Everything's Fine & Dandy!

Happy weekend everyone!
It’s Nat here sharing some fresh new card ideas using one of my eagerly anticipated picks from CHA earlier this year!
The Dear Lizzy Fine & Dandy collection from American Crafts recently came into the store and well, it’s definitely worth checking out!
What a gorgeous collection it is – perfect for many a celebration but also everyday crafty projects too. And it is chock full of my favourite aqua tones and pinks, and of course stripes!!
It’s been a while since a paper collection made me want to add almost every design to my basket – perhaps it was the spring sunshine or the freshness of the colours and patterns featured (which are different from any other line out there right now) but this collection just made me happy and made my wishlist grow to inappropriate proportions! Darn!
So when it came to choosing the papers to add to my basket, well I just couldn’t make up my mind what to go with – in an effort to stop dithering I took a quick glance at the image for the 12×12 pad and just hit “add to basket”!
I was due to be going away for a crafty weekend with friends and I thought it would make a nice change to pack light and just focus on having fun making projects with this paper pad and some matching embellishments in this line – enter the Accent and Phrase Thickers in this collection!
So armed with just these items plus my usual set of travelling dies and stamps (and the odd lovely item borrowed from around the room) I sat down and just got to work for the love of playing and creating and seeing what that produced.
Warning, there are a fair few cards coming up!
But first, here are some links to the items I used from the store:

Plus links for the individual 12×12 papers that correspond to the designs from the pad that I used in case anything takes your fancy, I still have my eye on some of the B-sides not featured in the 12×12 pad. <g>

Oh, and I totally forgot to take a photo of the back of the Thickers before using them, so here’s a pic of what was left on the sheet after my mini-marathon, plus the cut-outs from the two paper designs in the pad I cut up ready for use:

So now, on with the show!
As soon as I saw this balloon paper I thought it would make a great design to try some 3D die-cutting on – I cut a rectangle from the paper with a stitched die then die-cut the word “happy” from it.
I mounted the rectangle on the card blank I’d covered with the dotty paper using 3D foam tape, then cut the word happy about 6 or 7 times from pale pink cardstock and filled in the aperture in the balloon paper with the pink “happy” die cuts adding the balloon paper happy as the final layer. You can see the final effect a lot better from this angle:
The little chipboard hearts in the Thickers set made perfect little balloons and the spotty paper cut with a banner die is from one of the cut-out papers in the pad. Just the right size to use behind that yellow glittery greeting.
Keeping with the birthday theme, as soon as I saw the candle paper I knew it needed to be paired up with the “Eat Cake” Thickers:
I just love that blue striped paper – it reminded me a bit of one of those lush looking layer cakes that are so popular.
But seriously, that candle paper – how pretty is it??
So pretty I used it again!

This time with pinks and lime green – the pink label is from one of the cutout sheets and the green strip was just the right size to add a stamped greeting.
The present from the Thickers set has little gold dots on the ribbon – very sparkly and a great match for the cut-out label.
Now to something a bit more in your face – the flamingos and that black and white striped paper!
I couldn’t resist combining these two patterns – the “hello” is highlighted in gold foil and there was just enough room to add a banner to the mix.
The banner is actually from one of the cut-out labels in the paper pad – and again, the perfect length for adding a stamped greeting. I curled the ends a bit to make it look a bit more realistic.
For a very simple number I wanted to use this lovely background paper, but not cover it up too much – it’s just too pretty!
The red banner in the back is a Thicker from the pack, the wording on it wasn’t something I would likely use, so I was fine with covering it up with one of the cut-out labels and then using that “Happy Day!” chipboard accent.
Couldn’t be simpler and I think it could be used for plenty of occasions, so a great emergency card to have on hand. <g>
And here’s an extremely simple card – which seems to becoming my signature style!
The weekend we were away crafting Princess Charlotte was on the brink of making her way into the world, so yeah, all that baby talk ended up inspiring a baby card. I mean that bow paper was just begging to be used on a baby card!
I simply cut a circle in the front so the “Oh Joy” foiled Thicker could peek through.
And I covered the inside with the pale pink solid paper from the pad – I love the slight colour wash look to the solid papers in this line – a fab, subtle look!
From one uplifting occasion to some cards that will hopefully lift someone’s spirits when things aren’t so great.
There are a couple of items in the Thickers set that really lend themselves to this – namely the “Think happy thoughts”:
It was begging to be teamed up with a rainbow – I mixed it up with the pink peach paper and a scrap of the lovely aqua striped paper.
And of course, there had to be some gold enamel dots to match the gold foil.
Then there was a card that just immediately came to mind when I saw the umbrella accent in the Thickers set:
I used the fantastic “Love” word die from Avery Elle cut from the dark pink solid paper and cut some little hearts from the light pink paper. The diagonal striped paper in the background is a great match for the colours in the umbrella.
And stamping directly on the aqua paper inside those stripes brought everything nicely together.
And last but not least, there was no way I wasn’t going to use the Typewriter accents and paper in the 12×12 pad on something – notelet cards were the perfect size to show them off:
The typewriter is one of the cut-out labels in the pad – I simply cut it out with a square die so it was nicely centered and added a stamped greeting.
The grey triangle paper is a great contrast against the pink chevron paper I used to mat the image.
And this notelet is the kind I would include if sending someone something in the post and just adding a small note – it’ll work with anything.
It’s such a nice and rare thing these days to receive mail that isn’t bills or junk and is just good old fashioned snail mail with a little message inside.
Very cute! And yep, pink and grey definitely work great together!
So those were the results of my first crafty marathon with this collection – much of the weekend was spent chatting and eating cake, so really this is more productive than it appears at first glance. <g>
As you can see I have plenty of Thickers and cut-out labels left to play with, plus lots more paper in the 12×12 pad I’m looking forward to crafting with over the coming sunny months. But I think I will definitely have to add some more of the separate 12×12 papers to my collection!