Tri Fold Shutter Card

Hello crafty peeps and welcome to my crafty nook! I hope you've all had a brilliant weekend and for those of you blessed enough to have a dad or father figure in your life, I hope you had chance to spend some time with them for Father's Day. I'm blessed to have a wonderful dad-in-law (and mum-in-law too!) and although I've not been very well this weekend I did make a couple of cards for him which I sent up with Chris. I've already shared the first card which was the pop up tool box but I wanted to make him a second card just in case he'd seen the first one online. I've noticed that tri shutter cards are becoming very popular again and this is a style of card that passed me by first time around probably because I didn't have a decent score board (I love my Hougie!) and I thought it would be perfect for a Father's Day card. I watched a couple of tutorials on YouTube and the one that seemed easiest to follow was by Lindsay Weirich AKA The Frugal Crafter https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_UP1RFlovgQ please click this link for instructions on how to make a tri shutter card blank (and a few tips on how to decorate it). One of the reasons I choose to follow this tutorial is that as well as the instructions being easy to follow, the actual card can be made using a single sheet of A4 card, others I've seen require 12" x 12" card stock and I don't have a great deal of plain card weight 12" x 12" in my stash. This card isn't the easiest to make down to the two horizontal cuts that run across the card 1.5" in and down but that's down to the fact I have a Woodware trimmer which doesn't show exactly where the blade is going to cut, I did try using a scalpel but the reverse side of the card was ragged which I didn't like so I ended up nudging the blade very carefully when I was near the termination points for the cuts so I didn't over cut it. I'm not going to rehash how to make this card because Lindsay Weirich puts it much better than I can so please check out this tutorial and others over at YouTube.

I decorated the card blank with about half a sheet of double sided cardstock from a 12" x 12" paperstack from The Works called Vintage Experience (no longer in stock) and diecut the word out of silver mirror card and black card. I actually diecut the word 4 times in total because when I ordered the Spellbinders D-Lites dies from Craft Stash I misread the word RAD and thought it said DAD lol, with an extra bit of diecutting and a snip or two I was able to transform rad into dad as shown. The die was from one of the Hipster collections (1 or 2), the arrow was diecut using another Spellbinders D-Lites die 'Ornate Arrows'. The shields were stamped using a Mr Mister stamp set and coloured in using Flexmarkers, I don't have a matching die but they were easy enough to cut around using a pair of scissors. I added the shields to the panels using foam pads for a bit of height. I made a matching envelope using my WRMK Envelope Punch Board out of a sheet of 8" x 8" decorative paper. I thoroughly enjoyed making this card even if it a tad tricky cutting it.  Interactive cards are my favourite sort of card to give to men because the wow factor is in the construction rather than the decoration and as my husband is very fond of telling me "men don't like fussy cards!".

I hope this post hasn't been too long and boring for you - I've added a lot of photos just because the card looks so different depending on what angle you look at it from and I also wanted to show that word dies can be tweaked if you accidentally order the wrong one - at least it could in this case! I really like the Vintage Experience paperstack from The Works, their scrapbook papers are beautiful and very reasonably priced, I really hope that they'll bring this one back onto their website as I'd love to get some more at some point. The only thing I would possibly change is I'd like to see the paperstacks in the 8" x 8" and not just 12" x 12" and 6" x 6" as this is a more useful size for me.

I'll have another card to share in the next couple of days so until next time - keep crafting!

Love and crafty hugs,

Sarah xxx

Note Holder Box Entry for Card Designer of The Year 2014

Hello crafty peeps, welcome to my crafty nook! It's not that long since I entered the Papercrafter of the Year competition and the deadline for the next big comp the Card Designer of the Year 2014 is rapidly approaching - it's non-stop at the moment! As usual just as I need it my card mojo has vanished and I'm struggling to find something new to make without resorting to buying more stuff. As I usually do when inspiration is thin on the ground I visited YouTube and checked out some of the subscriptions I'm signed up for and although most of the videos are for Christmas/holiday cards and projects I did find a rather nifty project on Splitcoaststampers, a "fold over box" by Liz Walker. Liz's box was Christmassy (not surprising at this time of year) but I decided to make mine into a holder for memo papers to keep next to the telephone. As I want it to be on display all year round I made a non Christmas themed box.

Top of Note Holder Box

I used a sheet of My Mind's Eye double sided cardstock from a range called "Just Dreamy", I've had it for YEARS so I don't imagine you'll be able to get hold of it still but any double sided card will do. In the end I used a second sheet for the mats and flowers but you only need one sheet to make the basic design. For a really good tutorial pop over to YouTube and look up Splitcoaststampers and fold over box, but if you want to stick with me then here goes. I cut my card to 9"x6" and scored it long side at 3" and repeated with more card so I ended up with two 6"x6" panels with a 3"x6" hinge. I attached the two hinges together using a strong glue so I ended up with a something that looks like a binder. To make the box to go inside the binder, cut some cardstock to 10"x10" and score each side at 3". Cut to inner score line and trim off part of each tab then stick to the inside of the flaps to create the box shape - use a really strong wet glue and either keep a hold of it until it sets or use paperclips to anchor the two pieces together until it dries. Decorate the outside and inside panels of this box.

Inside Box (with note paper)

I found the lid a bit flimsy once I put it all together so I added a panel of black card to the inside of the lid, then I centred the box and stuck it down using more strong wet glue. I cut two strips of ribbon and added them to the centre of the lid and the base of the Note Holder using Anita's Tacky Glue. I matted more of the double sided card onto black cardstock and added these to the lid and the base covering up the glued part of the ribbon, using more strong glue.

I cut some flowers using Lil' inker designs flowers die in the patterned and black card, then diecut two swirls out of more black card using a Craft-Too "Swirly" Die Cutting & Embossing Stencil. I layered different sized flowers together to make the flowers (see photo) and added Sparklet Stickers from The Works to the centres. I added these flowers to the top left corner of the front using strong wet glue and slid the swirls under two of the flowers as shown adding a few drops of glue where needed. I embellished this front with a few black gems and some Craftwork Cards Black card candi. For a bit of shimmer I highlighted the black areas with either clear Wink of Stella or black Wink of Stella. Finally I cut sheets of paper to size and tied them together with waxed cord along with a pen. The finishing touch was to tie the ribbon in a bow.

Side view of Fold Over Box

Here are a few more images of the finished project - many thanks to Liz Walker of Splitcoaststampers for the original idea and tutorial - please check her out on YouTube, it's worth a visit.

I hope you've enjoyed my version of Liz Walker's Fold Over Box and I'd love to see what you come up with. As always if you have any questions or comments please feel free to leave them in the section below and until next time - keep crafting!

Love and crafty hugs,
Sarah xxx

Birthdays and Blogging for Dummies (that's me btw)

Hello crafty peeps, just a quick post to let you know what I've been up to in my crafty nook. It's my lovely hubby's birthday tomorrow (Thursday 21st) so I've been working on his birthday card. Actually I started it at the beginning of the month but only finished it last night, not because it's a huge project or anything just I've had a bit of a crafty block the last few weeks - men's cards are always a bit of a challenge for me if I'm honest.

The moment I saw the "Long Time Ago" stamp set by Neat & Tangled, I knew it was destined to be used on Chris's card so just after I bought it at the beginning of the month I started to mess around with black card and white watercolour paint until I had a starry spacey style background. If anyone is interested in making a similar background, try typing in starry backgrounds on YouTube, Kristina Werner and Jennifer MacGuire both have at least one background which are to be honest far superior to mine! Back to mine though, I wanted the stars on my background to have depth so I splattered thinned out white paint onto pure black cardstock, allowed it to dry then added some watered down Cosmic Shimmer Sparkle Paint in Angel Red - this paint is actually a very pale pink colour. I allowed that to dry and splattered on some LuminArte  Twinkling H20s Radiant Rain pure colour concentrate in Majestic Blue and Snap Dragon, these paints contain mica so have to be shaken well before use, I didn't add a whole lot of these daubers just enough to add a bit more colour and to add depth to the galaxy. Once these were dry I got my "precious" (otherwise known as a clear Wink of Stella pen, these pens are like gold dust and everywhere I normally order from either don't stock them or are permanently out of stock!) out and carefully stroked the brush nib so some of the clear glitter ink splattered onto the card. It's given the background a subtle shimmery sparkle which I love. Anyway let's fast forward to last night - I've been panicking slightly about how I was going to stamp the words onto the background because I wanted it to look as close as possible to the opening sequence on "Star Wars", the letters on the film are yellow and I don't have either a pale yellow ink or yellow embossing powder, the closest I could come to it was using a dark yellow ink and clear embossing powder. Only problem was that when I tried it, the letters barely showed up on the starry background. I tried white and it too vanished once it was heat set, it was only when I used a really juicy white ink pad and glow in the dark embossing powder that the "A LONG TIME AGO IN A GALAXY FAR, FAR, AWAY.... YOU WERE BORN" stamped image appeared! The first part of the sentiment slants away into the distance and is smaller than the second part (which also slants btw) so it looks like it's disappearing into space. It's a really cool stamp and it means I was able to get away with just the sentiment and the starry background as the card's main feature. I stamped HAPPY BIRTHDAY underneath and heat embossed it in hot pink (not usually a men's card colour but somehow it works!)

I've matted the black card onto silver holographic card, then matted it on black card, then a different style holographic card before sticking the whole lot onto a black card base. I buy the card blanks from The Works because it's sturdy cardstock and is white inside so you can write a message without having to add an insert. I've added some strips of starry background card and holographic card to the inside of the card and added a 'Celebrate' sentiment from a Teresa Collins stamp set. I'm really pleased with how it's come out and if I ever work out how to upload the photos from my camera, I'll add a couple of it to this post.

And on that note a bit of news.... In a bid to make myself a better blogger I've just purchased a copy of Blogging for Dummies from Amazon and it should be here next week, so once it's arrived and I get round to reading it, you should see some subtle changes to my blog which will hopefully improve it so I finally get some followers - who knows I may learn how to add email notifications etc. Confusingly according to my stats I have ZERO followers and yet I know I have a follower on Google (waves to Teresa my sister!) because I received a Google notification telling me I had. I'm hoping the book explains what the difference is and how to attract followers without having to pay for ads etc - I'm not so much cheap as poor lol plus I'd much rather use any spare cash I have on buying craft goodies for a subbie related giveaway (watch this space), then pay for people to view my blog via a google ad.

Anyway that more than enough for now, I'll post another entry when I've done a bit more crafting, until then,
Love and crafty hugs,
Sarah x