Fun Shaped Cards - The Way of Plants by Colorado Craft Company

 

Hi Friends! What a fun release just hit the shelves from Colorado Craft Company - the Way of Plants offers three different LARGE cacti and succulents for your coloring pleasure! I was so anxious to play with these, as I thought they'd make perfect candidates for shaped cards!

I'd like to share three different types of shaped cards with these beauties:

1) Shaped Card Base - A straightforward way to make a shaped card is to start with a typical card base, place your large die so it slightly goes past the fold of the card base, and then die cut your base in the shape of your image.

Since this leaves you with a flat top where the fold is, I usually make another die cut of the image and adhere that to the card base.

This beauty is the succulent from Ready Set Grow - aside from the giant bloom. how awesome is that detail on the pot?! You can of course stamp the pot on white paper and color it, but if you want a quick pop just emboss all that detail on a colored paper.

Lots of space for you to add your color in many different ways on the succulent. Not a lot of fuss. There are also a lot of sentiments (and dies for them) to choose from.  

2) Easel Card base - an alternative to the shaped card base is to add an easel to the back of your large shape. This gives you a card that stands but does not open. 

Then if you want to kick it up a notch ...

... make the easel part of the card itself! That's right, we've literally planted the cactus into this pot, lol!

This may give you a better idea of how it works - cut a slit in the planter, put the cactus and strip of dirt with sentiment through the slit, and add a wider piece to the bottom of the easel so you can't pull the cactus completely out of the planter.

This shape is the cactus from Can't Touch This. Another fun design for the planter. This time I colored the design, but in a very loose manner. The little arrow shapes would be difficult for me to color in an efficient manner, so I just ran my paint brush in a straight line through all the spaces.

3) Partial Shaped Card - my third and final type of shaped card is one that's only partially cut, like the flower petals on the top. This is a great method to use when your shape is larger than an A2-sized card.

This card was made by stamping the cactus on the card base, lining up the die, and then place the fold on the end of your cutting platform. This will let you cut out the flowers, and then when the platform stops the cutting will also stop, so you've only cut out the flower top. 

This cactus is from the Grow Girl set. Yet another beautiful planter base! For this one I did go for coloring all the different sections. I ended up not liking the center colors I picked (green, which was too much with the cactus color) so I colored another section and just adhered it on top. To make it look intentional, I popped it up so now it's a cool medallion element.

I did want to mention the 3D nature of the planter ...

To get this dimensional look I cut out another planter, adhered it with a strip of foam tape going down the middle, and then glued the sides flat to the card base. It's a small detail, and doesn't add more bulk since it's just a regular foam square, but adds to the dimensional feel of the card.

I embossed the sentiment in gold on vellum, cut it out in a cactus shape, and "planted" the sentiment along with the cactus. 

I'm happy to say I've got a prize to give out to a random commenter on this post! One random commenter will receive a stamp and die set from this release!! Just leave your comment through Feb 23rd and the winner will be picked and announced on the Colorado Craft Company blog on Feb 25. 

Also, there are a few others who are sharing cards from this release, AND are offering the same prize opportunity! Let the festivities continue! Please stop buy and see what they have to share:

Blogs:

Adrienne Kennedy CCC

Emily Midgett

Jennifer Kotas
Kassi Hulet

Kelly Griglione 
Kelly Taylor
Nancy Sheads

IG:

Jennifer Gross

Joe Sysivath

Kathy Racoosin

Mansi Bhatia

Traci Jenkins

Also, great news, free shipping (and $6.99 international shipping) is available today and tomorrow! No coupons needed, it will automatically be deleted from your cart!

 

Thanks for stopping by!!

- Kelly

If you'd like to check out the products in this post, here are affiliate links that will take you there. Thanks so much for your support!

Can't Touch This

Grow Girl

Ready Set Grow