QUILT BLOCK

I'm taking a break this morning from putting away Christmas decorations (such a chore) to do a quick response to a challenge that caught my eye - Inkspirational Challenge #332 "Pretty Quilt".

I have a set of dies that actually make a quilt square, but I decided to take a different approach for this birthday card for a friend. I think I'll also get out the quilt dies and play with them a bit for a Valentine's card later in the week.

In the meantime, the idea was to piece together several papers, stamp on some hand-stitching, and emboss the square to make it look quilted. I started by stamping an old PTI set ("Stitches and Swirls") on the lower corner of a 5-1/2" square card base with PTI "Enchanted Evening" ink. Then I die-cut a square out of the a slightly smaller white square, inserted a gray-green square, and stamped the stitched image again. I colored the leaves and flower centers with colored pencil and embossed the entire panel with a large Cuttlebug embossing folder ("Decorative Tile"). I attached this to the face of the card base. The final step was to heat emboss the sentiment with navy, trim it out with a square die and mat that with navy paper. This square also got a bit of blind embossing, using a smaller square die. I lined a white square envelope with a coordinating gray-green printed paper.

I came across an old card recently that is similar to this one. I made it some years ago, but wasn't really pleased because it didn't look clean. I liked the idea, but didn't like the execution. So this is a re-do of that old card. 

Inkspirational: Inkspirational Challenge #332 - Designer's Choice - Pretty Quilt 

 Added January 25, 2025: