Sunset is still my favorite color, and rainbow is second  – Mattie Stepanek

Variations on a Rainbow

A trio of cards for today’s post.  All three have a common color theme of rainbow, each celebrates die cutting techniques, and the three cards also share an overlapping design element. This is trio worth celebrating!

Let’s start with the Floral Rainbow card. This card has a stenciled background but the trick is that the stencil was created by die cutting Altenew’s Spring Shower Cover die from standard Neenah 80lb cardstock. A similarly sized card panel was then inked with blending brushes through the home-made stencil. I started in the center with Altenew’s Warm Sunshine. I then inked towards the respective edges first with Orange Cream and Ruby Red then Lagoon and Deep Iris for the other end of the rainbow.

Floral Rainbow

The background was trimmed to size and then the “happy” die from Altenew’s Script Word 2 die was cut from the inked background as well as from black fun foam and black card stock. The black “happy” was then stacked and inset into the matching gap in the inked background after the background was mounted on the card base. The extra dimension makes “happy” stand out against a fairly busy but cheerful background. The extra sentiment was stamped with Lagoon ink followed by Versamark and then heat embossed on white card stock. Once the trimmed “birthday” sentiment was added to the card with foam tape to match the height of “happy,” the flower centers were filled in with Nuvo Glitter Accents in Fresh Snowfall and left to dry.

Hello Rainbow

My second card is Hello Rainbow. It uses the inked stencil used on Floral Rainbow as it’s background. No other ink or changes were added so getting two design elements, inked stencil and inked background, for a single effort – yay! Two of the 3 die cut fishtail banners cut from white cardstock were inked in Lagoon and Deep Iris, respectively. Black cardstock was used to cut out “hello” using Altenew’s Inline Alphabet as well as a smaller fishtail banner.  The banners were clustered, slightly curled and added off center to the top of the card.  The finishing touch is the grouping of cherry red gemstones helping to balance the cherry-toned stripe at the bottom of the card.

So now we’re down to the 3rd and last card Candle Rainbow. Do you recognize the shared element? No worries –  It’s the “happy” die cut removed from the first card, Floral Rainbow. We also continue with the rainbow theme with a row of candles cheerfully marching across the card. Again the candle background could overwhelm the less vivid “happy” but a drop shadow of the same die cut from black and a stack of extra white “happy” helps it to stand out. The sentiment was completed with stamped and clear embossed “birthday” added to ground the focul image. No birthday card is complete without a bit a sparkle – in this case a scattering of gold mini stars adds that sparkle.

Floral Rainbow:

Hello Rainbow:

Candle Rainbow: