Summer, Summer, Summertime… Flowers, Birds and Beautiful Sentiments!

Hello there! This is Lisa Tilson from My Card Trip and I am happy to be back here on the Spellbinders blog with you. Today, I am sharing three ideas using the beautiful new Copperplate Everyday Sentiments Collection by calligrapher Paul Antonio. In this BetterPress collection you have six gorgeous scripty font sentiment plates covering a wide variety of occasions. You can create timeless letterpress designs with these plates and I hope I can get your creative juices flowing with how I have used them. Let’s get started!

Hello

For my first project, I thought I would create my most needed type of card – a general “hello”. So the Copperplate Hello Press Plate would work perfectly. Of course, you could use this plate on its own and it would be stunning but I thought I would pair it with something else. I had a rummage through my stash and pulled out Sweet Birds On A Branch Etched Dies which I had bought a couple of years ago and hadn’t yet used on a finished card. Aren’t they cute though?

So, I started by taking an A2 panel of Porcelain BetterPress Cardstock and taping it to the underside of the BetterPress Letterpress System clear plate (platen). I then placed the Copperplate Hello Press Plate down onto the magnetic platform and inked it up with BetterPress Saffron Ink. I popped the platen back over the magnetic platform and ran the whole sandwich through my Platinum 6 machine.  For someone who quite often stamps/presses a plain black sentiment, I am really enjoying using different colors for my greetings! It was the saffron-colored ink that dictated the colors of my birds.

Tip – planning your colours up front helps to make the overall finished design more pleasing to the eye. I often start by deciding on the colour for one singular aspect of the card, and then build my other colours around that. It may be a background, a flower, leaves or even a sentiment that kick-starts this process.

Using a blending brush, I then blended Salvaged Patina Distress Oxide Ink onto the card panel, starting at the top and fading out as it got nearer to the centre. I love how easy it is to blend inks on this cardstock – they go on so smoothly. The texture of the cardstock is so beautiful.

I set the panel to one side and then opened the Sweet Birds on A Branch Etched Dies. I cut the leaves from Rainforest and Peridot Color Essentials Cardstock. The birds are cut from Dahlia, Pink Sand, Tuscan, Saffron, Beeswax, and Onyx Color Essentials Cardstock. The feet were die-cut from a brown card that I had in my stash, and the branch was die-cut from Neenah Desert Storm 80lb card. I cut the branch twice to give it some dimension and stability and adhered both pieces together using Bearly Art Glue.

The birds were assembled using wet adhesive and I popped a little thin foam tape onto the back of each one.

Tip – to add in the beak and eyes, place a small piece of double-sided tape onto the back of the bird’s body and then just pop the beak and eyes into place using an embellishment wand or tweezers.

I adhered the branch across the top of the panel and then added the two birds. I then took each of the leaves and added tiny bits of thin foam tape onto the back before adding them to the branch.

To finish the card, I added a few different-sized raindrops around the branch and then added the panel onto a top folding white A2 110lb note card.

Miss You

For my second card I reached for the Copperplate Miss You Press Plate. This is the simplest of my three cards but somehow took me the longest to make! I know that you will all understand how that goes! I quite often veer away from black as it can be hard to photograph but I thought this beautiful large sentiment would fit quite snugly alongside the anemone and would look fabulous if I foiled it in gold. And gold always looks so striking on black.

Foiling your press plates is a great way to get even more use out of them and by and large I have had excellent results foiling the plates, even on coloured cardstock. Sometimes you may need to play around with different foils or cardstock to get the best impression but I got lucky with my first foil!

I took an A2 panel of Onyx Colour Essentials Cardstock and foiled the Copperplate Miss You Press Plate using Champagne Glimmer Hot Foil and the Glimmer Hot Foiling System. The scripty font of these plates looks absolutely stunning whether you press them or foil them.

I then grabbed my Fresh Cut Anemones Etched Dies. I used just one of the flowers and one of the stems from this fabulous set and die-cut all the individual elements. The stem was cut twice from Rainforest Cardstock and the two pieces were adhered together for stability; the flower was die-cut from Pink Sand, Dahlia, Persimmon, and Beeswax card. I adhered the flower using Bearly Art Glue and then set it to one side.

The foiled panel was added onto a top folding 110lb A2 white note card and I then adhered the stem to the right of the sentiment using wet adhesive. The flower head was added with some thin foam tape.

To finish the card I added some Gold Mix Color Essential Gems. I was really happy with how this card turned out – the curve in the flower stem worked so well with this sentiment!

Thank You

My final card is a bit more busy than my other two but I never miss a chance to add more flowers onto a card! I thought these little flowers would look really pretty framed around the Copperplate Thank You Press Plate.

I began by taking the Thank You plate and placing it down onto the BetterPress System magnetic platform. I inked it up with three different colors of pink BetterPress Inks – Garnet, Wild Berry, and Taffy (bottom to top). I then taped some BetterPress Pebble Cardstock to my platen using small pieces of Best Ever Craft Tape. I snapped the clear plate back onto the base and ran the sandwich through my die-cutting machine.

It’s quite hard to see in the photos but the different pinks are more obvious in real life and they definitely add some extra interest to the sentiment. I die-cut the panel using the second-largest die from Postage Edge Rectangles.

The Mini Blooms and Sprigs Etched Dies were die cut from Rainforest, Peridot, and Beeswax Color Essentials Cardstock. I also die-cut a couple of flowers from white and magenta-pink cardstock from my stash. I assembled them using glue. The postage rectangle was adhered to a panel of A2 Fog Cardstock which had been added onto an A2 white note card.

I then temporarily placed the flowers and leaves around the sentiment before finally adhering them with wet adhesive or foam tape. I finished off by adding some raindrops around the flowers.

That brings us to the end of my three cards! I hope that you like them and that they give you some ideas for creating with this beautiful new collection of press plates. If you would like to see more of my cards, I would love to have you join me over on my blog, Instagram, Facebook or YouTube. In the meantime, thank you so much for spending your time with me here on the blog today. I hope that you have a great day!

Spellbinders Supplies:

Other Supplies

Neenah Solar White Classic Crest 80lb and 110lb card, Tweezers, Embellishment Wand, Thin Foam Tape, Double Sided Tape, Blending Brush, Hero Arts Woodland Cardstock, Neenah Desert Storm 80lb cardstock, Little Things from Lucy’s Cards Raindrops.