I'm in Haven: CAS(E) this Sketch 136...You Make Me Smile

Some sketches I have to think about for a bit, others I have an idea right away. The sketch this week at CAS(E) this Sketch is so sweet and simple, I KNEW right away what I wanted to make, and made not one, but two cards for the challenge (I'm entering the first:)!)! Here's my first card and the sketch...

This sketch was just screaming a die cut border to me. I saw the lines of the strip across the sketch and pulled out my Simon Says Stamp Air Vent die for my first card. I used some of the newest and some of the newer colored inks from Simon to fill in my stripes of the vent...these new colors are SO PRETTY!! I did this by swiping the ink on white card stock, making "colored paper", and then die cutting on that swiped colored paper. I adhered double sided tape to the back of the vent die cut, to adhere the little colored strips to the vent. I popped up an upper and lower panel over the vent after stamping a sentiment on the upper panel from the cool Simon set, Happy and Smile, hiding the ends of the stripes of the die under the top and bottom panels...

Oh, I was on a roll with this idea, so... I used another Simon die and the same Simon colors with another sentiment from the same sentiment stamp set...

This border was a bit more of a challenge due to all those little squares, but what fun and how relaxing that tedious work can be!!