Bambi!

Today I have 3 cards that came from some Disney papers and three stamped images I received from a friend. The structure is the one I saw created for an A2 card, that I re-made as a 5 x 7 - measurements listed in this post. 

Card #1 (above): I colored the stamped images with my Inktense pencils and water.  The stamped sentiment is from a Studio G small stamp set called Birthday Wishes.

Inside:

Inside is the third stamped image & a stamped sentiment (Crafter's Companion Compendium (CCC) - Birthday-Female).

Card #2:

Next is a card made with the prettiest of the three papers.  I paired it with a kraft colored card and green patterned paper from my stash.  I inked the edges of all papers, adding a cut out image with sentiment pieces from a HOTP set.

Inside:

Inside, in addition to papers done the same way as on the card front, I added a piece of tan card stock with inked edges.  The sentiment was again from CCC - Birthday-Female.

Card #3:

Striped paper, along with a with a strip of the Bambi paper, form the card front.  Washi tape borders focus the attention on the Bambi focal.  The sentiment is a cut out from a freebie download from Debbi Moore.

Inside:

Inside is more of the striped paper & a stamped sentiment (CCC - Thinking of You).

Multiple Patterned Papers

Today I have some cards made with 3 sheets of coordinating 12 x 12 patterned paper.  The first two cards have 3 different patterned papers on the same card.  This is a REAL challenge for me.  I just usually prefer either no pattern or one pattern - maybe two - seldom more than that. But, I wanted to meet the challenge I saw posted, so I decided to try my best.  The rest of the cards use one or more of the patterns. 

Card #1:

This is a banded fold back card.  The inside has the small square pattern matted with red, and the outside has the striped matted with red.  I also used matted striped for the band. Then I fussy cut the squares from the largest pattern & matted those with red before adding them as you see here.  I finished with a matted die cut sentiment (A2 Card and Box Set from Card Making Magic) and large Jewel Dazzels for the center of each square.

Opened:

As you can see, I added an extra band piece so I could put the little pop-up girl on it.  I also stamped the message "Stay young at heart!"  - Crafter's Companion Compendium stamps (CCC) - Birthday Male page.

Card #2:

Once again I have 3 patterned papers on this card.  As you can see, I matted the layers with read again.  This time I did not use Jewel Dazzles, but added a punched circle to the center of the large square.  The sentiment is again from the A2 Card and Box Set.

Inside:

Matted paper and a stamped sentiment (CCC - Congratulations page).

Card #3:

This one is quite different - I started seeing the lines as waves and went looking for something that lives in the sea.  In addition to a blue card stock mat, I used a blue Sharpie marker to border all elements (except the porpoises - which were fussy cut freebie downloads from somewhere).

Inside:

Inside I added more of the blue card stock, a stamped message (CCC - Inspirational), and scrap from a calendar page.

Card #4:

This card actually has FOUR patterned papers on it because I added a blue patterned paper as part of the matting.  But this time I made things REALLY challenging for myself.  I started by cutting squares from some of the patterned papers.  BUT, I cut them too small - 1" square - and that meant I had a BUNCH of them.  Here's the first card I made with them and I only used a small fraction!  Anyway, I had planned to put a 3 x 2 grid of squares, but when I saw how small these were - even after TRIPLE matting - I decided to make a 4 x 3 grid instead.  As you can see, I used an embossed piece of card stock (Kitchen Weave by Cuttlebug) for a background and pulled the middle two pieces out, turned them on point, and had them on either side of my focal - which is another multi-layered square, but bigger.  On the bigger one, I wrapped a scrap of lacy ribbon before adding the sentiment to it.  The sentiment is one of my Mom's stamp & die cut sets & I threaded a piece of card stock through it - finishing the ends like I would if it were a ribbon.  

Inside:

As you can see, I added strips of the same embossed card stock and 4 more of the multi-layered squares.  The sentiment is from CCC Inspirational.

Card #5:

Here I used most of the rest of those little squares I talked about in the description of the previous card. I embossed the front of the cream colored card base using the same Kitchen Weave embossing folder as I used on the last card.  I inked all the edges of the little squares, and aligned them on strips of a dark red card stock as you can see in the picture above.  I had a leftover strip of striped paper that I matted on the red before gluing it horizontally across the center.  The focal is a fussy cut image from the 3rd printed paper - matted with dark red, placed on the larger striped square (with foam tape) - also matted on dark red.  The sentiment is a cut out from a freebie download (Debbi Moore).

Inside:

Most of the rest of the squares & a couple more strips of dark red form borders on the inside.  The stamped message is one from CCC - Birthday-Female.

Card #6:

I'm getting desperate to use up these papers at this point!  So - I recognize that I need to make a bigger dent in the large patterned paper, so I cut out a bunch of the larger images to use on this card.  As you can see, I used the smaller print as the background - with a dark red frame.  To this, I add a strip of the striped paper - matted on the red.  I matted the larger print pieces on cream and arranged them as you see, then I added a die cut sentiment (A2 Card & Box set from Card Making Magic).

Inside:

The border is another strip of the small print - matted with dark red.  More of the cream matted larger prints, and a stamped sentiment (CCC - Birthday Male) complete the inside.

Card #7:

Here's the FINAL card from these papers - YAY!  Since the papers are multi-colored, I've enjoyed pulling different colors for the mats.  This time I tried yellow mats - but they didn't work as well as I would have liked, so I double matted by adding green.  This worked better.  After adding the strip of striped paper for a background, I scattered a bunch of the larger print pieces and the die cut sentiment (A5 Box Kit from Card Making Magic).  I needed something else, so went through my stash and found this panda freebie printout (from Debbi Moore).

Inside:

A couple of strips - one of the striped, one of the small print - double matted with yellow & green create a border.  A couple more of the larger patterned pieces, and a stamped sentiment (CCC - Birthday - Male).

3 Swap Cards for January

First up is a swap card that was was to have the theme of winter.  As you can see, I made a rabbits in the snow card.  The background is a patterned paper from Stampin' Up - from a pack called Feels Like Frost.  I matted this with a piece of brown paper from my stash.  The rabbits were fussy cut from some freebie downloads, and the stamp was from a small stamp set called Birthday Wishes - from Studio G.

Inside:

As you can see, I took the remaining piece of patterned paper, matted it, added another fussy cut rabbit, and glued it to the card as a border of sorts.  I finished by stamping with a stamp from Crafter's Companion Compendium stamp set - page called With Love.

Next up was a materials swap.  Here are the materials I sent to my partner - using an identical set to create a card myself:

A sheet of plain white card stock for making a card base, some printed digi freebies - papers & focal elements, a piece of glittered card stock, a heart-shaped paper doily, some ribbon, some Jewel Dazzles, and a couple of die cut words (dies from a card making magazine I bought - Die Cutting Essentials Issue 54 - from a die set called Piece by Piece.

Here's the card I made from these materials:

This card is a 5 x 7 version of the card I showed in this post - the one I call a Cut Away Card with Add On.  You can see the basics of how to make it there, but here are the measurements for creating a 5 x 7 version from a sheet of 8 1/2 x 11 card stock.  

(NOTE: You really want to use fairly firm card stock for this card because in the 5 x 7 size it will be quite flimsy otherwise.)  For the card base, cut a piece that is 5" x 10 1/2" - then score it at 7".  From from the remaining card stock, cut a piece that is 3 1/2" x 5" - this forms the "Add-On".

For patterned paper, I cut three pieces that were 3 1/4" x 4 3/4".  Two were of one pattern - for the inside & outside of the card - the other was a coordinating pattern - for the cross piece attached to the card front.  (Because I added ribbon which showed on the back of the cross piece, I added another piece of the 2nd paper to cover that in the back, but it could be left plain.)  If you want to mat these pieces - you will cut the mats these sizes & then cut the patterned paper at 3" x 4 1/2" (which would allow you to get both from a 6 x 6 piece of paper - with a 1 1/2" strip left over that could be cut down for a border on the cross piece if you wished.  In this case, I was using printed digi papers, so had more left.  

For the focal, I started with a fussy cut printed floral heart (freebie download).  This was placed in the center of a heart-shaped doily - which was matted with blue glittered card stock which I cut to fit.  I added a strip of ribbon that went under the focal piece, but over the mats & cross piece.  Another bit of ribbon was tied into a bow and added at the point of the focal heart.  A strip of white card stock was cut with one of my punches, and the die cut words added for a sentiment - glued in place as you see here.

Inside:

As I mentioned earlier, I added the papers you see.  I also added 3 Jewel Dazzle stickers in the upper right corner.  I expect to be adding a stamped sentiment when I figure out what I want to say - but I could just write a personal message in that space instead.

And finally, here are the materials I got from  my swap partner:

And the card I made from it:

As you can see, I started with the "checkers" patterned paper - which I cut into strips for borders (inking the edges with black ink).  Next, I used the "cards" patterned paper, cutting it into some card shapes - which I inked before adding to the card.  I cut another one from a cream colored piece of card stock.  Two fussy cut hearts from the "cards" paper were added to the corners, and an "A" sticker completes the "Ace" card.  A bow made from the lacy ribbon, and a stamped/fussy cut greeting (Happy4Banners by The Stamps of Life - added with foam tape) completed the card front.

Inside:

A stamped greeting (Crafter's Companion Compendium - With Love) and card/border (as for the front) completed the inside.

Using Challenging Paper - and Scraps

12 x 12 Chop It for 5 x 7 cards:

Today's post started with a 12 x 12 sheet of patterned paper covered with roses.  I've had the paper in my stash for a long time.  Though it's pretty, I found it challenging to use because it's such a bold pattern.  I was inspired by a #LoveItChopItToPieces video, to cut it in pieces.  The video was focused on cutting for A2 sized cards, but I chose to try cutting it for 5 x 7 size.   

I spent some time trying to decide how big I wanted the main pieces.  Should I cut them just 1/4" smaller than the card, or was it better to cut them 1/2" smaller to leave room for a mat?  I've decided that most of the time I'll cut them 1/2 inch smaller as you see here.  There are three reasons for this (listed in no particular order):

• This leaves 1" strips for borders - which I find more useful than the 1/2" strips I get when I cut the pieces only 1/4" smaller than the paper.
• I generally want them matted, so might as well leave room for that - but even if I don't mat them, they still look pretty good on the 5 x 7 size card.
• As I experiment with various cuts to make these pieces more interesting, I often want to separate the cut pieces with a gap - this size allows for that.
  

SO, here is the way I cut the paper (picture not to scale):

This gives two long 1" strips, four 4.5x6.5 pieces, and one 2x2 piece.  As you can see, after cutting off the 1" strips, the remaining cuts are a bit more challenging - relatively easy with some paper trimmers, but with a guillotine cutter, it's a bit more challenging.  However, if you're careful, it's really not that hard if you focus on cutting the short sides of each piece - cutting a little way into what will create the  2" x 2" but not far enough to run the risk of actually cutting into the next piece.  OR, cut the first cut with the paper trimmer and then the remaining with the guillotine (holding the cut edge out of the way).

Anyway, I kept two of the 4.5" x 6.5" pieces, one of the long 1" pieces, and the 2"x2" piece, and gave the others to my Mom to work with.  Then I thought about how I might cut up the larger (4.5 x 6.5) pieces to use on my 5 x 7 cards.  I ended up with 3 cards from the pieces I kept. 

Card #1 (top of post):  For this first card, I used part of the 1" strip - matted on black - to form a border as you can see.  I then embossed the right side of the card front (Scroll Background by Darice - since this is an A2 embossing folder, I had to run it through the machine twice to emboss the whole.  The "join" from the two times through the machine is mostly covered by the sentiment so is not noticeable).  I cut one of the large pieces in half to create two pieces that were 3 1/4 x 4 1/2.  From one of those pieces, I die cut the sentiment (die from Card Making Magic's A2 Card and Box Set), with a mat from black paper.

Inside:

A narrow strip of the paper matted in black formed a lower border.  The sentiment is a stamp from Crafter's Companion Compendium (CCC) from the page called Thinking of You.

Card #2:

For this card, I cut a couple of 1 inch strips off the second large piece - to cover the 1" sides of the card. The remaining piece serves as the background for focal (freebie printout from my stash) & sentiment (Wishing You Well by Creative Expressions).  I used strips of washi tape to complete the borders.

Inside:

Inside I added a piece of white paper.  The decoration is the 2x2 piece matted on black.  The stamp is another from CCC (With Love page).

Card #3:

The sentiment (die cut from Card Making Magic's A5 Box Kit) was cut from the same piece used to cut the sentiment for the 1st card, and the remaining 3 1/4" x 4 1/2" piece was matted for the bottom of the card.  The roses were fussy cut from a freebie printout.  The sentiment strip was stamped on white card stock - from Matching Borders and Focals stamp set from HOTP.

Inside:

The final piece of patterned paper was matted with black for a border on the inside.  The stamp is another from CCC - again from the Thinking of You page.

Card #4 - no chop it - just scraps:

This final card was made with leftovers from two or more Hunkydory sets.  I just had miscellaneous pieces (from before I had figured out that Hunkydory works best when you use it one entire set at a time) - die cuts - scraps from die cut pages, and scraps of AS (Adoreable Scoreable card stock).  

To make this card, I started with a piece of dark red glimmer paper from my stash for a background.  The focal has a mat layer that was pieced from scraps.  The border is actually 4 pieces - two are the lighter colored strips top and bottom, and two fit together to make the darker piece.  It had gouges in it because of the die cuts that were removed from the scraps, so the focal and sentiment die cuts are covering that.

Inside:

Inside, I used another leftover strip for the border.  It wasn't quite as long as I wanted, so I cut it and the gap is hidden by the die cut sentiment piece.

ANOTHER 12 x 12 Chop It Experiment:

In my experimenting with cutting 12" x 12" paper for cards, I tried a couple of different sizes.  As I've already mentioned, I think the cutting guide I posted above is going to be my "go to", but I also tried cutting the large pieces a bit bigger - 4 3/4" x 6 3/4" - which left strips that were only 1/2" wide.  This time I used carnation paper - and I divided the pieces between Mom and me in the same way.

Card #5:

I decided if I was going to use the whole piece on a card, it might work best on a larger card.  This one was an odd size to fit a misc envelope I had.  The card measures 5 3/8" x 8 1/4" and is a peach color.  As you can probably tell, I took one of the large pieces of the carnation paper and cut it in thirds.  This gave me 3 pieces that were 2 1/4" x 4 3/4".  I matted these with a narrow black mat and spaced them out across the card front.  Then I added a die cut greeting (peach colored and black card stock - die from Card Making Magics 5x7 Card and Box Set).

Inside:

I took part of the 1/2" strip, matted it on peach, and then again on black to create a border on the inside.  The sentiment is a CCC stamp (from Thinking of You set).

Card #6:

This final card is the last one of my half of the carnation paper.  This time, I cut the main piece into triangles, matted them, and arranged them for the background.  The focal is from a Colorist Topper sheet, cut to an oval, painted with Inktense pencils & water brush, then adhered in place.  The sentiment is a freebie download cutout - attached with foam tape.

Inside:

Inside I used the rest of the 1/2" strip with black to form a border - and then misc stickers from my stash to complete the inside.

And finally, here are some that my Mom made with her part of these papers:

Carnations make:

Roses Make:

Inside:

2 Cards Inspired by MB

Today I have a couple of miscellaneous cards that were inspired by a message board I frequent.  The first is a Christmas card - as you can see.  I thought the structure was interesting (I'm calling it a "Cut Away with Add On) - but more than that - it uses one sheet of 6 x 6 patterned paper - with no scraps left over.  What fun!  An example card was posted on the MB - along with a link to the related video - here - where they used double-sided patterned paper - also fun.  I decided to try it, though my 6 x 6 paper was only one sided.  In a later post, I'll show the changes I made to create the card in a 5 x 7 size.  For now, here are the details for cutting the card stock and patterned paper for this card which is A2 size:

The card base is 4 1/4" x 11" - score at 5 1/2", then cut 2 3/4"  off and save for later (I just used white card stock for the base, but a coordinating color can be fun too).

When folded, the short edge is for the card front (with the fold on the left side).  The cut off piece will be turned 90 degrees & attached to the card front - but don't do that until you've added your patterned paper.

Here's the cutting template for the 6 x 6 patterned paper (cut 1/4 wider & taller to create mats for them if you wish):

The largest piece (3 3/4 x 5 is turned on it's side and goes on the inside of the card.  The next largest piece (2 1/4 x 3 3/4) goes on the card front. The 3 3/4 x 1 is cut or torn in half to form a band across the remaining piece of card stock before it is added to the card front (see picture of card front below).  The remaining piece - a square piece - is turned on it's edge and centered over the center of the sideways piece (covering the split in the 3 3/4 x 1 piece).

Card #1:

The patterned paper was from a small Christmas 6 x 6 book of papers from my stash - don't remember the company that made it.  As you can see, I chose to mat my pieces with red glimmer paper.  Looking at it now, it might have been nice to mat the white cross-wise piece as well - I'll keep that in mind for future - might want to cut the white piece down by 1/4 in width & height if I decide to do that so enough of the patterned paper still shows.  Anyway, the final touch on the card front was to add focal and embellishments - here the focal is a Dazzles sticker greeting, and the embellishments are all also Dazzles stickers.

Inside:

I decided I needed a piece of white on the inside behind the front panel to give me a place to write.  It might be nice in the future to have a small embellishment that is hidden behind the sideways panel on the right side and just shows when you open the card.  It's pretty nice to make a card where you can take a piece of 6 x 6 paper & use it all up with no waste.  Fun structure & cutting guide!

Card #2:

Here the challenge was to use some digi papers.  Both patterned papers are digi papers from my stash.  As you can see, I used a larger piece of the one pattern for the background and a strip of the other pattern for the border.  Both were narrowly matted with a bit of black - before being added to the blue card base.  I'm pretty sure the focal and sentiment were from Hunkydory, but don't know which set because they came on a card I received that I up-cycled.

Inside:

Inside I cut a frame from one pattern to surround the sentiment (using a die from Spellbinders Tile Works A2 Card Creator die set), and added another strip of it below for the base of the border.  Then I added a narrow strip of the other pattern (matted in black again) with a small embellishment (from the same up-cycled card).  The sentiment is from Crafter's Companion Compendium stamp set - the page called Thinking of You.