Another Double-flip Card

I really have been enjoying my Circle Card Thinlit lately, especially since I tried out that new Double-flip style of card which Carol Matthews introduced.  You've seen the one I posted for the February Wacky Watercooler Blog Hop.  Well, several people have asked if I would be posting a tutorial showing how to make one of these cards and today I began making one from scratch and taking photos every step of the way.  That post is here.

In the meantime, here's a sneak peek at my brand new card.  This time I chose to have the first flip lower than the second flip.  It's an easy choice.  You can do it either way just by choosing one side of the die-cut cardstock or the other.

For this card, I chose that gorgeous Watercolour Wonder Designer Series Paper featured in the Occasions Catalogue.  The primary colours in the piece I decided to use are Whisper White, Crushed Curry and Tangerine Tango.  For my base cardstock, therefore, I used some Crushed Curry.  For further layers I used some Tangerine Tango cardstock and also some Watercolour Paper which I brushed over with a wash of Crushed Curry.  I also used some of that wonderful Modern Medley Designer Series Paper.  Of course, since it has a Very Vanilla base, I had to do some sponging with the Crushed Curry and Tangerine Tango inks to make it fit in better.

For the little flowers which I cut out using the Petite Petals punch, I decided to use a piece of coffee filter.  I tried our Creped Filter paper first but it was simply too fragile for the look for which I was aiming.  I used Crushed Curry and Tangerine Tango re-inkers and alcohol for the little flowers and finally dabbed some dots into the centres with my matching markers.

                                                     Front of closed card

                                                    Card standing open

Stampin' Up! Products Used

Crushed Curry Cardstock

Tangerine Tango Cardstock

Whisper White Cardstock

Watercolour Paper

Watercolour Wonder Designer Series Paper

Modern Medley Designer Series Paper

Vellum Cardstock

Tangerine Tango ink pad, re-inker and marker

Crushed Curry ink pad, re-inker and marker

Black StazOn ink

Happy Watercolor Stamp Set

Yippee Skippee Stamp Set

Papillon Potpourri Stamp Set

Bitty Butterfly punch

Elegant Butterfly punch

Petite Petals punch

Non-Stampin' Up! Materials

Coffee Filters

The Wacky Watercooler February Sale-a-bration Blog Hop

Welcome to another Wacky Watercooler Blog Hop.  What an exciting blog hop this is going to be!  We have our regular members as well as two new "hoppers".  This time we're concentrating on all things Sale-a-bration.  If you haven't heard about Stampin' Up!'s annual Sale-a-bration event, you'll be as excited as I was the first time I heard about it.

With Sale-a-bration, which extends from January 28th until March 31st, you are eligible for a choice of one free item listed in the Sale-a-bration brochure for each $60 that you spend.  There are always great products to choose from but I swear that this year Stampin' Up! has exceeded my expectations.

As usual, our Blog Hop is a circular one.  Each participant is linked to the other and the final participant in the list is linked to the first one---hence the circle.  You could keep "hopping" forever if you just click on the "Next" icon at the end of each post.  Of course, as wonderful as each post is, you might begin to get a feeling of deja vu by the time you have gone around the circle several times.

If you have begun at the beginning, you'll have arrived at my Blog from the very talented Susan Horr's Blog all the way over in New York.  I'm in Blackfalds, Alberta, Canada, so you can imagine, that was quite a trip---thank goodness it all happened instantly thanks to the internet.

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I'm going to be showing some of the different ways that kits from the Sale-a-bration brochure could be used. The first kit that I am going to play with is the Heartfelt Banner Kit.  This kit includes 6 die-cut Designer Series Paper banners, 5 paper doilies, 9 die-cut fabric canvas banners, 7 mini wooden clothespins, 2 pieces of Natural Linen Thread and 1 needle.  The banner that is shown in the Sale-a-bration brochure is really cute and would make a great decoration combined with family photos.  But if you're not the banner type and barely gave the kit a glance in the brochure, let me urge you to have another look at the list of contents in that kit.  There are some awesome products in there that could so easily make their way onto a card or into a 3-D project.

My Valentine's Day card, for example, uses some of the canvas elements, the Natural Linen Thread and clothespins.  I love the way they've added so much extra "pizzazz" to the card and am certain that I'll be using more of the kit pieces in future projects.  Of course the card itself is a bit over the top anyway.  I saw Carol Matthews' birthday card for which she used the Circle Card Thinlits Die at both ends of a piece of 5 1/2" x 8 1/2" piece of cardstock.  The resulting double "flip-flop" was intriguing and I knew I wanted to try it out myself.

              Left side panel                     Centre                      Right side panel

You can see the cute little clothespins holding the Gold Foil banners on each end of the card.  The banners also appear to be attached to the piece of Natural Linen Thread, don't they?  I love those banners and am glad that once Sale-a-bration is over, the Banner punch is going to be headed for the brand new Annual Catalogue.  It's such fun to use.  You can just see a glimpse of the canvas heart on the inside of each circle flip flop.  

Yes, this is the canvas heart but it's had some work done to it.  It may have begun life as a simple piece of canvas, but after some serious sponge daubing using the Crisp Cantaloupe ink and the Tangerine Tango ink, it was no longer a simple piece of canvas.  To get the darker patches, I daubed some Versamark on the heart and then scattered some Gold Embossing powder across it.  Most of the gold melted into the fibre but there are hints of shiny gold that really show up in the light.  It certainly helped to make it compliment the Venetian Romance Designer Paper which I used for this card.  

I've used stamps from four stamp sets for this card:  Fabulous Phrases, Hearts a Flutter, Perfect Pennants and (from the Sale-a-bration brochure) See Ya Later.  I love the way they work together.  And that is the card.  Products from the Annual Catalogue, Occasions Catalogue and the Sale-a-bration brochure work together and seamlessly help to make a perfect Valentine for your favourite person.  The instructions for the card are here.

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My next project also uses some of the canvas from the Heartfelt Banner Kit.  For this project I went back to my original design for the Scallop Tag Topper punch box and tweaked it a bit.  This time I wanted the box to close and, after a couple of not-so-successful tries, I finally got the measurements right.  You won't have to fiddle around because I'm offering the free template and instructions here.

Once I finished creating the box, I decorated it using some Modern Medley Designer Paper as well as some of the Sweet Sorbet Designer Paper which is available only through Sale-a-bration.  The canvas banner, cut to size, worked perfectly on the sides of the box, especially topped with a little banner punched out from the same designer paper as I used on the front and back.  

Then I used sentiments and images from the Itty Bitty Banners, The Open Sea, and Love You More stamp sets to finish the box off.  Finally I stamped the chevron image from the Tape It stamp set on a piece of Very Vanilla Seam Binding and tied up the box with that.

It's cute from the front as well as the back.

And best of all it closes up at the top.

Just think---your goodies won't fall out.  Enjoy using the template but please do not sell it.

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And finally we come to the last of my projects.  This one was so much fun to make and turned out better than I ever expected.  For this one I turned to the Good as Gold Card Kit from the Sale-a-bration Brochure. It's a fun kit with which you can make 8 cards.  It also comes with embellishments as well as envelopes and gorgeous Gold Foil envelope liners.  This is what the finished card could look like:

It's such a happy card, isn't it?  There are dots of Crisp Cantaloupe, Tangerine Tango, Bermuda Bay and Gold Foil.  Who wouldn't like to get one of these cute cards, especially since it comes in its own Gold Foil lined envelope.

Well, even though the cardstock for this card only measures 7" x 5", it has the same pretty design right across instead of ending where the front of the card would be.  And that gave me ideas.  Why not use it to make one of those cards-in-a-box?  After all, the measurements could easily be adapted from the one I featured here and, best of all, there was already an envelope for it to fit into.  What could be better?

So I scored the cardstock at 1 3/4" from each side.  The centre was, of course, already scored for the kit.  Then I scored it along the long side at 2 3/4", leaving the last section unscored.  You'll have noticed that there wasn't room for a tab to connect the sides.  That was easily fixed by cutting a 3/4" x 2 3/4" piece of Whisper White and scoring it lengthwise at 3/8".  Using my double-sided tape, I closed the side of the box with that strip.  Because the pretty design was just on the one side of the paper, I chose to have that on the inside so that the folded flaps as well as the straight piece at the back showed it off.  Then I cut two more pieces of Whisper White measuring 1" x 2 1/4" and scored them both at 1/4" and 2".  Assembly was the same as for the previously featured card.

Then I went a bit wild in decorating up the card.  Decided to use the colours in the paper and added flowers, hearts, banners and lots of gold foil.  The stamp set used for this project were:  Perfect Pennants, Love You to the Moon, Petite Petals and (from the Sale-a-bration brochure) Banner Blast.  I also used the Banner punch (from the Sale-a-bration brochure), one of the Chalk Talk framelit dies, the Petite Petals punch, the Scalloped Oval punch, the Large Oval punch, the Small Heart punch, and some Hearts framelits dies.  This is what the various layers look like when you look down into the box.

And this is the card from the right

And from the left

And finally, from the front

It's hard to believe that both these cards had the same beginnings---and that each will fit into an envelope like this.

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Well, that's it for my projects for this blog hop.  I hope you've enjoyed them and will leave a comment if you get a chance. Thanks so much for joining us today.  I know you'll love the wonderful creations that our next hopper, Marsha Reed of Iowa, USA has prepared.  She always has such great blog posts.  

Scalloped Tag Topper Punch - the closing box

After fiddling with measurements, I successfully designed a closing lid for the cute little Scalloped Tag Topper Punch box.  I've changed out the sizing from the original box so that this one may fit on a 5 1/2" x 8 1/2" piece of cardstock.

You can see that I've scored along the long side at 2", 4", 6", and 8".  Along the short side I've scored at
1 1/2" and 3 1.2".  If you go to my tutorial for the original Scalloped Tag Topper Punch box, you will see the lines I've put on the punch and why I've done so.

Line up the 6" score line and the 8" score line with the lines on the punch as shown and punch out this section.

Next, line up the 2" score line and the 4" score line with the lines on the punch as shown and punch out this section:

Your cardstock should now look like this:

Now all you have to do is to line up the ends of your punch cuts on your Stampin' Trimmer as shown:

Trim the 1/2" wide strip from the top to the score line and from the bottom to the score line as shown.
Next cut your score lines from the top to meet the scored line and from the bottom to meet the scored line.  Then you will trim the bottom flaps of the sections that do not have the scalloped top to approximately 1/2".

Next fold under the scalloped sections and line up your straight topped section on the Envelope Punch Board as shown.  Make sure your paper lines up exactly as I have shown.  Punch that section.

Flip over your paper and line it up exactly as shown.  Punch that section.

Trim the little pointy ends as shown:

Next, cut a piece of cardstock to 1 7/8" x 1 1/8".  I've chosen to use black only because of the project I'm doing.  This piece can be the same colour as the base cardstock if you wish.  Its only purpose is to provide a slot into which the end formed by the Envelope Punch Board will fit.  Put double sided Sticky Tape on each end as shown.

Adhere to the unshaped straight flap as shown.

Next, add all the Designer Paper and embellishments that please you.

And close up your box.

And this is my finished project.  Enjoy making yours.  Please do not sell this template and please give me credit.  Thanks.

Just a couple of days to go! Are you ready?

That's right!  We're having another blog hop in just another couple of days:  Thursday, to be exact.  From 7 p.m. Mountain time until Saturday, February 15th, our blog hop will be featuring the Sale-a-bration products that are available until March 31st.

So save the day!  Make sure you log on during our blog hop to see just how versatile all those products can be.

Playing in the warmth---enjoying an Open House!

When it's cold enough to freeze the air around you, what better way to spend an afternoon than with a group of fantastic ladies, being creative and simply enjoying yourself?  That's what we did yesterday during my Open House.

We had one make-n-take, then a little break during which the ladies fuelled up on snacks while I got the table ready for the next make-n-take.  It also gave everyone a chance to have a look at all the new products, both in the Occasions catalogue and on my display tables.  From all the oohs and ahhs, I would say the new Watercolor Wonder Designer Series Paper is a real winner.  That and the Watercolor Wonder Designer Washi tape.

This is the first of the make-n-takes.  You've seen the template and sample here already.  Everyone loved the little box.  It certainly makes the versatility of that Scalloped Tag Topper punch evident, especially since I also had samples of tags and cards using it on display.

 

I didn't get a chance to take photos of everyone's but this still shows them off quite nicely.  The first box is actually the same as the other, but shows the back of the box.  So this box is just as cute going as coming.

Our next make-n-take was a card and showed off that wonderful Hexagon Hive Thinlits die.  You'll remember the Christmas card that I designed around the die here.  Well yesterday's card was nothing but springtime and happiness.  The colours from the Sale-a-bration Sweet Sorbet Designer Paper were perfect with the Crisp Cantaloupe, So Saffron and Baked Brown Sugar.  And the cute image and sentiment from the Crazy Mixed Up Love stamp set was the perfect finishing touch, don't you agree?  Who wouldn't smile, seeing that little bee?

Yes, those tiny hearts were punched out of the Gold Foil Sheets using the heart from the amazing Owl Builder punch.  The wings of the bee were made sparkly using a thin layer of Dazzling Details, of course.  And those adorable little blossoms in the bottom left corner were stamped in Crisp Cantaloupe and then punched, thanks to the brand new Petite Petals Bundle and finished off with a punched out Gold Foil circle.

We had so much fun during the Open House that it felt quite empty when the last people left.  A good time was had by all, we had a chance to laugh and enjoy some creative moments, and Sale-a-bration was officially launched. 

Handmade the easy way!

There's something very satisfying about being able to give someone a handmade card, isn't there?  It means a lot when a card hasn't just been grabbed from a store.  But for a lot of us there are time constraints and, even worse, all those products you have to have on hand in order to make a card.  Not everyone is surrounded by seemingly endless products the way I am.

Well, Stampin' Up! realized that, for today's fast-paced lives, there has to be a balance.  You have to be able to have a creative outlet without having to "buy it all".  Enter the brand new Hip Hip Hooray Card Kit.  Believe me, after you see what you can do with this kit, you'll be shouting "hip hip hooray" yourselves.

For just $24.95 (before tax and shipping), you can get it all.  There is enough in this kit to make 20 beautiful cards.  Yes, three stamps are included and even an acrylic block to mount them.  A mini ink pad is included.  Die cut self-adhesive sentiments are included.  There are even stampin' dimensionals, twine and decorative clips in the kit.  All you have to do is create the cards and put them into the envelopes which are also included.  And if you're stumped for an idea, there is also a full-colour instructional brochure to get you started.

If you've got some craft items hanging around the house, waiting to be used, they can also be added to the cards for a truly individual look.

Just click on my store to get your kit today or contact me to have your kit included in my next order.

A monthly blog hop? I'm so excited!

For those of you who have enjoyed the four blog hops that the Wacky Watercooler ladies have posted, there is some exciting news.  We've had so much interest that we've agreed to post a blog hop once a month.

The first of these monthly blog hops is set to run from February 13th to 15th.  Yes---that's already next week!  This time there will be eleven of us and, as usual with such a large group, there are some who are ready to post, some who have designs in mind and have begun their projects, and then the rest of us who are, unfortunately, confirmed procrastinators.  I like to think that I create better under pressure.  Fingers crossed that creativity doesn't let me down this time!

What are we concentrating on this time?  Why Sale-a-bration, of course!  There are some wonderful products available through Sale-a-bration and we're anxious to show you all the various ways they can be used.  Remember, you can earn a free product from the Sale-a-bration brochure with each $60 you spend.  When you consider that some of the products in the Sale-a-bration brochure would normally be priced at up to $24.95, that's a pretty good return for your money.

Pssst---there's a fantastic blog hop next week!

Scalloped Tag Topper punch---making the box!

And here it is:  the template for the cute little box made with the Scalloped Tag Topper punch.  I've included photos of all the steps along the way as well as an explanation.  It's surprisingly easy to do once you realize that you don't just have to cut your pieces of paper to widths of 2" in order to use the punch.

To begin, cut a piece of 5" x 7 1/2" cardstock.  Then score  as shown on my template:

I've drawn along the scored lines in pencil to make it easier to view them.

Next, take your Scalloped Tag Topper punch and draw lines directly above the indent where the cardstock would normally lie.  See what I've done in the photo below:

It's very important to have these lines showing above the cardstock in order to line up the score lines properly.  See the photo below for the first area to be punched:

You can push the entire width of the cardstock into the Scalloped Tag Topper punch.  Just carefully push past where it hesitates and continue pushing until you can feel it has come to the end of the punch opening.  Adjust the cardstock until the score lines perfectly line up with the lines you have made on the punch (see why we had to do this?) and push the handle down.

Then insert the cardstock once more as shown to cut out the second portion:

Make sure the lines are perfectly lined up to the lines you've drawn on the punch and, again, push down the handle to cut.

Your cardstock should now look like this:

Now all you have to do is to line the ends of the punch cuts up on your Stampin' Trimmer as shown:

And cut off the portions that do not have the scalloped design on them:

Now you just need your paper snips to do a bit of trimming:

I've angled the cuts very slightly.  Cut the 1 1/2" wide tabs to 1/2".  Now you're ready to fold and add adhesive.

I've used the Sticky Strip because it holds so well.  One piece goes along the 1/2" wide strip as shown and 2 strips go along one of the large tabs at the bottom.  First adhere the 1/2" strip along the side of the top:

Next fold in the 1/2" tabs, then the tab with the Sticky Strip, and last of all the other large tab.  And that's it.  You have a box.

All you have to do now is to decorate it up as inspiration leads you.  This was my decorated box:

I'd love to see what you do with your boxes.  You're free to use this template for your own designs but I would ask that you don't sell it.  Please remember to give me credit for my design.