I'm on a roll - another masculine card

Hello crafty peeps and welcome to my crafty nook! I hope you've all had a brilliant Valentine's Day weekend. It's very cold with wintery showers here on the east coast which makes it perfect crafting weather. I've only got one card to share with you at the moment (there are a few ideas bubbling away in my brain though!). It was my dad-in-law's birthday yesterday and I made him a Split Panel Card inspired by Debbie Henderson's tutorial on YouTube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mhLD3ZFCWHg - please click the link to see the card that inspired mine.

Birthday Wishes Dad card

To make this card I cut a sheet of A4 black card stock down to 28 cm so it's easier to score exactly in half then cut it into two pieces length wise (cut at 10.5 cm). Although I cut the card down so I could score it at 14 cm it's not actually necessary to do so as you cut most of the front panel off. Just to mix things up a bit I do most of the other cutting in inches (sorry for the confusion). I lined the score line of the card base up to 2 inch mark on my Woodware paper trimmer and cut most of the front of the card off leaving a 2 inch flap. I trimmed the cut off piece down to 2 inches and placed on one side. There wasn't quite enough card left to make the connecting panel so I cut a strip off the spare black card from my first cut so I ended up with a panel 4 1/4 " by 2 ". I cut a panel of white card 13.5 cm x 10 cm (sorry back to metric) and adhered it to the inside of the cut down card blank leaving a small border around the panel. I cut two lots of matching patterned paper down to 4" by 1 3/4" and adhered them on to one of the cut black panels and on the top flap of the card. I cut a piece of white card to the same size and stuck it to the remaining black panel. I used the alphabet die that came with Die Cutting Essentials: Special Edition Kit to die cut the word DAD out of a scrap of the spotted paper and added it to the white and black panel as shown using a glue pen. I lined the patterned paper covered panel with the bottom edge of the card blank and held it in place with a paper clip then added strips of d/s tape to the bottom and top part of the DAD panel making sure that the middle part which goes over the inside of the card was free of tape. I removed all the backing paper from the tape and holding down the top flap, carefully lined the panel over the top and base before sticking it down as shown. I die cut a glittery star using gold glitter paper and a Sizzix Thinlets die "BE THANKFUL" (I think) and adhered it in the centre of the white panel. The gold foiled hearts were left over after using a Crafter's Companion Diesire A6 Create a Card Shining Star Metal Die. I stuck these down using either small foam pads or a dab of glue. I stamped a sentiment in the exposed panel on the right hand side of the card front as shown.

Inside of the card decorated with another diecut star and foiled stars

Card will comfortably stand up on it's own

I really like this new style card and it has a lot of possibilities for decoration, it's my brother-in-law's birthday at the beginning of next week so I shall make him a split panel card too but probably with Steam punk elements to it as I know he likes that sort of thing.

I hope you've enjoyed this card share and tutorial, please check out Debbie Henderson's YouTube to see what inspired me and if you are inspired by my take on it, then I'd love to see what you come up with. Please leave a link or any comments/questions in the usual places and I look forward to sharing another card with you soon. Until next time - keep crafting!

Love and crafty hugs,

Sarah xxx

Birthday Star Card

Hello crafty peeps, welcome to my crafty nook. I mentioned in my last blog that I needed to make a card for Steve, Isobel's daddy and I'd like to share the card I've come up with. Originally I wanted to make an iPhone shaker card using a stamp set from Clearly Besotted called "Text Me" and I got as far as making the shaker element. Unfortunately after I'd made the shaker iPhone I had a craft block and couldn't think of what to put on the rest of the card! I've decided to shelve the shaker card for now and instead I made a star card using a star stencil that came free with issue 130 Simply Cards & Papercraft magazine (talking of which check out this month's issue which has a huge stamp set from Clearly Besotted stamps with It!!!) and the nesting stars dies that came free with Simply Homemade magazine a couple of issues ago.

Star card using magazine freebies

I used the stencil straight onto a 5" square card blank and added different coloured chalk inks using a sponge dauber. While the inks dried I die cut the stars out using holographic card in gold and silver. I layered them together to make the first star shape then just die cut the second using the smallest star die. This die also embosses a small flower in the centre which I thought was too girly so I punched out a small star out of black holographic card. As I had the punch to hand I punched as many stars as I could using the leftover card pieces from the die cutting. I nestled the smaller die cut star inside the larger and secured them together using some clear tape on the back, I added the black star to cover the embossed flower using a small foam pad, then added the star embellishment to the centre of the stamped card blank. I accidentally got a mark near the top of the card so wrapped bakers twine to cover over it and finished with a bow.

Close up of star embellishment

The free stencil also came with some stamps and I used the Happy Birthday! greeting from it to stamp inside the card. The stamps had to be primed with sandpaper a lot to get a decent image and even after sanding it 4 times I still didn't get a good impression so I went over it with a ProMarker multi liner pen. I added 7 of the punched stars to the left hand side and stuck them down inside the card.

I hope you like my latest card, I've three more cards to make in the next week or two which I hope to be able to share with you too. I'll probably be taking part in the Passion for ProMarkers blog challenge on Tuesday and I'll share my card/project once it's made but until then enjoy the rest of your weekend and keep crafting!

Love and crafty hugs,

Sarah xxx