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Wednesday, September 19, 2012

Marvelous Squares Dies from Spellbinders

Today's card was inspired by one made by Becca at Amazing Paper Grace, and uses my new Spellbinders Marvelous Squares dies.

The basic card is a 6" gate-fold made with two 9" x 6" pieces of cardstock in contrasting colors.  Each are scored and folded at 3" to form a 6" square piece with a 3" flap.  The two square parts are glued one on top of the other so the flaps form a gate-fold.

The rest of the card front consists of a larger frame, and inner focal piece.  Both are made with the Marvelous Square die set.  For ease of description, I'll number them from LARGEST to smallest.  Thus, die number 6 is the smallest die in the set, while die number 1 is the biggest one.

Make the larger frame:
  • Cut 3 squares from cardstock (smallest can be paper if you wish): one that is 5 1/4" square (teal here), one that is 5" square (tan here), and one that is 4 1/4" square (striped).
  • Cut each of these squares in your die cutting machine, using the largest die centered in your square.  Run through again with an embossing mat to emboss them if you wish. 
  • Set aside the inner cutouts and glue the outer frames together - layered largest to smallest with the smallest on top.
  • Set frame aside.
 Make the focal:
  • Choose two of the cutouts from the previous step (I used the striped and the tan).
  • Cut each of them them with two dies at the same time (die number 2 and die number 4). You will want to tape the dies to your cardstock with removable tape (try stencil tape or painters tape).  HINT:  These two pieces must match when you are done, so I recommend cutting one and then using it as a "template" for the second.  To do this, place your dies on the second piece of cardstock, then place your first cutout on top, adjusting the dies until they line up just right. TAPE IN PLACE!  You will probably also want to run them through a second time to emboss them before removing the dies. Make sure you save the "innies".  You'll need some of these leftover pieces later!
  • Before gluing these two pieces together, take the one that will form the outer frame of your focal and snip out the center part with a pair of small scissors (striped one in this example).  Now when you glue them together, the back piece (tan) shows in the center, and the front piece (striped) is what you see around the edge.  
  • Stamp your sentiment in the center of your focal.  Set aside.
Assemble your card:
  • Take your larger frame and center it on the front of your card.
  • Glue it to the LEFT FLAP ONLY. (picture below shows what the left side looks like with the left flap open)

  • Now, center the focal on the closed card and glue it to the RIGHT FLAP ONLY (see picture below)


These two pieces will interlace as you open and close your card:

Now for the fun part - decorating!  I took some of the "innies" from the previous step and ran them through my Xyron Sticker maker.  I then used the striped pieces to decorate the frame and the tan pieces to decorate the focal frame as shown.  Crystal flowers from my stash, and a bit of ribbon completed the front of my card.  Here's a picture of the card when it is closed so you can see the detail a little better:

You can probably tell what I did for the inside of the card just by looking at the next picture.  The teal frame was cut with die number 1 from a 5" square piece of cardstock.  The tan was also cut from die number 1, but this time I used the inner part.  I embossed both pieces, and glued them as you see here.

After I had my card finished, I realized I didn't have an envelope that was big enough for it!  This is one of those times that the Enveloper on my Ultimate Crafter's Companion comes in so handy.  I have a chart of what I need to do to make envelopes in all sorts of sizes (get yours here), so it's pretty easy.  EXCEPT I didn't want to use up my scrapbook paper to make an envelope and I needed a piece that was 9 1/2 x 9 1/2 to make my envelope.  Easy enough.  I grabbed a sheet out of a wallpaper sample book!!!!  Here's my finished envelope.

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