One Sheet Wonder

Over on the Paper Wishes Message Board, they are doing a challenge using the "One Sheet Wonder" idea - where you take 1 sheet of patterned paper, cut it up in various ways, and use the pieces to make a bunch of cards.  I've seen a lot of examples of this on the web, and told myself I'd have to try it sometime - but never got around to doing so until now. 

I basically made my own template. Since I wanted to finish the insides of my cards as well as the outside, I ended up with the 7 cards you see in the picture above (could have had more like 14 cards if I didn't decorate the insides). 

Here's my template:

And this is how I decided how I wanted to cut it.  I started with a double-sided sheet of 12" x 12" paper from the "Artful Watercolor" set of papers from HOTP.  I wanted to make cards that were 4 1/4" x 5 1/2", so thought I'd start with rectangles that were 3 3/4" x 5" - a size that would allow for a mat around them & still fit on the card front:

• I first cut two strips from the paper that were 5" x 12".  This left a third strip that was 2" by 12".
• Next, I cut my 5" strips into three 3 3/4" sections - that gave me three pieces that were 5" x 3 3/4" from each 5" strip - with an additional piece that was 3/4" x 5". So in total from my two 5" strips I now had 6 pieces that were 3 3/4" x 5" and 2 pieces that were 3/4" x 5".
• I took my 6 matching pieces and set the others aside for now.  I saved one whole (#6 above) and cut the other 5 as you see in the picture.  One was cut from upper left to lower right corner giving me two triangles (#1 & #2 above).  The next was cut in half both ways (#3's).  The next was cut on one side using a template as a guide for an interesting shape (#4).  The next was cut in 3 pieces horizontally (#5), and the final one was cut in thirds vertically (#7).  
• I then turned my attention to my leftover pieces.  I left the 3/4" x 5" ones as they were (#3 & #7 on far right of picture).  From the 2" strip I cut two pieces that were 5 1/4" long (#1 & 2 on bottom of picture) which left me with a final piece that was 1 1/2" x 2" (#6 in bottom right corner).

Now, the colored numbers correspond to the pieces used to make my different cards.  Looking at the cards in the order they are in the picture at the top of this blog entry:

• Back Left - This card was made using the pieces labeled #5 in the template - two on the outside, one on the inside.
• Back Middle - This card used the pieces labeled #7 in the template - the narrow 3/4" one went on the inside.
• Back Right - I used pieces labeled #3 for this one - 4 matching rectangles on the front & the narrow 3/4" one on the inside
• Middle Left - uses pieces labeled #1 - rectangular one on the inside
• Middle Middle - used # 6's - the large rectangle on the front & the smaller one on the inside
• Middle Right - uses pieces labeled #2 - rectangular one on the inside
• Front - uses pieces labeled #4 - large piece on the front, small one on the inside.

This worked pretty well, but I learned something to consider for next time.  While the 5" x 3 3/4" worked great by itself, when I cut it in pieces, there was not as much room for matting as I would have liked.  I think next time I'd want to take that into account and make the pieces smaller depending on how many "cuts" there are if they are all going to go on the front of a card.  This will probably have the added benefit of giving me enough for another card.  I think next time I would make ONE strip that is 5" and use that for the diagonal cuts (#1&2), the whole (#6), and the fancy cut (#4).   Then I would have to re-think the others - the one cut in thirds vertically, the one cut in thirds horizontally, and the one cut in half both ways.  Each of these should be cut from a piece that is smaller than 5" x 3 3/4".  

In the next few days, I'll take a closer look at each of the 7 cards made from this template.