If you’re anything like me, you have friends out there that you would love to spend some time with, but it’s so hard to find the time. Today’s project is a great way to start to make plans with those friends. A card in the mail always makes me happy, and it’s great to know that someone is thinking about you. Today, we’ll use the Warm Welcome stamp set to offer that open door invitation to a friend.

The supplies for this project are:

• a Soft Succulent Card Base
• DSP cut to 4″x6″ Here I used Fancy Flora
• Cardstock 4-1/8″ x 5-3/8″ in both Starry Sky and Basic White
• Cardstock 4-1/4″ x 3-5/8″ in Soft Succulent. At this size, you can get 6 pieces out of 1 sheet of cardstock.
• DSP cut to 1-3/4″ x 3-1/4″ in a color that coordinates with your main DSP.
• Layered punches or dies for the greeting. I used the Double Oval punch in Evening Evergreen and Soft Succulent.
• Paper Snips, Paper Trimmer, and Tombow Glue

To begin, we will trim 3/4″ off the end of the large piece of DSP. I wanted to show how we can utilize small scraps that would otherwise be discarded to make the inside of our cards more beautiful. The large piece, 4″ x 5-1/4″ will be used on the card front matted with the Starry Sky cardstock, and the small scrap 4″ x 3/4″ will be attached at the far right edge of the Basic White cardstock used for the inside of the card. I stamped the inside with the greeting “Let’s spend time together”, leaving plenty of space to write a note for your friend.

Next, we will stamp the open door onto the small piece of Soft Succulent.

To add a dash of color to our open door, I’ve added some DSP in a single color to represent wall-paper inside the room. I tried attaching a square of dsp on top of the door, inside the frame, but I found that It just didn’t look like a room inside a door, with the DSP raised up a paper thickness. So I tried a different method. I started by cutting along the stamped edge on the bottom of the stamp only, and then up the inside of the door frame up to the header of the door. This allows the center of the door to be pushed back and the DSP to be added on top.

I used the petal pink stripe pattern from the Soft Subtles DSP pack. The strip will hang below the edge of the door. Next, we will flip the piece over to glue down the DSP.

I added 2 small lines of glue between the petal pink DSP and the Soft Succulent door frame. The areas glued are shown in Purple lines on the photo above. Then, trim the Petal Pink DSP following the edge of the lower door frame.

Now, we can flip the piece over and trim all along the outside of the door and frame, creating a piece ready to attach to our card.

I attached the doorway to the front of the card using the Tombow Glue, with about a half inch border along the left hand side. With this placement, the floral print of the DSP seems like a blooming garden with flowering vines growing up the wall. I love the look.

I stamped a simple Hello in the Soft Succulent oval, layered with the Evening Evergreen and placed these on the card with Dimensionals to pop it up. I also stamped the hands with mugs from the Warm Welcome stamp set onto a scrap of white cardstock, colored with stamping blends and fussy cut them, before gluing to the inside of the door frame.

With a few sequins or gems, including one for the door knob, and a whisp of Wink of Stella on the flowers, our card is ready to send to a friend to invite them over for a visit.

So who do you want to invite over this week?