This was my Craft Roulette challenge card this week, for my 80th submission woohoo!! It’s also worked out perfectly for the As you like it challenge of your favourite between Love and Friendship. Obviously I chose friendship in this case – to me a close friendship has a healthy dose of love anyway.
Project: Card for friend(s)
Colours: Blue jeans + 2 (I went with three shades of denim blue cardstock plus green and yellow)
Element: Starts with “F” (I chose flowers)
Random: Stack(s) (some of my flowers are stacked)
Supplies used:
Be Bold Blooms and Club Blooms dies by Spellbinders
Most cardstock by Stampin’ Up! (Seaside Spray, Misty Moonlight, Night of Navy, Pear Pizazz, Old Olive) – and random yellow scraps from my scrap bags
Hello Friend sentiment from Painted Blossoms by Gina K Designs
I’ll be honest, this one pushed me out of my comfort zone big time – I’m not 100% sold on it I think because it’s not executed all that well, or maybe it’s just that I’m not a fan of a black cardstock cardbase. The one thing I AM a fan of, though, is trying new things – I actually love getting pushed outside of my comfort zone … I don’t always love the results, but I sure do enjoy the journey. I often find new unexpected loves that I’d never try otherwise. In this case I’ll definitely give the gilding wax another try, but I’ll watch a few tutorials first, and perhaps try on burgundy or navy cardstock next time. Either way, it was a fun experiment for a very rustic looking card. This is for the Basic Black challenge over at Colorful Options.
Supplies used:
Holiday Floral Swag 3D embossing folder by Spellbinders
This was my challenge entry for Craft Roulette this week – and only that, it’s also my Tic Tac Toe entry too. I chose the third column of Tree, Metallic and Ornament.
I also christened two Spellbinders dies, so my personal challenge is ticked off the list today too! And because it took me so long to stitch and finish the card, I think it fits the criteria (for me anyway) for the X is for Xtra Special challenge over at the ABC Christmas Challenge blog.
I just managed to get a card together with a few hours to spare for Tic Tac Toe Challenge 161. I chose the diagonal row bottom left to top right – embossing, blue, and floral.
Supplies used:
Blooming Tulips stamps by Altenew
Altenew inks – Iceberg, Persian Blue, Azurite, Forest Glades, and Evergreen
Sentiment from Whimsical Blooms by Pinkfresh Studio (exclusive for their virtual event this weekend)
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 SpellbindersUsing 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 ArtsUsing 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.
I want to start doing more challenges as I find I become a better card maker that way – plus sometimes it helps to have a starting point to create a card. I actually created this one today not realizing it works exactly for the current Tic Tac Toe challenge – win/win!
Now Spellbinders is one brand that I’d heard of before the event, but I didn’t really own anything by Spellbinders other than a couple of second-hand die sets when I first set out cardmaking a year ago. Since then I’ve used the discount we received at the event and placed a pretty massive order with them, and I’m super impressed with the quality of the die cuts that I’ve seen so far. But this isn’t about my shopping spree, this is all about the card project … and my first attempt at stitching on a card!
Some things I loved about this class:
I’ve been a stitcher for 30+ years and a cardmaker for almost a year – combining two crafts sure is fun! I love the stitched effect and sure it won’t be my last!
I love the simplicity of this die set and the different looks it will give with different colour choices – I look forward to playing more with this one.
I love that I’m feeling more confident with my cardmaking – after realising I’d cut my gold cardstock too close to the edge so I couldn’t use it for the back layer, I could pivot easily and heat embossed the edges of some cardstock with gold embossing powder instead. And now that means I have enough gold card left to do another card 😉
What can I say, I’m a blue-hearted gal so the colours make me happy – and those blue gemstones are to die for!
I added a bit of Versamark ink with a background stamp just to give the background a tiny bit of textural look, otherwise the card is per the class instructions.
