Quick and Easy Card Recipe

Do you ever have days when you need to get dinner ready and you want it to be good but you also just need it to be quick and easy? Well luckily for my family my husband does the cooking (my mom tried to teach me but it just didn't stick!) but I do have those days with cardmaking. I need to put a card together quickly, I want it to look polished and well designed, but I just don't have the time to fiddle with it. Those are the times when I turn to one of my tried and true card designs, so I thought I'd share one with you here. This card is square, but you could easily adjust the dimensions to make it rectangular as well. For this card, these are the dimensions I used: Card base: 5" x 10" folded in half for a finished size of 5" x 5" in a light colored cardstock. Outline Layer: 4 1/2" x 4 1/2" in a contrasting cardstock color. Two side by side panels: 2 1/8" x 4 3/8" using two coordinating patterned papers or one patterned paper and one coordinating cardstock. The sentiment layer and its shadow can be whatever size is needed to fit the stamp you are using. Use the same color as the card base for the sentiment layer, and the same color as the outline layer for the sentiment shadow layer. Then just add some type of embellishment on each side of the sentiment. I used some basic brackets that I cut using Make the Cut, the only thing on this card I used my cutter for! That doesn't happen very often. :-) Here's the pattern for the card: And here's my finished card. I needed something appropriate for a male birthday, somehow I never seem to have those on hand. If you decide to make a card using this receipe and post the photo somewhere online, be sure to post a link to it in the comments here so I can take a look!