Elegant Buffalo Plaid | Make the Cards Challenge 35

 Hello and welcome back!

This week's Make the Cards Challenge 35 is a Theme +1 challenge, country life + buffalo plaid. I don't actually have a lot of country themed craft items, so I'm going to be focusing on the Buffalo Plaid. This is a really simple card to make and I've chosen to use a nice turquoise colour, but if you use a red or green this could work as a Christmas card as well. You could even use pink and make this a more feminine card. Either way I love the versatility of this design and I hope you like what I have done here.

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I started out with a white large sized piece of white cardstock and added my Altenew Galactic Stream ink pad to the cardstock. This created my own custom coloured cardstock which is a process I love doing. It is so easy to do and helps coordinate stamping and cardstock. Recently I used this ink on another project and have fallen in love with the colour. Once the cardstock was dry, I stamped out the Concord & 9th Plaid Background Stamp with VersaFine Clair Nocturne ink  using my MISTI. I only stamped out the plaid to get the buffalo plaid and did not add the solid lines that come with the set. I then cut the panel down to size. This card ended up being just a little larger than 4 1/2" x 5 1/2", which is okay for me since I make my envelopes to size. If you cut out this background with out the little border I have you will get a perfect A2 sized card.

I then cranked up my Spellbinders Glimmer System and picked out the Essential Glimmer Rectangles to foil my background in Silver foil using the largest rectangle. I also cut out a strip of the Galactic Stream-coloured cardstock and foiled the "Thanks for all you do" sentiment from the Spellbinders Scalloped Rectangle Glimmer Essentials with Sentiments (Feb 2021 Glimmer kit) with the same foil. I backed this onto some Sizzix Opulent Silver Matte cardstock to create a border on the top and bottom of the strip. 

Then to add a bit of a focal point besides the sentiment, I cut a couple Laurels from the Simon Says Stamp Etched Laurel Leaves die set. I cut the large one out of Sizzix Opulent Charcoal Glitter cardstock and the small one out of Die Cuts With a View Turquoise Glitter cardstock. 

Next, I assembled all of the elements onto the buffalo plaid background and adhered everything with some foam squares and BearlyArt Glue. I embellished the front with some PinkFresh Studio Jewels Mix in Brown.

For the card inside, I added a couple of the Galactic Stream coloured cardstock strips to the bottom left corner. This was why I made the coloured cardstock on such a large piece - I knew I would be using it for other elements besides the background. I find this is always a great idea so you don't have to go back and re-make some more coloured cardstock. You can always keep any extras for use on other cards. I tend to keep all of my extra scraps in plastic sleeves organized by colour. This really helps me find what I need easily and prevents much wastage of our hard-earned craft supplies! 😀

I cut out a couple more laurels in the Sizzix Opulent Charcoal Glitter cardstock and Silver Matte cardstock and adhered this to the left corner to continue the design. Finally, I stamped out the sentiment using my Altenew Say It With Love stamp set. I used a masking technique to stamp out the scripty word in Altenew Galactic Stream ink and the printed portion in VersaFine Clair Nocturne ink. 

And that's how I made this elegant buffalo plaid card.  I hope you have been inspired and go ahead and leave me a comment as I love hearing from you! And don't forget to join the challenge over at the Make the Cards Challenge blog!