I needed to make a Congratulations card, and immediately knew that the gorgeous Beautiful Banners stamp set would form the base of my design.  This is such a go to stamp set, suitable for almost any occasion, and I particularly love the pretty paisley banner stamp.

I naturally lean towards brighter colours, so I decided to change things up with a white, black and pool party colour theme.  I started off by embossing my whisper white card front with the softly falling embossing folder.  This embossing folder pretties up any card and adds a touch of elegance!  Next I stamped my paisley banner in pool party ink before die cutting it out with the matching Banners Framelits Dies.

I used the same dies to cut a larger black banner, and adhered the two banners together so that the black banner formed a frame around the paisley one.  I then placed a silver foil doily beneath one side of the banner so that only half of it showed, and adhered the doily and banners down on my card front with fast fuse.

I stamped a second paisley banner, again in pool party ink, on some scrap white cardstock.  I decided to use the ‘congrats’ stamp from the wonderful Vertical Greetings stamp set, and stamped my sentiment onto the inner blank part of my paisley image.  I then cut this inner part out and popped this up on dimensionals on top of the banners already on my card front, to make the sentiment stand out.  I wrapped some basic black baker’s twine around my card front before tying it into a bow, and attached the card front to a pool party mat and then to a basic black card base.  To finish I placed a couple of metal rimmed pearls to each side of my sentiment.  Love the understated elegance of this card, hope you do too xx