A few months ago, I made some paper and wanted to use it in some cards.

For Christmas, I had grand plans for a cool card that had a little gingerbread man stamped directly on the handmade paper. However, I completely forgot that the paper was still textured and the image barely showed up. It didn’t occur to me to iron the paper or flatten it using my Cuttlebug, so I went with plan B and just used the paper as a background panel. It turned out cute and simple, so I was fine with it.

Then for birthday cards, I decided to use an embossing plate to give it a swirly texture. My big plan for this one was to have a hole punched in the textured paper and then stamp the sentiment on the main card paper through the hole. Um, not as easy as it seemed in my head. Again I turned to my trusty plan B. I grabbed some tracing paper (I hope to find my vellum one of these days) and a test panel I made with regular copy paper to line up where to stamp the sentiment. Then I just attached it with brads. Similar effect with a little more visual interest. I love when plans change for the better!

Oh, and I still hadn’t noticed that the Cuttlebug could flatten the paper. That revelation came while making another card where I only wanted the texture on part of the paper (brainfarted and didn’t get a picture of that card). I finally noticed that the parts that had been through the embossing folder were smooth while the other parts were still had the original handmade paper texture. So I carefully put the part that needed to be flattened on top of an embossing folder and ran it back through the machine. It worked! Woohoo! I couldn’t believe I hadn’t figured that out sooner. I’m a smart woman, but holy crap I can be dense some days.

But now I know for the future and I hope this saves someone from frustration. Here is how each card ended up being made:

Christmas card:

For this card, I used the Scentsational Season stamp set from Stampin’ Up!, craft paper, handmade paper, white craft ink, glitter, and some white and silver twine.

1. Stamp the gingerbread man on a piece of craft paper and let it dry. I stamped a full sheet (leaving room for tearing) and let it dry for a full day before doing anything else with it.
2. Tear handmade paper into a rectangle.
3. Tear a gingerbread man leaving space around the image, but keeping it smaller than the handmade paper triangle.
4. Glue the stamped image to the rectangle and use Stampin’ Dimensionals to place the rectangle on the card.
5. Tie twine around the bottom of the card (this card opens at the top, rather than the side).

Birthday card:

This card has a sentiment from the Elementary Elegance from Stampin’ Up!, Wild Wasabi paper, handmade paper, tracing paper, silver ink, and brads.

1. Tear a large rectangle of handmade paper.
2. Use and embossing folder to give texture to the paper rectangle.
3. Punch a hole in the lower right-hand corner. I suggest making a second panel using just copy paper so you have a template for stamping the sentiment.
4. Tear a rectangle piece of tracing paper (apparently I have been in a paper-tearing sort of mood lately).
5. Stamp the sentiment on the tracing paper using the template.
6. Attach the tracing paper to the handmade paper using brads.
7. Attach the handmade paper panel to the card using Stampin’ Dimensionals.