Berry Festival Time - AHSC #638

Abbotsford where I live, is well known for it's large number of berry farms.  While the crops include include strawberries, blueberries and raspberries, it's probably best known for raspberries as you can see from this huge traffic circle statue on Clearbrook Road. 

This past weekend was the 42nd annual Berry Festival held in historic downtown Abbotsford.  This is such a family-friendly event with a huge summer street party that has lots of fresh local berries, carnival rides, pie baking contests, live entertainment and all kinds of tasty treats and activities.  

With berries on my mind, when I saw this week's sketch#638 on the Atlantic Hearts Sketch Challenge site, I thought of the Berry Delightful paper pack  I've been holding on to in my stash.  So, I was very excited to make some cards with this sketch.  

Here Are My Cards:

Did I mention I was excited?  I loved everything about this sketch and because it was so easy to work with, I wound up making not one but five cards using it as my template and inspiration.  What fun! Here's what I made:  

Card #1 - cover and inside view

Card #2 - cover and inside is similar to Card #1

Card #3 - cover and inside view

Card #4 - cover and inside view is the same as card #3

Card #5 - cover and inside view 

Here are some of the reasons why I was able to make five cards within an hour: 

1.  Pre-cut mattes and Designer Paper:  I already had an assortment of mattes and dsp on hand so only had to make some minor cutting adjustments and I was ready to lay them down.  

2.  Pre-cut bases and inside mattes.  

3.  Pre-made sentiment focals.  If you have all your stamps and inks out when you're playing with a card design it's really easy to make some extra focals and have them on hand.  In this case I had about fourteen different focal images already made from the last time I played with these stamps and papers.  

Supplies:

Stamps & Dies:

• Sweet Strawberry (R)
• Berry Blessings (R) 
• Variety of stitched circles, squares and ovals for sentiments

Cardstock and DSP:

• Real Red
• Blueberry Bushel
• Shaded Spruce
• Old Olive
• Garden Green 

• Card Bases - Whisper White cardstock was used for all card bases and inside panels.  Measurements:
• 8 1/2" x 5 1/2" for card base
• 3 3/4" x  5" for inside mats
• variety of scraps for sentiments
• Mattes:
• All cards had a front base matte that measures 5 1/4" x 4" followed by a DSP matte that measures 5" x 3 3/4"
• I varied height of the DSP used for the center matte from 2" to 1 1/4" but the width was always the same as the DSP width - 5".
• The card stock matte under the DSP was based on the size of the DSP and in a couple of the cards I just used 3/8" x 5" strips and glued the DSP to these
• The gold highlight strips are a non-SU product and are self-adhesive gold metallic lines that vary in width.  See accessories. 

Ink and Blends:

• Real Red
• Blueberry Bushel
• Shaded Spruce
• Old Olive
• Garden Green 

Accessories:

• DSP
• Dimensionals 
• Rhinestones and a variety of retired Stampin' Up! gems 
• Lines - 

Thanks for stopping by and checking out this week's cards.  I hope you liked my rendition and that I was able to make a variety of cards using the same theme and sketch.  Let me know if you have a favourite out of the five cards.  I'd love to hear from you.  

HAPPY STAMPING!
PENNY TOKENS STAMPIN' SPOT!

 Penny Hanuszak, CDN Stampin' Up! Demo since 2006

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