Impossible Cards with a twist (or three!)

Hello crafty peeps and welcome to my crafty nook! I hope you've all had a brilliant weekend, we've been blessed with a mini heatwave here in the UK though it's a lot cooler on the coast then in some parts, I'm not a huge fan of a lot of heat so I've been grateful for the slightly lower temperatures. It's rather dull and overcast at present but hopefully we'll have some more sunny days in the months to come. I am still loving the Impossible Card and I've attempted Mixed Up Crafts' triple twist impossible card too, it took two attempts to get it right (I was trying to get just one panel to twist instead of the whole card twisting - very hard to explain so check out MUC's tutorial on YouTube) but I'm very pleased with the results and I've also made another ordinary Impossible Card, this time one suitable for a teen.

I thought I'd start with the classic Impossible Card. I've made this (probably) for my nephew's birthday next month. I always find teenage cards a struggle to make so decided to make this baseball boot themed card as it's quite timeless in feel. I'm not sure what collection the sneakers paper is from but suspect it's probably DCWV, I won a massive stack of 6" x 6" and 12" x 12" paperstacks in a card making competition about five years ago and TBH I've hoarded the suckers like there's no tomorrow! I have the 12" x 12" hidden away in a cupboard which is quite difficult to get into so when I do move boxes etc to get in there for a particular paper, I tend to grab a sheet or four of anything that grabs my attention and I keep them in a protective sleeve near my desk. The only problem is I never know what papers I'm using this way (ha spoke too soon! When I was adding the labels for this post I typed in DCWV and it came up with Homeroom - I googled it and it's the paper stack I used for the sneaker paper). The baseball boot is an unbranded die set from eBay which I love as it has loads of dies including the donut shapes that go around the lace holes, I die cut mine using silver holographic card backed with d/s sticky tape so I didn't have to mess around with glue just remove the backing piece. I've made another three baseball boots including a very tactile one made of white fabric backed onto card teamed with funky foam for the side of the sole - it feels very realistic.

Originally, this triple twist card was going to be another sneaker/baseball boot themed card for my nephew because it can be backed onto a piece of card to make it stronger and I was planning on adding a zip strip to an additional piece of cad to make a hidden pocket on the underside of the card but the baseball boots are too big for the panels on a triple twist card. I saw this card style on Mixed Up Crafts YouTube channel https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UZqOqLGrs0M (here's the link to the video) and couldn't wait to try it out, it is a bit fiddly to make and as I said at the beginning of the post, it did take me two attempts to get the twists right but in some ways it's actually a bit easier to decorate as you don't have to fiddle around cutting L shaped mats to cover the panels just ordinary rectangular ones and MUC has kindly provided the sizes in her blog which is linked under her YT video. I added strips of card both at the front and behind the pop up panels which meant I didn't need to adhere it down to another piece of card which looks great but distracts from the wowness of the design (if it's mounted on card you can't see it's made of one piece of card) because it gave it a sturdiness that's missing with only one strip. I used a coffee themed stamp set to decorate card panels which I added to the pop up panels and coloured them in using Flexmarkers, I tried to use similar colours to the takeout coffee cups on the backing papers - I used two papers from Trimcraft First Edition 'Grand Plan' 6" x 6" premium paper pad, the coffee cups have UV detailing on them and the die cut coffee cups have a gem finish which is very lush. The takeout cups were die cut using a Spellbinders die set called 'Hipsters 1' D Lites Etched Dies, there are two takeout coffee cups on the front and two on the back. I added Glossy Accents on some of the coffee beans for a bit of added interest.

I really enjoyed making these two cards and look forward to making some more, if I can find some Christmas themed papers without having to rake through 3/4 of my crudy, then I may very well be using this design (the original impossible card) as my batch Christmas card as it's very simple to make once you know the secret! I think it would make a great new home card too with keys linking the panels together on the front and a house die that handily came free with a magazine a couple of months ago, you could even personalise it by adding map paper highlighting the new address (make sure you use copyright free images though!) with geotags showing local attractions - the possibilities are endless!

I hope you like my latest designs, don't forget to click the link and check out Sam's (Mixed Up Crafts) YouTube tutorial and why not subscribe while you're there she has lots of amazing fun ideas using paper. If you have any questions or comments then please leave them in the usual places and until next time - keep crafting!

Love and crafty hugs,

Sarah xxxx