Words of Encouragement

 Hello Prickley Pear Friends! Tia here from RockyMtnCraftia.com. I'm sharing my first design team card of 2023! I hope that this new start is going well for you! But, if you are like a friend of mine (she had rotator-cuff surgery New Year's Eve!) your new year start might be a little 'prickly', as life can be! So here's a card with a little encouragement that you can send to those friends who need a pick-me-up!

Featuring the newly released Prickley Pear Cactus stamp set. I love the sentiments with this set! And I'm using 3 out of the 4 in the set. There is also a sentiment to 'get well soon'. So really the perfect pick-me-up set. 

Although I am typically all about inking up my stamped images, I know many of you are not colorists. So, I decided to try a classic move and paper-piece my card.

I had so much fun searching through my green pattern papers to find these favorites. Once they were found, I couldn't decide on one, so all three made the cut and that is how my layout was born.

Card Design

After selecting my design paper, I stamped the cactus on each piece with Memento Ink in Bamboo Leaves. The stickers were stamped in Memento Ink-Cottage Ivy. There is a matching die with this set that I highly recommend! It was not available at the time of design, so I fussy cut all my images, but really look forward to getting my coordinating dies soon. 

I used Copic colors in E13; E08 and E29 to color the plant pots. They turned out a bit darker than I planned, so I embossed my sentiments in white ink rather than black ink so they would really stand out.

With the smallest heart die I own, I cut a heart from the pink cardstock and adhered to the last plant pot.

Then I glued my cactus to the back side of the plant pots. Now for the card base.

Card Layout

I began with a 5 x 11.5 in. piece of solid cardstock and folded it at 6.75 in. (the front fold will measure 4.75 in long.

I then cut my pink & white design paper at 4 x 11.5 in. I adhered it to the front fold (a little lower to the bottom than in the center) and then trimmed the excess. The excess was then matched for position with the front fold and adhered inside my card.

Next, I cut pieced of solid white cardstock to serve as the seam binding between the pink cardstock and design paper. That binding was cut in 4- 1/16 in. wide strips 12in long and I just trimmed off all excess.

I decided that I didn't want to spread the cactus out but rather layer them.  So, the inside cactus is adhered directly to the card leaving plenty of space inside for encouraging handwritten message.  

Outside of the card, I stamped 'Life can be Prickly' in Memento-Bamboo Leaves green, die cut with a spellbinders label die and inked a little Distress Ink in Vintage Photo for it to stand out.

I popped both cactus on foam tape. I noticed that my foam squares are not as high as my foam tape. So I used both and end up with a height difference that allowed me to place the highest cactus in the center of the three.

I appreciate you spending some time with me today! Take a peek down the line and see what the rest of the design team is up to and all the inspiration (and fun) we're having with this new Southwestern themed release.

Remember to join the team on Facebook in the Prickley Pear Pals Group! So you can share your creations and inspirations with us!!!

Have a great day and Go Get Crafty!

-Tia