Hello crafty friends. As I write this, I’m watching the news break on TV that our Japanese Prime Minister, Mr Abe has resigned due to health reasons. I’m trying to sort through the new Japanese words, as they speak about putting together a new cabinet, and the details of his illness. Every day brings new language challenges for me; some more than others!!

I have a set of three cards today that use the same Lotus Bloom Die from Paper Rose Studio as the focal point. it’s such a lovely die, with its combination of cutouts and filled in sections. I’ve also used the Sketchy papers in all of these cards, even though you can’t really see it in one of them.

For this first card, I used this glorious piece of patterned paper from the Sketchy papers as my background. When it first arrived at my house, I had to stroke it to see if the texture was real! (it isn’t) I cut the paper carefully so that my favourite stripe of texture would be visible on the card.

The Lotus on this and each of the cards is made from three layers of the Lotus Bloom die for added dimension. The sentiment for this card comes from this Black and White set.

This second card uses the Topographic Die as a background. Instead of cutting with the die, I used my silicone mat and changed the sandwich on my die cutting machine, so that the design was embossed into the paper. It really looks like rippling waves on a pond. I also used the scrap of patterned paper that was left over from the first card as my border here. The top layer of the lotus is another of the Sketchy patterned papers.

I’ve made a landscape oriented card this time, and the lotus JUST fits into the border. This horizontal layout allowed me to have a longer two part sentiment, once again using the Black and White sentiment strips.

This final card is almost white on white, except that everything is underpinned by a layer of blue/purple, once again from the same Sketchy paper pack. Even the bottom layer of the lotus is the same paper. It may seem like a waste to put the paper on the bottom, but it really does add a layer of depth that I wasn’t achieving with only white. If you wanted more definition on the lotus, you could slightly offset the blue layer. (or put it top!!!)

There has been some discussion lately about which dies are suitable for Australian paper sizes. I’ve used Paper Rose white card stock for these cards, it is Australian A5. (You can see that the cards are slightly taller and thinner than the American sized cards. The frames are cut using this Australian sized Stitched Rectangle die set. I used the biggest die, and then every second die down in size to get these frames. I taped them together and ran them through my die cutting machine as one item.

I’ve added different layers of foam tape to get different heights for the frames. The sentiment comes from the Really Rainbow paper collection, which has a lot of rainbow papers in bright jewel colours, as well as sentiment strips in every colour of the rainbow!If you’ve enjoyed these cards and would like to see more, feel free to visit my Instagram feed here.

Until next time, I hope that your days are as peaceful as this colour palette!

Blessings,