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: