This card was born out of my leftover scraps from the Beach Bum collection from Fancy Pants Designs (2010). I've had the Truckin' Through the Seasons dies sitting in my stash for a while and thought I could fill the back of the truck with the beach ball and surf board.
This was my first time using this die set and I'm not sure how I feel about it. I loved the look of it when it was a kit of the month and it started popping up online a couple of years ago and I was really pleased for the company to bring it back outside of their kit subscription. I'm not keen on the fact that it has "holes" around the truck bed to create the shape. This makes for an extra step if you want to fill it in with another colour, and it's tricky to fill in if you want to pop up the truck (which I did on this card). I ended up using tape on the back of my image to keep the piece in place. I thought I was using cardstock in a slightly darker colour, but it turned out to be a perfect match, so I might as well have used the original piece... The little side mirrors also don't have much of an overlap to glue them on the truck. This is particularly tricky of you use metallic cardstock (which makes sense for the mirror), since it is more slippery and doesn't hold as well when you try to glue it down. Again, here, I ended up simple adding the mirrors with mini Stampin' Dimensionals, but it means that you need to assemble the truck on the card instead of putting this together as a stand-along embellishment that you can move around on the card to find a placement you like.
The third thing I was annoyed with, and that was a rookie mistake on my part, is that I added foam adhesive on the back of the truck to pop it up and I totally spaced out on the fact that I would need to be able to slip in the stuff in the slit that's made for the truck bed. I tried to pop the paper up with my paper piercer tip but I couldn't do it, so I cut the bottom of the embellishments and glued them in place, but it doesn't work as well. That's the kind of details you figure out when you use dies for a first time. I'll know better next time.
Speaking of the embellishments, you need to create a frame and fill in the middle parts with the colours of your choice. More repetitive die-cutting... but what I don't like, is that you don't have a base piece to glue everything on. Lawn Fawn is so good with that - they always think to provide a base piece that's exactly the right shape and size that you can glue your stuff over. Here, the ball was pretty easy - I just used a circle punch, but the surfboard was trickier. I traced my main frame, fussy cut it a little narrower and glued my pieces in place, but I had to go back and trim some of the excess paper again. This is the type of things that will make me dislike a die set. It doesn't feel finished. If you want to be able to slip those two elements in the truck bed, you can't have 10 individual pieces, they need to be held together by something, and the fact that there's no base piece makes the set feel incomplete to me. We'll see if I feel better about it when I make trucks for other seasons. The gift was easier to handle, but I see that the pumpkin has the holes as well, and the Christmas tree is all one die, but the branches seem to all be separated, though. sigh My local store has gotten Spellbinders' Open House die collection this week and I was eyeing them, but this is making me rethink it. At least, I will have to go back and inspect the dies closer to see how the pieces go together.
I had a bit of room on the card, so I wanted to use a larger stamps, and possibly a birthday sentiment that had a masculine vibe to it. I found "Happy birthday to a classy guy" in a Stampin' Up! set. I embossed it in Early Espresso embossing powder. The card still felt a little empty, so I decided to add two gift boxes in the bottom left corner. By the way, I used acetate in the truck window, but it is hard to tell now that the items have been added to the truck bed.
I had so many die-cut pieces, I was able to make an extra surfboard to add inside the card and a beach ball for the envelope. I used one of the leftover cut-aparts on the envelope, along with a border. I have officially used all of this collection up. Whatever is left will be put in my scrap drawers.
Supplies
Stamps: Bien cravaté (Stampin' Up!)
Cardstock: Wild Wasabi (Stampin' Up!); Blue Obsidian Mirror, Holo Wave Mirror (Tonic)
Dies: Just Stitching Double Rectangles (Lawn Fawn); Truckin' Through the Seasons (Spellbinders)
Accessories: Ticket Corner Punch, Stampin' Dimensionals, Window Sheet,
Early Espresso Stampin' Emboss Powder (Stampin' Up!); A2 Fairway Metallic Envelope (envelopes.com)
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