2 Beautiful Quick and Easy Cards with Gradient Cardstock Die-Cut Sentiments

Hi, Altenew friends! I'm so glad you stopped by today! Norine here, with a couple of quick, easy, and fun cards to share! I've been wanting to get in on the “cardstock strips” trend I've seen happening and this seemed like a good time. You could quite unapologetically use any cardstock color combos you like, but I like a little more assurance that my colors coordinate and fortunately the Gradient Cardstock Sets take care of that concern!

Once I saw how great it looked to combine a single color, I had to try a version with ALL the colors and create a rainbow sentiment card too!

FIRST CARD

Let's begin with the first card and the Sea Shore Gradient Cardstock Set. My first step was to pull out one of each of all the colors in the set and trim approximately 1/4″ strips from each. “Approximately” is important. I didn't measure. Eyeballed every one. I can't do that to myself working on a project that's for FUN. So the strips aren't exact, and well, sorry, not sorry!

The next step was to lay each of the cardstock strips onto a wide band of masking paper, then line up some dies on it, temporarily tape them down and run it all through the die-cutting machine. Next time though, I will use some adhesive-backed cardstock to lay the strips on for extra thickness. The masking paper worked ok but was a little on the thin side for die-cutting. Altenew dies are so well made and are so precise that, at first, I had trouble popping the alphabet pieces out, until I put a piece of scrap cardstock over the top of the stripey piece so I could force out the scrap piece, making pokey marks on it instead of the good die-cut.

Once I had the alphabet letters cut out, I needed a background. I didn't want anything that would compete too much or distract, so I decided on a black and white motif. Next, I used the Simple Beauty Stamp Set and stamped two of the floral images with Obsidian Ink. Then, bearing in mind the placement of the alphabet letters on the stamped design, I chose the “thinking of” stamp from the Build-A-Flower: Lavender Set and stamped it with the same black ink, aligning it with the base of the alphabet letters.

Finally, I trimmed the A2 card panel on each side and matted it with some more coordinating cardstock, then added just three enamel dots to reinforce the colors.

SECOND CARD

For the next card, I used colored cardstock from the Shades of Purple, Sea Shore, Green Meadows, Summer Afternoon and Red Cosmos Gradient Cardstock Sets. I selected the shades that made a bright rainbow assortment and trimmed strips to be lined up. The strips this time round were trimmed more narrowly so that all seven colors of the rainbow could be included in the height of the Fine Alphabet Dies.

Then I stamped a happy birthday sentiment from the Dotted Blooms Stamp Set with embossing ink onto black cardstock and heated with white embossing powder before trimming it into a fish-tailed sentiment strip.

For the black & white background of this card, I wanted to cover the entire card panel so I stamped the same two images from the Simple Beauty Stamp Set, as I used above, three times each. Then I did a crazy thing. I die cut the large image three times and swiped some temporary adhesive across the back to use as a mask, then stamped and fussy cut three of the small floral clusters from masking paper. Once all the flowers were masked off, I stamped the card panel with the Dainty Swiss Dots Stamp Set, using Obsidian Ink for everything.

Once again, I trimmed the card panel to reveal a coordinating colored cardstock mat, and added some enamel dots in the same rainbow of colors.

Thanks for visiting today, and I hope you're inspired to try some black & white stamping combined with some gradient cardstock strip elements! Have a wonderful day!

~SUPPLY LIST~

Gradient Cardstock Set – Sea Shore [ ALTN ] Gradient Cardstock Set – Shades of… [ ALTN ] Gradient Cardstock Set – Red Cosmos —… [ ALTN ] Gradient Cardstock Set – Summer… [ ALTN ] Gradient Cardstock Set – Green Meadows [ ALTN ] Ultimate Gradient Cardstock Release… [ ALTN ] Jet Black Cardstock (25 sheets/set) [ ALTN ] Simple Beauty Stamp Set [ ALTN ] Simple Beauty Die Set [ ALTN ] Simple Beauty Stamp & Die Bundle [ ALTN ] Fine Alphabet Die Set [ ALTN ] Dainty Swiss Dots Stamp Set [ ALTN ] Build-A-Flower Monthly Subscription… [ ALTN ] Dotted Blooms Stamp Set [ ALTN ] Cool Summer Night Enamel Dots [ ALTN ] Green Fields Enamel Dots [ ALTN ] Pocketful of Sunshine Enamel Dots [ ALTN ] Red Cosmos Enamel Dots [ ALTN ] New Day Card Kit Enamel Dots [ ALTN ]