Monogrammed Note Cards

I know I said I'd have a Herringbone Technique Tutorial for you in my next post... but I just have to share this with you ladies first! I have a private stampin' class tomorrow night and one very, VERY excited hostess :) One of my SU! demo friends, Kim Assaly, gives all her hostesses monogrammed note cards and I really like that idea. So I made my first set today. My hostess' name starts with 'M' and I used the lovely Broadsheet Alphabet for these cards.

What I love even more about these note cards is how easy they are! I made them with the Big Shot Movers & Shapers Bigz XL Die. I ran the Marina Mist CS through the die first to make the card base. I then ran a piece of Whisper White CS through the die to punch out the shape. My hostess is getting 3 cards with the Curly Label design and 2 cards with the Scallop Oval design. I used the coordinating punches to punch out stamped 'M's for the cards.

Tips & Tricks:

*Although the Movers & Shapers Die cuts your card to the stand A2 size and suggests you used a piece of card stock that is 12" long, I make it work with the standard 11" long card stock. I trim it to 4-1/4" x 11" and put it right in the space that cuts the card out. If you do this carefully, your card base won't get trimmed at all, just scored in the middle and with a shape punched out.
*Use the coordinating punches (in this case Scallop Oval and Curly Label), which are sized just a smidge smaller, to leave a little border around the stamped image when the card is closed.
*These notes are so elegant on their own I didn't need to do much else to them. I embossed the Whisper White with the Elegant Bouquet embossing folder and added a bit of ribbon and that's it - lovely, elegant note cards :)
*To line up the shape cut out on the Whisper White card stock with the card base properly, cut out the shape with the Big Shot on a 5-1/2" x 4-1/4" piece of card stock. Then trim 1/8" off of each side. This will give you a 5-1/4" x 4" layer with a perfectly positioned cut out.
*Yes, I know. The Marina Mist 3/8" Taffeta Ribbon is retired, but it just looked so lovely on this card so I used it anyways!

These 5 note cards only took me 45 minutes to make!  So next time you need a hostess gift, whether it's a stampin' hostess or a dinner party hostess, why not make her some elegant gift notes? 'Til next time, keep letting stamps bring out your creativity!