Double Flap Front Cards

 I hope you didn't miss me too much! I have been off making fifteen double front cards. With these cards, I've been able to start to use up card stock as well as the Designer Series Paper. The design for these comes from Heidi Collins at On Y Go Stamping. I have got quite a pile of new cards going!

The card starts with a folded piece of DSP, which is mounted on cardstock with just a small flap (the black on the left in the card above). When it is closed, that small orange square is the sentiment on the front (look for the Halloween card in the top photo). 

Open the card again, and you have the reverse side of the DSP and a place to write a note. These were fun, but I'm still looking at piles and piles of bitty pieces of paper. I may have misjudged where I should put my efforts! I've started a new set of cards which have no name according to the designer, but I'll push on. See you back here real soon!

Collars Complete

Hey followers! I managed to finish those collar cards I started the other night. Funny story about the Christmas cards. I bought something on eBay and the seller sent me some unsolicited paper samples. Yay? I was looking online to confirm the colors used, and as I was looking at the whole series together, I realized that I already have this paper but I've never opened it. [sad trombone] (That explains why I didn't recognize these four patterns.)

People keep asking me if I sell my cards and I always reply, "if I sold them, then it would be work and not fun." But now that I see how many cards I am making from scraps and shock horror the amount of paper I have that I have never used or even opened, maybe I should be. Of course, I don't think anyone wants to pay the amount it would take me to give these up! It does mean I should collect the birthdays and anniversary dates of every person I know so that I can use all the cards I make! (I'm contemplating sending Halloween cards to my nearest and dearest because of all the Halloween paper I have collected. 👀)

I have moved on to another stash buster of a card. These start with a 5 1/2 x 5 1/2 piece of DSP and lots of scrap size cardstock. I think I'm going to need a few days to finish the fifteen double front fun fold cards I am making. But I'll be back soon to share!

Collar Cards

Today, I made collar cards. These have a nice pop of contrast and you get to see both sides of the designer series paper. I think my favorites are the bear peeping out of the paper fold. Most cards of this type have an embellishment that covers up the point of the fold (it's not real pretty). I'm sure I'll find something even though I haven't found it yet. I am also thinking I might add some pink ink to the black and white daisies. Just here and there, nothing crazy but I think that one lacks a bit of color. 

The directions for these are pretty straightforward. Cut two-sided patterned paper 5x3 3/4". About 2 1/2" along the 5" side, cut in about 1 1/2 - 1 3/4". Score diagonally from the center cut to each corner. Fold along that score line, then adhere those triangles down. Adhere to a 5 1/4 x 4" card stock that has been stamped. Then adhere to your card!

 

 

Scrappy Accordions

I decided I should start with the largest scraps and work my way to the tiny bits because there will inevitably be more of the latter as we make cuts to the big stuff. Coincidentally, Connie Stewart posted a video about accordion fold cards on Thursday. I went through the big box of' scraps and retrieved every piece that was at least 5 1/2" x 12". There were eight of these. 

It's easy enough to cut and fold and find matching scraps and get all that together. The thing that slows me down is designing (such as it is) the focal image. Which stamps? Which colors to pull in? How to fill the space so the design looks intentional? I only managed to get three cards done last night.

I had a lot of Well Suited DSP. It's fairly masculine but the stamp sets I have really skew toward the floral. The sheep are new, and I saw Zoe Tant had dressed her sheep with DSP. I followed her directions. It is a great effect, but not gonna lie, takes time. 

This is what the inside looks like.

I had also done a focal image for that pink striped version. But I hated it. 

I spent some time at lunch grabbing some stamps I thought would work. After work, I got to stamping. I was pretty happy with the butterfly cards but kept thinking, "this needs something." I went to the third 13x13 box I have where I store embellishments and found raspberry sequins and some goldish rhinestones. Perfect! (These were a total surprise. I have no idea why I have hot pink and raspberry sequins in that box, but I guess they were waiting for their moment!) I did the Christmas card next. And was well and truly finished when I added wink of Stella (a shimmer medium) to the pine cones. The hearts were hard. The main color of the paper paper is a one I do not have (Lovely Lipstick) and the paper is nearly monochromatic. I looked at the comparisons, and decided that Magenta Mambo would do. I liked how it came out--and more rhinestones!--but thought it looked really busy with the background. In Connie's video, she handles this by extending the message piece on the inside. Eh voila!

The chess card was the very last card I put together. I had pulled a piece of pink paper (there is a pink stripe in the DSP) to back the focal image. But when I decided to give up on the pink, it came together pretty quickly! I'm super happy with all these cards and I am elated to tell you that I did not use one new piece of paper in making these cards--all scraps!

Scraptastic September

Hello, friends. I have been away stitching (gasp!) and reading, but what's brought me back to the blog is an idea I formulated as I was sifting through my paper scraps. I have a giant collection of scraps in two 13x13 boxes--one for printed papers and another for colored card stock. When you take it out and throw it on the dirty floor it looks like this:

Not gonna lie, there's more!

What can I accomplish in a month with these scraps? I'm allowing newly-cut card bases--in colors or neutrals--but no other new cuts. Everything has to come from this pile. I can use any stamps, embellishments, layouts, or fun folds. I can cut the paper down, punch it, or die cut it.

I had hoped to do a couple of cards of each style, to show also how different the same design can look with different papers and stamps, but I have been up and down the cellar stairs tonight to protect myself against predicted tornados which materialized not far from here. So, one completed card and a second start.

The finished card uses strips of Stampin' Up! Designer Series Paper in Mariner (retired) with the octopus from Sea Street. And when you open the card, surprise! Those strips are actually on the inside of the card! Isn't that clever? This design comes from Connie Stewart from Simply Simple Stamping. You can find directions at her YouTube channel at the link; it's the light blue card. I thought that was so neat. I mean, it doesn't look like much until you open it. 

Here's the second card I started. This one uses strips of Share What You Love DSP (ret.) on a kraft base (that I didn't have to cut!).

 Well, that's a start. Hoping the weather cooperates tomorrow so I can make a couple more cards to share!

A Cardful of Flowers

We've come to the end of another Craft Month. Here's the Big Finish: a card in a box. I used a couple of tutorials--a British one for the concept and another one to convert to inches. 

I used "share what you love" (how apropos) DSP in the razzleberry stripes and the dots. I pulled the colors from the dots to make the flowers. I stamped with rich razzleberry and blackberry bliss (stamping off) as well as Versamark. The cardstock is tranquil tide, (maybe) grapefruit grove, so saffron, basic black, and pear pizzazz. I used the wavy die cut for the stems and used some of the cast off as long grass-like filler. The sentiment is stamped in rich razzleberry; it is from the Berry Blessings Stamp set. 

The amazing thing about this card is that it folds flat for mailing!

Another amazing thing about this card is that I ran out of snail adhesive yesterday so this is all glue and glue dots. And not any fancy glue, Elmer's gel! I had 234 feet of adhesive and I ran out! I guess I did a lot of crafting this month. 
 

Oh, and just one more thing!

I made some edits to the card I did on Thursday, March 28. I added in the plaid hearts as leaves and I think it breaks up the color. Definite improvement.

Thank you all so much for visiting over the past month. I've really appreciated your comments and just knowing you were out there.

Stay well, friends. I'll regroup and be back soon!

Magical Swirls

I mentioned earlier that I would like to try the wreath in green for Christmas and here is the result. I added flowers in real red and a bit of bling. The designer series paper is Nordic Noel. It's cute, and I could add a sentiment, but the really interesting bit of this card is on the inside...

It's a magic wallet. (Watch the gift card closely.) I used JanB's directions but that is way more video than you need for this pretty simple card (seriously its 12 pieces of paper and four pieces of ribbon).

One more card, and I can take a rest. I really do appreciate those of you who stopped by and left a comment. Your notes were uplifting and helped me along on this challenge. Thank you!

Stella Swirls

I love this card! This is the card I want someone to send me if I have some kind of illness where I am confined to bed and need cheering up. 

This is Connie Stewart's version of a gatefold. I used her measurements and then stopped paying attention, clearly. Because I stuck the focal image on the wrong half of the card. (In my defense, I had the card the wrong way round when I did the tone on tone stamping with flirty flamingo.) The colors here are flamingo, mango melody, old olive, and sahara sand. I stamped off to create the color variation. I love the little dab of splatter--it reminds me of baby's breath!

I also used wink of Stella--a glitter brush pen--on the flowers. I think you can see it in that lower left corner. 

And the inside. I need to find a lovely "get well" sentiment I think. I'll keep an eye out.

W-fold Kite

 At yesterday's stamping retreat, one of the demonstrators showed how to make a W-fold card. I think it is definitely the lesser of the letter-fold cards. (See Z-fold here.) I embossed the blue (balmy? soft sky?) with the cloudy day embossing folder and mounted it on a night of navy card base. The poppy parade, granny apple green, and night of navy kites are on a background stamped with blue spatter. The red and green kites are popped up on dimensionals and the whole panel is popped up.

Inside, the kites are repeated. The "pop up" W-fold is mounted on the same blue as the card front, with granny apple green ombre paper mounted on navy. I stamped half the kite on the designer series paper (DSP). I've seen other people do this, and it looks like butterflies. It's evocative here. The sentiment is stamped in poppy parade, from curly cute. It's all mounted up because it was supposed to go on the front of the card but I didn't like how it fit, so I slapped it on the inside and called it good. 

I'm not sure I'm in love with the concept. I think I'd like it better if the four panels lent themselves to a story or something. The demonstrator's examples were just four pieces of DSP mounted on cardstock and why?

Stamping Retreat Swirls

 I have spent all day in a virtual stamping retreat with the Creativate team. I have watched a bunch of tutorials and made some cards of my own. I even did my first mystery stamping! But first!

One of the team made this gift card holder, and I put my version together pretty quickly. I "made" DSP with the stamp set using highland heather (first and second generation), not quite navy for the swirls, and granny apple green for the leaves. The cardstock is blueberry bushel. The ribbon is just something from my stash that matched pretty well.

On the left hand section, you can see the gift card holder. It has a little thumb notch so you can grab your gift card and go!

The sentiment is stamped in gorgeous grape with the sentiment from perfect pairings.

The morning started with a card made from four pieces of DSP. They were cut and put back together to make this patchwork design. This DSP is well suited, and I popped it on to pacific point card stock. On a couple of them I tied ribbon to look like ties! Isn't that more manly than a bow? (On one of the cards I had to camouflage a mistake.) The sentiment is from upsy daisy and punched and layered on pacific point.

The first set went so quickly, I thought I'd try it with a Christmas DSP (Merry Moments Stack, ret.). The sentiment is heart of Christmas, and I stamped it in cherry cobbler. I am going to need to get some cherry cobbler cardstock so that I can layer the sentiment. I think the card may also be cherry. This goes so quickly! I have never started making my Christmas cards so early. I don't want to jinx myself but...

Today I tried something I have never done before--mystery stamping! We were told to cut certain types of papers certain sizes and to get out a large sentiment stamp, to have embellishments and ink pads handy. We started by cutting up the DSP (field and flower) and had to follow instructions blind. I think mine came out pretty well. The card in the lower right hand corner may be a little sparse, but I could add loads of those punched flowers because they mimic the "filler" flower in the DSP.

At 7pm I got a delivery from Stampin' Up and not gonna lie, one of the sets I ordered would have been better on this card. 

There are a number of projects I look forward to trying over the next few weeks. This was such fun! Okay, one more presentation! Bye.

Snowman Swirls

Tonight, I went with a center stair card. I used a couple of tutorials as a guideline but cut the sides to 1.25" because I didn't want the snowman floating on a too large center panel. The DSP is from the merry moments stack (ret). I stamped two of the swirls and die cut the swirls from a sparkle paper. I added a wink of Stella on the large bottom swirl to give it some additional sparkle. I stamped half the kite to make the bow. It's stamped with mossy meadow. The jolly is die cut from Christmas greetings thinlits.

Pretty cute!
 

Done is Good

I just couldn't get the design to come together for this one. I probably needed a third color for the flowers. Eh. Stairstep card. These directions.

Bird Bath Shutter card

Longtime readers may recognize the tri fold shutter card; I made one for Craft Month in 2013. For a while, I was making these for everyone because they are pretty easy, and because they are impressive. For this card, I started with pear pizzazz cardstock. I added flirty flamingo dots and pear pizzazz stripes. There are four small blocks that I stamped with crushed curry, flirty flamingo, pear pizzazz, and pool party to bring all the colors together. Funny how I didn't think I was going to use this splatter stamp much.

That stamp really influenced this focal image! I was thinking that a bird in a bird bath splashes around and I was wondering if I could capture that. I think I may have overdone the blue just slightly, but I do think it looks like the bird is playing in the bath. I also used the splatter to make grass. The bird bath is the boat plus one of the the sails!

I stamped the bird and the bath and then masked it before stamping the splash and the grass.

The sentiment is from happy everything (ret).

Double Summer Sails

Summery! Isn't it? I went back to the popular joy fold card for inspiration. Here I paired the swirly DSP (from birthday bash, ret.) with Bermuda bay paper dry embossed, and a backing card of mango mambo. It doesn't actually match with the colors in the paper, but close enough! The boat is back with crushed curry sails topped with pumpkin pie stripes. The keel is stamped in mossy meadow and both the waves, tiny flag, and sentiment (curly cute) are stamped in Bermuda bay. The focal strip of DSP is layered on mossy meadow cardstock.

I think you can see here how the card works. It's a double flap fun fold from Connie Stewart. I stamped the boat again on the inside for added interest. I like how the double sided paper works here.

 

Fancy Foil Card Stock Fancy Fold

Tonight, I went with the super-quick corner tuck fold from Lisa's Stamp Studio. I needed to finish my book for book club, and happily I was successful (and The Memory Police is amazing!). I used a piece of foil paper cut with the large spiral and the medium spiral die cuts. I layered these as the focal image and stamped the small leaves in mint macaron. I also stamped the sentiment (from a little lace) in the same color. The focal image is layered on calypso coral cardstock. I used blushing bride dsp (the stripes). For the corner fold I decided to stamp the small spiral flowers and the kite string (since the stamps were found!) tone on tone in the corner.

Inside I stamped the sentiment with a small flower because I felt like I got away with something with how little I stamped on this one! Still I really like the big flower made just of dies. I wonder if it would be as attractive with regular cardstock?

Spring Kites

I hope your day was as beautiful as ours was. We took the dog to one of the Natural Lands Preserves nearby. The dude marveled at the mildness and said, "This is like 10% of our weather; it should be 70%." It is unfortunate that it will be oppressively hot and humid before we know it. But for now...

Today I made Lisa Curcio's Kite fold card. When I saw it, I thought I could incorporate the kite stamp but I wasn't sure where. But when she pulled out the DSP that went behind the kite, I had an aha moment! I stamped them randomly in mint macaron and so saffron (second generation). I'm not crazy how the so saffron came out. I swore I had the ink pad (or I wouldn't have chosen the polka dots for the kite!) so instead I had to use the markers. And they didn't come out even. Ah sweet variation!

When I was stamping, I somehow lost the kite string stamp. I'm not going to lie. This isn't the first stamp from this set I have lost. I lost the smallest swirly flower last week and it appeared yesterday. The set is photopolymer and that means 1) they are clear and 2) they stick to everything. So, no strings! (Also, after I finished this card the string appeared.)

This is what you see when you open the kite! Isn't that fun? Right now you can see the loose end of the kite string, but I'm ordering small self-adhesive magnets that will hold this part closed. Once I get them, they will cover the raw end of the ribbon. 

The whole card opens as well. I WILL be adding the string to this kite because it looks silly without it! Anyway, this is a real WOW card and it actually didn't take that long (and would have taken considerably less time if I hadn't lost the kite string and if I had so saffron ink.)

Spring Daisies

I've been thinking about using the daisy from the swirly bird set with white ink on colored card stock. (Seriously, I put myself to sleep--that is, allow myself to relax enough to sleep--by thinking about making cards!) 

Today I was scrolling through some fun fold videos and I came across this one at Ruth's Stamping Corner. She had also used the ornate garden DSP (this one is current!). I wanted to use the flowers that would match best with the stamp set, so I chose different designs. I stamped the daisy in white and then heat embossed in white on bumblebee. The base is early espresso. The bellyband is bumblebee with whisper white stamped in early espresso with sentiments from a little lace and honeycomb happiness. I also die cut three daisies stamped in espresso on bumblebee paper. 

I'm sorry I didn't take a photo of this one open so you could get the sense of it but Ruth did if you hop over. The big daisy print is on the front of the card and the green strip is on the back of that piece (folded over). The bumblebee with white daisies is the back of the card folded over. So, it's a regular A2 folded card, with about 1.5" of the rightmost edges folded to the left, decorated. Does that make sense? The bellyband holds it closed. I love that it's called a bellyband. Cards don't have bellies! Silly!

Sorry to be blogging so late, and when I am so punchy. I have to finish The Memory Police by Tuesday for virtual book club and I had to read 91 pages today to be successful. Of course I left it all 'til late! This is me we're talking about.

Crossover Gate

 

This card is a crossover gatefold. Like the gatefold card I made on March 7, the base folds to meet in the middle. On this card, instead of a focal square overlapping the middle, you have two focal strips. The DSP is all my love. The cardstock is lovely lipstick and whisper white. The swirly flower is stamped in whisper white on lovely lipstick and then heat embossed in white. That is popped up with dimensionals. The sentiment is from the tropical chic stamp set, punched out with the double oval punch, and stamped with flirty flamingo. The sentiment didn't fit on the small oval, and I really thought I needed to layer the white, so I punched the large oval twice--once in white and once in lovely lipstick. The lovely lipstick oval was cut in half and just adhered on the sides. It provides enough contrast from the DSP. The leaves are stamped in soft sea foam on whisper white and die cut.

You can see in the open card that the top strip was adhered on one side of the card and the bottom strip on the other. This means that you have to fold the card kind of like you are trying to self close a cardboard box. Know what I mean? The sentiment is also from tropical chic and is stamped with flirty flamingo. I die cut the wave for added interest in lovely lipstick. 

A Little Birdie Told Me

Today's card features a little crumb cake and calypso coral. I don't think that designer series paper (the irregular beige dots) is crumb cake, but close enough. The calypso coral is birthday bash (ret). The flower that became yesterday's rolling seas is today's nest. The nest die cut is overlaid to create texture. The crow is black (to match the true love dsp just peeking out around the focal stamp). His beak is crushed curry. I swiped the black ink off and colored it in with a marker

Here is the card open. It is the fun fold from Connie Stewart's YouTube live this afternoon; she called it a three panel card. I left off the ribbon because I didn't center the nest. 

I'm starting to lose my blogging mojo. Probably because card crafting is the only unusual thing that happens each day. {Sigh}

 

Come Sail Away

Not going to lie, I'm a bit disappointed with the black ink on this one. It was really sticky and came out spotty so I had to fill in with a marker and bleurgh. I also think I could have aligned the sunset circle and the pink die cut a bit better. 

I used poppy parade, melon mambo, mango melody, daffodil delight, flirty flamingo, and summer sun with the splatter stamp in a circle template. I don't know what pink that cardstock is surrounding the boat silhouette. The ocean is coastal cabana and Bermuda bay ink with either blueberry bushel or pacific point cardstock waves. The DSP on the left hand side is from maritime (ret.). The card is similar to a joy fold in that the front opens left to right. Here are the directions from Connie Stewart.

This is one of those cards that I could perfect a bit more, but I like it in theory!