EASY Father's Day cards with Mansi!

Hi everyone,

Mansi here from MansiMakes. I'm excited to be part of Crafty Meraki, where crafters can shop with convenience, learn new techniques, and be part of a community of like-minded people.

For my first post, I chose a challenge: make two Father's Day cards in under 30 minutes. So you can easily get this project started and finished in 15 minutes if you're making just one card.

It's hard to make cards for dad...not to be stereotypical, but the dads I know appreciate wine over flowers and a snooze-day over spa packages. They also don't barbecue! So, no grill plates and steak images here, either.

I figured going abstract would be the best route. Taking my inspiration from Altenew's Patchwork Kite Stencil, I took out a couple of different re-inkers from Tim Holtz, a 4" round gel plate and voila, things started coming together.

For the first card, I applied a layer of Tim Holtz Mustard Seed, Salty Ocean and Cracked Pistachio re-inkers on my round gel plate. I pulled a print to get my background layer. I then applied a few drops of Picked Raspberry, brayered them on to the gel plate, applied Altenew's Patchwork Kite stencil and pulled another print on top of the existing layer. For a third layer, I added just some Mustard Seed drops, put the stencil back on the gel plate, placed my paper on the plate and pulled one more print.

I then sprayed it generously with some Tim Holtz Antiqued Bronze Distress Mica Spray for a subtle pearlescent shimmer. Then, I used My Favorite Things' stitched circle die cut to cut this unique circular background I'd created.

Next, I used 4" x 5.25" black cardstock and the same Patchwork Kite Stencil to create an embossed background using my Sizzix Big Shot machine. I sprayed some of the same Mica Spray on to the black cardstock, so that the shimmer effect continued throughout the card. Now it was time to put the card together.

I adhered the black cardstock to my A2 size white card base and adhered the circle die cut on top of that. I also used Concord & 9th's alphabet die cut set to cut out the word DAD with gold glitter paper. Lastly, I added two pre-printed sentiment strips from Simon Says Stamp to complete the card and finished up with some shimmery black embellishments.

I was so happy with the simplicity and subtlety of this card. There's a lot going on in the complex layers of the background I created but it didn't take hours to achieve that look.

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For the next card, I used the same techniques but simplified it even further. I used just two re-inkers for this one: Mustard Seed and Salty Ocean along with the same Patchwork Kite Stencil and my round gel plate.

The circle background image in this card is made of three different layers of inks applied directly to the gel plate with the stencil on top acting as a mask. I then die-cut the background and this time dry-embossed on a 4" x 5.25" white cardstock base.

I liked the softness of the colors, so decided to add some definition with the outline of the alphabet die-cuts and filled it in with Ranger Glossy Accents, which gave it a raised, translucent, glassy effect.

I used the same Glossy Accents in the outlines of the kite stencil. It looks really pretty when the light shines on it and it was SO easy to make! Lastly, I added two pre-printed sentiment strips from Simon Says Stamp and this time I chose one for the Bonus Dads in our lives.

I hope you enjoyed this tutorial and will try your hand at these easy cards! Happy Father's Day to all who celebrate.

Happy shopping! And see you next time.

Mansi.