This was the more challenging card that I designed for the April South Burlington stamp club meeting. This card has several elements that are retiring, so I’m glad to show you a card featuring some goodies that will be gone forever really soon. Both of the stamp sets that I used for this card are on the retirement list, and the dies that are available in a bundle with the Lovely Friends stamps are also retiring. I’m always a little surprised when a stamp set is retired after only one year in the main catalog. But – Stampin’ Up! is a business, and they make retirement decisions based on sales volume. So… I guess that means that we demonstrators didn’t convince people that they needed these stamps and dies. Oh well – can’t win all the time! We have now entered the “while supplies last” phase of the retirement period. Now any products that sell out (except for stamps) will be discontinued and you won’t be able to order them. Stamps are guaranteed available until May 25th, after that point they will be available while supplies last until the new catalog starts on June 1st.

The challenging part of this card is actually this pretty laurel and banner pop-up element that is on the inside. I watched a couple of YouTube videos for the assembly of this laurel for the inside of the card, and I still managed to mess it up on my first attempt. My failure resulted in a leaf and banner that just sort of stayed there in the center and didn’t spread out when you opened the card. My second attempt turned out much better and the banner and laurel spread open very nicely when you open the card. I have to say that I found these dies kind of complicated, even if the end result is quite pretty. However, I will dearly miss the nice large sentiments and smaller coordinating greetings that are in the stamp set. I also love the script and print fonts that are used in the stamps, so I’m pretty sad that these are retiring.

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