Stitched Card: Tips on Using Felt in Cardmaking with Ink To Paper's In Stitches: Banner Die and Joyous Holiday Stamp Set

Hello, friends!  I am thrilled to be back today sharing this card.  Do you know the feeling when, every once in a while, you make something that really captures your heart?  I feel this way about this special baby card made with the new In Stitches: Banner die from Papertrey Ink's Ink to Paper line.  It was really easy and fun to make, and I'm happy you're here to catch a few tips on working with wool felt in your papercrafting projects!  

The new Joyous Holiday stamp set makes the most adorable holiday cards, but as soon as I saw those little birds, I immediately thought "baby!"  It's so great when a stamp set can lend itself to different themes, right?  I started by die cutting my banner from pink wool felt.  I then used Ink to Paper's Playful Patterns: Rainbow dies to die cut my rainbow.  These cuts are very delicate and the wool felt makes them even more fragile, so I used a couple of tricks to get the pieces to cooperate.  First, I highly recommend using a stiffener like Alene's Stiffen Quik to spray your felt before die cutting delicate pieces.  This gives the felt more stability and decreases the chances that it will tear on you after die cutting.  Second, because these pieces can be a little wiggly and finicky to adhere, I die cut the same pieces out of coordinating cardstock and adhered the felt onto those using liquid adhesive to make sure I could keep their precise shapes.  I then adhered the rainbow onto my felt banner. 

I then stamped my little bird onto the top of the rainbow directly onto the felt using black ink.  I waited a few minutes for it to dry, then did a simple backstitch over the stamp lines.  To add some more detail, I added some backstitching under the rainbow arcs and some little stars and french knots here and there across the banner.  I then die cut some white felt flowers using the dies from Papertrey Ink's Butterfly Blooms stamp and die set, adhering them to the banner with some liquid adhesive and little beaded blue flower sequins.  

To finish my card, I created a hinge behind my banner and adhered it to a card base.  I used Ink to Paper's To Die for Sentiments: Rainbow to create my sentiment, die cutting it out of heavy 110# cardstock to ahere across my rainbow.  I colored the "Rainbow" with coordinating Copic markers and adhered it inside my card.  With that, this card was finished! 

My daughter has a hobby of making baby blankets, and we're planning on making one of these cards to accompany each one.  Working with wool felt creates the softest, sweetest cards, and I hope this inspired you to try it in your papercrafting projects! 

Thanks so much for stopping by today, and I hope to see you again soon!