"Something old, something new...

...something borrowed, something blue" is a wedding custom that originated in England. Each item in this poem represents a good-luck token for the bride. If she carries all of them on her wedding day, her marriage will be happy. Since June is traditionally a month favored for weddings, we made a wedding card at my stamp club this week. Since the good-luck tokens hopefully help make a happy marriage, I incorporated the custom into my card planning in the hopes that it would make my stamp club happy! The "something old" is the stamp set we used; "something new" is the border punch as it was the first time we used it. "Something borrowed" is the idea for the border punch frame, which I borrowed from the amazing Dawn Olchefske. And the "something blue" is - well, this may be reaching a bit, but when you look at the rhinestone jewels in a certain light, they almost look a light blue!

Dawn had posted a card on her blog a while ago where she had made a 3" square border using the Dotted Scallop Ribbon Border punch. Since the word stamp I wanted to use wouldn't fit on that size, I took her idea one step further and expanded it to a rectangle. I had a lot of weirdly punched paper scraps before I finally figured out the correct dimensions for the base rectangle! How did I do it? First I marked the center of my punch with a permanent marker. Then I centered a 3" wide strip of cardstock in the punch, and drew a line on my punch on either side of the cardstock with my marker. If you center the 3" piece of cardstock between the lines on the punch, you can punch out the scallop ribbon shape and leave a nice square on either end. Then I started playing around with different lengths of cardstock. I found that 3" x 3-5/8" and 3" x 4-5/16" make perfect rectangles. To match up the punched holes on the long length, you need to line up the right side of your cardstock with the mark on the right side of your punch, punch it out, and then line up the left side of the cardstock with the mark on the left side of the punch and punch. It's a lot easier than it sounds, and the results are certainly worth it! Sadly, my camera just couldn't capture the rich shimmer of this card.

Recipe

Stamps: Everything Nice

Paper: Shimmery White cardstock

Ink: Crumb Cake

Accessories: Basic Rhinestone jewels, 5/8" Organza ribbon, Elegant Bouquet embossing folder, Big Shot, Stampin' Dimensionals

Well, it's raining again here (sigh) but hopefully the pitter patter of the raindrops on the roof will sweetly lull me to sleep. I'll try to keep to a regular posting schedule of Tuesdays and Fridays, so I'll see you again next week. Have a great weekend!