On Wednesday I said I’d have some more piercing plate action to show you, and today, I’m going to deliver on that promise!
Creating cards that feel appropriate for the dudes in my life is something I don’t do that often – most of my cards tend to have a feminine aesthetic to them, and it really does take a lot for me to be able to resist adding a few little sparkly gems or sequins! Knowing this, I decided to challenge myself to using some of my newer supplies with more gender-neutral color palettes. And thus, the two cards ahead were born!
To begin, I used the Essentials by Ellen A2 Piercing Plate and two pieces of white heavyweight cardstock to die cut my background panels. As many of you have probably noticed, I ADORE a good white on white background, and fell in love with this plate because it adds just enough visual interest and texture – and you don’t even have to do any stitching if that’s not your thing!
Next up came the arches (or rainbow stripes, depending on how you look at them!) I used the Essential Arches dies, which is a set I’ve been super impressed with. At first when I opened the die set, I thought that someone had mistakenly put two magnetic sheets of dies inside the envelope because that’s what I saw. I soon realized though, that the set is intended to have 15 dies in it, but they don’t all fit on one sheet, hence the second in the envelope! In addition to being able to use the dies in pairs to create varying thicknesses of arch shapes, each one on its own cuts a thin arch frame. The blue and darker yellow arches in the bottom left corner of the card below are examples of this. All of that is to say, that this set is truly worth the money – there are SO many possibilities!
I wasn’t exactly sure how the arches would be arranged, so I just cut a whole bunch from two color palettes of cardstock:
- Card 1: Concord and 9th Peacock, Oceanside, Sea Glass, Stardust, Buttercup
- Card 2: Concord and 9th Buttercup, Stardust, Eggplant, and Hero Arts Plum
For each card, I played with a few different combinations before landing on the final designs you see here. On Card 2, I decided to also incorporate some thicker white arches to form a rainbow. These were backed with foam tape to make them pop up, in front of the colored arches beneath them. And then, because I was so inspired by one of Julie Ebersole’s cards, I decided to wrap some silver embroidery floss around the base of those rainbow stripes. (I told you, I can’t resist a teensy bit of sparkle!)
These cards were in need of some sentiments, so I used the Essentials by Ellen You die paired with the All About You stamp set to create them. (Truthfully, I actually did a batch sentiment making session a few days before making these cards, so my sentiments were pre-cut and ready to go! I’ve said it before, but it brings me so much joy to have sentiments ready to go. Sometimes you just don’t want to get all of your embossing stuff out, ya know?)
I finished by adhering the sentiments with foam tape, then mounted the panels to two A2 card bases. Overall I was really happy with the way these turned out, and am excited to find more ways to use the piercing plate and arches. (We’ve barely scratched the surface when it comes to stitching!) Thank you so much for stopping by, and I hope you’re feeling inspired to get your craft on today!
