Today I’m sharing three of the cards I created using my postage stamp stash. The cards run the gamut from pedestrian to quirky. You can read more about the start of this process here.

Along the way, I tried keeping track of the countries represented as I created the cards. I had so much fun.

This first card took a bit of planning. I used a beautiful new floral die by Hero Arts and 15 stamps from nine countries. I had to cut two stamps to get the colors in the right place, but for the most part, I enjoyed the challenge of placing the whole stamp for maximum color effect.

Here’s how it looked just before running it through my die-cutting machine. Countries represented in this card include China, Germany, Hong Kong, The Netherlands, New Zealand, The Philipines, ROC-Taiwan, Russia, and the US.

Here is the finished card. I placed the floral postage wreath on velum, then added a hand-stamped sentiment to a pink paper scrap.

The next card falls into the quirky category. When sorting my stamps, I set aside images of cats, hoping for inspiration.

I have a set of Sizzix dies featuring cats, something I hoped to use at Halloween. It occurred to me that I could try using the cat dies with the images of the postage cats facing forward. It worked for two of the three cats. Before I knew it, I had “constructed” a cat condo using textured woodgrain paper, various inks, and a sanding block to emulate a well-loved cat tree.

I still needed a face for the middle cat, but the remaining cat postage didn’t work. After pawing through several more stamps and some trial and error, cat number three got a pair of cool glasses courtesy of this stamp from China.

I used coordinating colors for the body of each cat. I finished the card by adding floral paper to the background, reminiscent of kitschy wallpaper. Now that’s quirky. Countries represented in this card include China, Korea, Lithuania or Lietuva, Malaysia, The Netherlands, and the US.

Today’s final card uses a single postage stamp from Russia. My sister loves wildcats, and her favorite color is purple. This over-sized stamp combines both. I used a stitching die to cut two rectangles, added the wild cat stamp to the smaller one, and stamped “thinking of you” in the upper corner. I know she’ll enjoy it.

I’ll be back tomorrow with more cards.

Here is a helpful link if you are new to card making. It’s called The Ultimate Card Making Techniques Glossary