Merry & Bright Cactus!

Hello everyone! Judy here today with a special card for my desert family! While lots of snowmen and snowy trees and holly berries abound, I wanted to make a cactus card, as I am from Arizona. While I have not lived there in many years, it still holds my heart!

Today I am using the Prickly Pear Cactus Stamp Set and Dies. I smooshed the background with watercolors, and then "messy" painted my images with Kuretake Paints. The sentiment stamps perfectly, but ended up on a watercolor splatter! I wrapped gold metallic thread around the top of the pot and added Kaisercraft Pearls to the blossom tops (a spring thing, yes, but... it's Christmas magenta!). An embossing folder added the texture to the middle panel. 

You can find more of my projects at my blog, Joy in a JAR, or on Instagram at @joy_in_a_jar. Thanks for stopping by today!

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

Life Can Be Prickly

Hey Y'all!!! It's day 4 of the new Southwest Release at Prickley Pear Stamps and I'm showcasing the Prickly Pear Cactus stamp set. It's so fun. Don't let them stick you. They are awful prickly. Hehe. Be sure to check out the fun stamp sets and dies in the new release! All the details for making this card yourself are below.

I started by printing the the prickly cactus, pot and sentiment on Neenah Classic Crest Solar White paper and coloring them with Copic markers. The list of markers is below...

Here is the link for the clear Prickly Pear Cactus stamp set & matching dies:

Prickly Pear Cactus Stamp Set

Prickly Pear Cactus Die Set

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COPIC MARKERS:

• Cactus (YG17, YG07, YG05, YG03)

• Pot (YR09, YR04, YR02, 100)

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PAPER & EVERYTHING ELSE

• Neenah Classic Crest Solar White 80lb Paper

• Card Stock - Mango Melody, Poppy Parade, Basic White

• Dies - Wonky Stitched Rectangles, ATC Antique Frames

• Stencils - Moments

• Distress Oxide Inks - Carved Pumpkin, Uncharted Mariner, Mowed Lawn, Crackling Campfire

• Foam Tape, Texture Paste (Transparent Gloss)

The card base is from Mango Melody. The card base is 8 1/2" x 5 1/2", scored at 4 1/4" on the long side.  Make sure you use your bone folder and burnish the fold well so it doesn't tear the fold.

The layer on top of the Mango Melody is Poppy Parade. It's cut to 5 3/8" x 4 1/8". Obviously you can make it whatever size make you happy. It's glued to the card base with wet glue.

I cut a piece of Basic White card stock with one of the Wonky Stitched Rectangle dies and colored it with Distress Oxide Inks, Carved Pumpkin, Uncharted Mariner, Mowed Lawn, Crackling Campfire. Once they were dry I used the Moments stencil with Texture Paste (Transparent Gloss) to create a cool background that matched all the card stock and inks.

I cut two more pieces of Mango and Poppy card stock, also using the Wonky dies and layered them on top of the background. The Poppy piece is glued down with wet glue and the Mango piece is popped up with foam tape.

The cactus in the pot is popped up on top of everything with foam tape. I added some glitter dots because why not. Everything's better with more glitter, right?

The sentiment 'Life Can Be Prickly' was cut out with an Antique Frame die and poppled up on top of the pot. Added still more glitter dots.

Watch out for those prickly cacti!  ~Teresa