His and hers (complementary) cards

I don’t know about you, but we have a few couples in our family who celebrate birthdays fairly close (actually, my parents’ birthdays are within three days of each other, so quite close) to each other. I decided this summer to come up with “his and hers” cards, or cards that at least complement each other.

I recently used a Gina K stamp set, A Happy Hello, to create several card fronts. I did see a card design on a YouTube channel that used this set and I loved the card front (I am pretty sure it was Jennifer McQuire…..I love her work!) I changed it to a one dimension card, adding dimension in my sentiment only. I used many of Gina K’s inks to create several of these cards, but today I will feature two cards that use coral reef, lucky clover and wild dandelion, as well as plum punch, lucky clover and wild dandelion.

A short time later, I was playing with an Essentials by Ellen stamp set, bokeh dots. I again was enjoying this so much that I made several background for card fronts. I again used many Gina K inks in various colors. Today I will feature two cards that use the same colors listed above, as well as slate and Gina K’s amalgam black ink.

I will start with the “Her” card. I randomly stamped the larger and smaller flower from the set “A Happy Hello”, and used both leaves. The leaves were sometimes stamped first generation and then second generation.

I used a small circle to randomly stamp some wild dandelion dots.

I then used the birthday builder set from altenew to stamp happy birthday in Gina K’s black amalgam ink. I offset the card front and stamped again to get a shadow of the sentiment. I then used Sparkle ‘n Sprinkle’s clear embossing powder (three coats) to give it some shine and dimension. I finished the card front by adding black nuvo drops to the center of the flowers. I then mounted the card front on plum punch and black onyx (Gina K) card stock.

The “His” card continued the random stamping trend I have been enjoying lately. I used two of the open circles, alternately, on the card front, using Gina K’s amalgam ink. One stamp is a simple circle, one line. The other is an intertwined circle, almost like a circle scribbled a few times. I then used the solid circle stamp that fits inside the two open circles to fill them in. I used plum punch to fill in the one line circle, and slate to fill in the scribbled circle.

I then stamped the larger scribbled circle in plum punch, and used the birthday builder set again to stamp “happy birthday” in black (amalgam) ink. I cut out circle and sentiment using my Spellbinders Nestabilities circle set. I also cut out a circle in onyx black card stock the next size up. I mounted the black circle on craft foam cut from the smaller circle.

I then mounted the sentiment circle on the black onyx circle.

I layered the card front on plum punch and then black onyx (Gina K) card stock before adhering the sentiment circle.

Here are the two card fronts next to each. (I still need to mount them on card bases and make the matching envelopes.)

My original set of cards are very similar, except I used coral reef ink for the flowers and coral reef and tranquil teal for the circle card. The circle for the sentiment was stamped in tranquil teal. I also created matching envelopes for these cards, which was a lot of fun and worth the extra effort (these cards were for my parents, whose birthdays are three days apart!).

My default white card stock is Neenah Classic Crest Solar White 80# card stock unless otherwise noted.

I had a lot of fun making these cards, and have several put away for future use. I didn’t stamp happy birthday on all of them yet, as I feel they would also work well as a thank you card, or just a hello, or thinking of you card.

As always, thank you for reading and I hope this inspires you to go out and create something!