I wanted to do an inlaid embedded emboss, but I couldn’t come up with a design for inside the front panel of the card. Instead, I made a homemade diffuser. Here’s how you make one.
Open an embossing folder and put a piece of copy paper inside the embossing folder (on the side that does not have the manufacturer info on it) and holding the paper in place, rub over the entire surface with a pencil. I wanted to only emboss the outside frame of my embossing folder, and not the center section. I cut out the inside of the design and the outside edge of the embossing folder and fit it back inside my embossing folder. This allows us to make sure it fits where you want it inside the folder and ensures your diffuser will sit where you want it. Then take cardboard (I used the back to a children’s doodle pad from Dollar Tree) and lay the paper you’ve cut out on the cardboard and draw the outline, then cut it out. You’ll need two pieces of cardboard cut the same. Adhere them together and then tape them to the outside of the embossing folder, put a piece of cardstock inside the embossing folder, and run it through a die cutting machine. It should come out with the inside not embossed and the outer edges embossed. You can do the opposite as well, if you cut the center out and using that doubled piece of cardboard, put it on the outside of the embossing folder over the center (taped in place), and run it through the die cutting machine.
I put the embossed image aside and went on to the stamps I wanted to use. I used Altenew Painted Flowers stamps and went to the Altenew website and found the template of how the stamps work. I laid all of the stamps from the set onto the template so I could make sure I lined the stamps up properly. Altenew stamps are not easy to line up without the template, so I highly recommend if you are using their layered stamp sets, you print out the template and lay your stamps on it, so you can just lay your acrylic block on the stamp and it will positioned properly to lay it on the image you’ve stamped before it.
I liked using reds and oranges and browns and grays for the backgrounds. I used Stampin’ Up basic gray and early espresso, as well as Stampin’ Up baroque burgundy and Gina K;s Cherry Red. For the oranges, I used Really Rust by Stampin’ Up and Gina K’s Peach Bellini ink. For the leaves, I used Old Olive and Always Artichoke, both by Stampin’ Up. I stamped a lot of the flowers and then fussy cut them out.
I went back to the white embossed 4 3/4″ x 6 3/4″ panel and decided I wanted to use a leaf stencil with Ranger Texture Paste and clear glitter from Stampin’ Up combined. I used a lot of glitter, as an fyi. I angled the stencil on the center of the unembossed portion of the paper and covered most of the unembossed area. Any that I got on the embossed area, I wiped off with my finger before it dried. I cleaned the stencil and knife and plate before the texture paste dried on them. I had some extra glitter texture paste, so I took another 4 3/4″ x 6 3/4″ white cardstock, and used the leaf stencil and covered the bottom 1/3rd of the paper for the inside element of the card. I also wrapped satin ribbon around the leaves and glued them to the back.
I used an LDRS die to cut out a Celebrate sentiment and put it on foam tape and laid it on the front of my card, along with dark orange circles I bought at Hobby Lobby in the party section. There are a bunch of different colors and sizes of circles that you throw on tables during parties that work great for this.
I put Stickles and generic glitter glue on my flowers. The black generic glitter glue would not dry no matter how long I waited. I ended up wiping off the excess that wouldn’t dry and put foam tape on the back of some of the flowers. I had run my stylus on those flowers on a piece of fun foam, so they looked more 3-D. The rest I just glued around the “Celebrate” sentiment. I took orange sequins and glued them around the flowers on the front of the card. Inside the card, I stamped an old Stampin’ Up stamp that said Mr. and Mrs.
Before gluing it together, I put a piece of ribbon around the bottom front of the card and cut the corners of the white paper out so the next orange layer of cardstock would show through. I cut it to 4 7/8″ x 6 7/8″ and laid it on my white card base that was 5 x 7″.

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