I’ve mentioned Spellbinders Card Kit of the Month Club a couple times, almost in passing.  Once when discussing “one page wonders,” and again when I talked about the other Spellbinders memberships/clubs.  I want to take a closer look here, though, since I went ahead and ordered a current one.  So this is the June 2021 Card Kit of the Month (“Wild Hello”).

What is the Spellbinders Card Kit of the Month?

The Spellbinders Card Kit of the Month is a subscription box.  You can cancel and re-subscribe whenever you want or need to, so you can technically purchase just a single kit, but the idea is for it to be a subscription.  Each month’s box is themed, and includes:

• a 6×6 decorative paper pad
• some solid cardstock (and generally a sheet of gold metallic cardstock)
• a stamp set
• a small die set
• some die cuts and other embellishments (often stickers and/or journaling cards; usually coordinating sequins)
• 10 blank cards
• double-sided tape & a mini sheet of foam squares
• a card with instructions for one card design

The usefulness of some of these elements is, in my opinion, hit-or-miss as far as cardmaking usefulness goes.  A lot of the die cuts and journaling cards, for instance, in the old sets I bought seem more useful for planners or scrapbooks than cards.  Many of them have some weird things like food die cuts (like toast — really), but not a lot of sentiments you’d put on cards.  That kind of thing.  So it’s a mixed bag.

I figure that if the decorative paper, stamps, and dies are styles I like, everything else is kind of a bonus.

The dies in the various kits vary, too.  Sometimes there’s a word or sentiment.  Occasionally there are dies for cutting out sentiments or other dies from the stamp sets.  Usually they’re mostly “image” dies, though.  (That is, they’re not words and they’re not made strictly for cutting out something stamped.)

This month’s dies are different — and they’re actually the main reason I went ahead and bought this month’s kit.  This month’s kit has only four dies, but all four of them are sentiments, attached to decorative strips.  I really like dies like this — and like the round sentiments in this month’s Large Die of the Month set — because I like the simplicity of having a die-cut sentiment to put on a card, but I don’t like having to try to line up and piece together a bunch of annoying individual letters.

These (happy birthday, celebrate, big thanks, and hello) are super-easy, because you just cut it in one pass and pop it into your card in one piece.  With the exception of “hello” (which is scripty and has a sort of “lacy” look to its strip), these are all in block letters, so there aren’t any tittles to lose for the i’s, either.

The stamps include some quirky jungle/savannah animals (giraffe, zebra, monkey, and…cheetah, maybe?), a jungly-looking leaf, balloon, party hat, a small flower, and a small heart.  And both “wild”-themed and basic sentiments:

Go wild
from this wild bunch
just saying
fierce fun fabulous
to my friend
hello
big thanks
bravo
a friend like you is rare
I hope your day is filled with hugs and smiles
be fearless & extraordinary
happiest wishes on your birthday

Here you can get a bit of an idea of the kinds of things included among the die cuts.  (This month’s kit was better, in my opinion, in terms of having good sentiments, etc.)

And there are several that go really well with the themes of the die sets and clear stamps for this month!

I used one of these, stamped it with the stamp set, and used the Small Die of the Month to complete a card with it.  (The background is embossed with a dotted embossing folder.  And the sentiment, after stamping with Scrapbook.com black hybrid ink, is heat-embossed with WOW! clear sparkle embossing powder.  I only embossed it so the ink wouldn’t smudge.  And I happened to come across my clear sparkle embossing powder before my regular clear powder, so I thought, “why not?”)  The other papers there are also from the kit.

One Sheet Wonders

As I did with previous card kits, I made a set of 6 cards with the kit and a one-sheet wonders template.

These are made almost exclusively with the supplies in the kit.  The exceptions are: liquid glue, black ink, a scrap of hot pink cardstock (for the “hello,” and the matching little border, which is actually just the trimmed excess), and the fact that I’m still working through that supply of 4×5.5″ card bases (although I definitely could have used the card bases in the kit).