day card!

Playful card created with a sub standard stamp set! - Watch the video below.

What started out as just playing around with a bargain basement stamp set actually turned into a pretty cute card that is just perfect for sending to anyone for any reason - just “Sending You Sunshine”.

So I actually purchased this set at the local craft store, or the most local-ish that can be found in this area. I don’t shop there often as I find the products way over priced for the quality. However it happens to be the only place I can find a small assortment of Copic Markers. I needed an N-2 marker in the worst way…like I mean nothing else was going to be getting created on my desktop without it, so I had to take the plunge into the city to that local craft emporium.

No sale on the Copic Markers, but there was a Buy 2 Get 1 half price sale happening on scrapbooking supplies, so I decided to grab a set of cutting plates for my cutting machine ( these were a must ).

What was I going to pick for the 2nd item and then the half price item. I don’t know?!?!

Yes, this was totally forced shopping in order to take advantage of the sale, which I think actually took advantage of me… since I didn’t need any items from this store other than the markers and the cutting plates.

But there I was… choosing 2 products that I really had absolutely no use for!

Does anyone else do this?? ( Let me know in the comments below ).

Dies are always a handy option when picking an item for cardmaking, so I chose a circle track die that will allow me to create a circle slider/spinner card in an easier way fidgeting with 2 circle dies. $15.99

Just above the dies was a stamp set with included dies, and the rainbow die in the set caught my eye. I don’t have a rainbow die - Again, I had been using a series of circles to create a die cut rainbow. Along with the rainbow die there a few other die cuts and of course the small stamp set with some cheery little greetings and a sun.

I didn’t think I had a “sun” stamp and the rainbow die cut was going to make life easier so this would be my chosen 1/2 off item. Half off of $15.99.

So between markers and my qualifying sale products, I left the store broke… well it felt that way.

I’d say long story short here… but that wasn’t the case -

it was a long story to get to the point…

The focal point - this card!!

I sat down at my desk this morning to create a different card - which is coming this week and it’s super cute and fun, yesterday’s purchases were sitting on the desk and I decided to check out this stamp and die bundle that I had purchased. Just see what the quality was like - that type of thing.

I started stamping on a 4 x 5 1/2 piece of white cardstock. I stamped the sun from the set and the big “Sunshine” word. It didn’t stamp very well, good job I was using a stamp positioning tool, and it needed a little eye appeal, so I stamped in Daffodil Delight and used a finger dauber to add some Mango Melody to the end of the sun rays and to the bottom of the word sunshine.

After several applications of ink I finally had something audible to work with. Looked like I could turn it into something.

I added the sentiment “Sending You” above the sunshine, and a cute little face that was included in the set to the center of the sun.

This card was going to look bland with the idea that I had in mind at this point. I needed to fill in some white space, since my plan was to add white clouds to white card space. So I blended just a touch of blue in around the white space to appear like a blue sky.

I die cut 2 clouds and added them to the white space.

I picked a random piece of pattern paper from my stash - I think it was Pink & Main Dots and Stripes or something to that effect. I cut it to 4 1/4 x 5 1/2.

I attached this panel to the pattern paper layer, leaving just a small edge of the pattern paper on either side of the stamped layer. I then attached this to the front of a card base cut at 4 1/4 x 11, Scored at 5 1/2.

Lastly, the card needed just a hint of sparkle, so I added a few yellow rhinestones from Pink & Main that were lingering in my stash just begging to be used on a card with a little sunshine!

End result: A rather cute card for just playing around!

I’m sure there will be a few more cards made from this little set of stamps and dies by Reflections. The quality of the set wasn’t great - the stamps were flimsy and reluctant to give a good stamp impression but it did produce a cute card.

I thought the card was worth remaking, so I turned the video on to create to create the 2nd card.

You can watch that process here: Sending Sunshine Card Video Tutorial

Let me know if you like the card and don’t forget to tell me your tales of “great sales” or not so great sales! in the comments below: