Hello! Marilyn here. While scrolling through Pinterest, I saw a lot of “floating strip cards” and thought they were pretty with the colorful strips and the silhouetted images in black on top. I decided to make one, but I wanted my leaves to be colorful, so I made the floating strips from Basic Black. With the vibrant colors from the leaves against the black, it is striking.

I started with a piece of Basic Black cardstock cut to 5-1/2″ x 8-1/2″ with my Paper Trimmer, scored and folded at 4-1/4″, burnishing the fold with my Bone Folder. I cut a piece of Very Vanilla cardstock to 4″x 5-1/4″ and ran it through my Leaf Fall 3D Embossing Folder with my Stampin’ Cut Emboss Machine. I took some 1/2″ scrap strips of Basic Black cardstock and adhered them to a Window Sheet, leaving 1/8″ spacing between them. The best adhesive to use with Window Sheets is Stampin’ Seal because it won’t wiggle or shift on you while it dries as the Multipurpose Liquid Glue would. A great way to keep your lines straight and evenly spaced is to use Grid Paper. I cut a circle from this using the largest circle from my Stylish Shapes dies.

To create the leaves, I used my Autumn Leaves dies. I was able to cut six leaves in one pass because Stampin’ Up! included doubles of the leaf dies I used. How handy is that? To cut the leaves, I used: Crushed Curry cardstock, Crumb Cake cardstock, Real Red cardstock, Mossy Meadow cardstock, Pumpkin Pie cardstock, Pecan Pie cardstock, and Pretty Peacock cardstock. I was able to use scraps since the die cuts were so small. After I cut them out, I used a sponge dauber to add ink to the edges of the leaves to give them some shadowing. I used: Real Red ink, Mossy Meadow ink, Crumb Cake ink, Pecan Pie ink, Crushed Curry ink, Pumpkin Pie ink, and Pretty Peacock ink. You could choose to use other colors if you’d prefer.

With Dimensionals, I adhered the floating strip circle to the front of my card. I used a T-ruler to make sure my strips were level. I glued the leaves onto the floating strip circle on opposite sides. I did add Dimensionals under the leaves that extended significantly off the circle.

I stamped “Happy Birthday” from the Charming Duck Pond Photopolymer Stamp Set (this link is only for the stamp set. If you’d like the bundle, click here) on a strip of vellum using Momento Tuxedo Black ink. Ink on vellum takes some time to dry so if you’re impatient, you’ll want to heat set it with your Heat Tool. I trimmed it down and used my Paper Snips to flag the left end. I adhered the strip to the back of the Pretty Peacock leaf. I added Multipurpose Liquid Glue to the back of the leaf and dotted it behind some of the stamped letters (to hide the adhesive) and adhered it to the lower right-hand corner of my card. To finish the card front, I added some of the gold gems from the Blooming Pearls pack.

I finished the inside of the card by stamping a sentiment on a 4′ x 5-1/4″ piece of Very Vanilla cardstock and gluing it inside.

I hope you enjoyed my take on a “floating strip” card.

For the complete supply list, click here.

For additional inspiration: