Tutorials, Using scraps

Curvy die cards

While scrolling through Pinterest and seeing some alcohol ink background cards, a totally unrelated card idea came to mind – to use some curvy dies and Ink Drops papers from Craft Consortium to make a clean and simple card. To say I’m in love with the results would be an understatement – it’s such a versatile and simple design that has a totally different look depending on the choice of cardstock and papers used. I see many of these in my future, and it’s a perfect way to use up some larger paper scraps!

I’ve also created a quick visual tutorial of how I created the cardfront panels, as I’ve had a few people ask how to do these. I hope this is helpful 🙂

Using Ink Drops Dusk paper pad by Craft Consortium, #9 Borders Etched Dies by PhotoPlay, Harvest dies by Stampin’ Up!
Using Ink Drops Dusk paper pad by Craft Consortium, Quite Curvy dies by Stampin’ Up! (retired), various flower dies by Spellbinders
Using Ink Drops Dusk paper pad by Craft Consortium, Quite Curvy dies by Stampin’ Up! (retired), Eucalyptus 3 die by Paper Rose, edges swinked with Versamark ink and heat embossed with brass embossing powder by Hero Arts
Using Hydrangea Lawns (12×12) paper pad by Dress My Craft, and Quite Curvy dies by Stampin’ Up! (retired)

 

How to create the card front

Supplies needed:

  • Cardstock for the curved layers – I used white in this example
  • Card base – I’m using a US A2 card size
  • Patterned paper or previously created background – I’m using a paper from the Ink Drops – Dusk paper pad by Craft Consortium
  • Curvy die of your choice – I’m using ‘Quite Curvy’ dies by Stampin’ Up! (retired)

Take your piece of cardstock cut to the size of the card front. Place your curvy die in the location where you want the bottom curve to be on your card. In my case I like the curved panel to sit approx 1/3 from the bottom of the card so that’s where I placed my die. I don’t measure at all, just eyeball where I think the die should sit.

Do the same thing with your top curve. I decided I like to have the curves with a bit more ‘movement’ so I flipped my curvy die around so the curve went in the opposite direction at the top – that gave me a mix of wide and narrow parts on the card. You can also keep the die the same way for both cuts and it’ll just give a more consistent wave across the card front. Once again I decided I like my card to have a wider margin of open space towards the top of the card, so I kept the top space a bit larger than the bottom – but there are no rules to the width to use.

Next I took my card base and placed the two die cuts in place – I measured between the width between the top of the die cut spaces to below the bottom of the die cut spaces (make sure to allow for the holes). This is how to work out the height of the paper needed to fill the space. In this example I was able to use a piece of patterned paper 2.5″ high.

After I cut my strip of patterned paper I placed that on the card front. I overlaid the die cut pieces on top so I can be sure that the paper will sit behind the open spaces. Sometimes you need to move the paper around a bit to get the placement right.

Once I’m happy I keep one hand on the paper piece while I move the die cuts out of the way, and I put a small pencil mark at the bottom of the paper strip so I know where to line it up.

Use your adhesive of choice to glue the paper strip to the card base, using the pencil mark as a guide for the bottom edge of the strip.

Glue your bottom die cut in place on top of the card base, aligning the bottom and sides with the card base.

Do the same with the remaining die cut panel at the top of the card front. Then embellish it as you want.

I hope that all makes sense – but if you have any questions feel free to leave a comment and I’ll try to answer.

Class projects, Crop & Create Delivered

Crop & Create Delivered – Photoplay Paper

The first class on Friday was with Photoplay Paper and I thought it was really clever. I’d heard of Photoplay Paper earlier as I’d bought a couple of the sentiment stamp sets, but didn’t have any of the dies. And it was good to have some new and old techniques for the first class of the weekend.

Some things I loved:

  • The stained glass technique of colouring on the inside of the card and having a vellum window is totally new to me, so my creative brain was stretched – and the black die cuts overlaid on the front and back of the vellum really adds to the stained glass window effect – it’s stunning in real life.
  • I love irises so the colours and style really spoke to me.
  • I got to pull out two inks I hadn’t tried using yet and adore the delicate die cut frames of the window.
  • It’s just an all-round beautiful project!

Something I didn’t like … me being a numpty and accidentally picking up an ink pad fibre on my green tape used to hold down the stencil for ink blending so I got a random red mark on inside of the card. I’ll be keeping this one for future reference anyway, so it doesn’t matter, but if I feel strongly about it later I’ll draw over it with a white gel pen, no problem!

The inks I chose to use were: