Hello American Crafts Fans! It’s Terhi here, inspiring you with the simplest and the most elegant birthday card I’ve ever created. To reach the kind of style I had in mind, I used the new Willow collection which is designed by the wonderful 1Canoe2. While color choices and products matter, the real secrets behind this super simple and sophisticated card are very carefully thought out elements and the copper foil details. Let me tell you about the creation process.
I started by creating the base of the card. First, I cut a 3.5” x 11” piece of the patterned paper titled Simple Pleasures. I wanted to keep the look unique but still clean and simple, so I decided to create a "gate like" opening card. I folded the piece of paper twice. The first, I folded one folding to 1.5”, then left 5.5” for the background and folded again to create another gate part. When you’re aiming for a delicate look, use light colors and add small accents with a darker color. I chose to use green, and it creates wonderful contrast with the light pink.
Clean and simple cards are often not layered, but I think you can add some dimension and still keep the result simple. If you look closely, you can see there’s a layer of vellum both inside the card and again behind the front cover. Inside the card, the vellum layer is between the card base and white cardstock, which is there as a place to write down greetings. Both of the vellum layers are attached with foam dots, not only to add dimension but to avoid using any liquid adhesives.
As soon as I had the base done, I took a moment to fussy cut the vellum butterflies. Willow Specialty Sheet is the most fantastic vellum design with copper foiled butterflies. It’s more than perfect for my project!
I attached two of same sized butterflies on top of each other and then attached three of the layered butterflies to the cover. Vellum is very airy and light material, so adding layers will not cause a heavier look.
On the cover is also a couple of enamel dots and a tiny sentiment. Happy birthdays or other traditional greetings would work well, but when wishing the best of everything for a special friend of mine I thought this sentiment was much more suitable.
Hopefully you’ve been inspired by the card!
Keep on crafting,
Terhi
Products used: American Crafts Willow Patterned Papers Simple Pleasures (356080, Emerald Meadows (356075), and Ambrose Blooms (356072), Willow Specialty Paper (355081), Willow Enamel Dots (356088), Willow Stickers Sheet (356083), Willow Ephemera (356087), Bazzill Vellum White (300063), Sticky Thumb Dots (340272), Sticky Thumb Runner (342039).