Cascade Card

MOTHER'S DAY CASCADE CARD

Since Mother's Day is fast approaching, I thought I'd try and create something a little special.

Being a Pinterest Junkie, I had seen gorgeous cascade cards absolutely overflowing with flowers and butterflies and ribbons and detail.  But I hadn't attempted it because that made me nervouis - whenever I go for insane complicated detail, it comes off looking like crap, frankly!

So, I decided to at least give cascade cards a go but keep them fairly simple - I think it still looks cute :)

PS:  My camera battery was flat this morning so the step by step photos were taken with my iphone - they'll have to do!

 

First I took two pieces of card 15cm by 26cm.  On one of the short ends, I marked a spot 8cm from the bottom.  I them trimmed from a top corner on a diagonal to the 8cm mark.  This is essential for the "cascade" look (taller at the back, shorter at the front).

I then folded each piece of card in half (as you can see in the picture above) and then found the half way mark on either side of the fold and ruled a line from top to bottom.  I found the halfway mark of those lines, marked it, and cut to that halfway mark.

IMPORTANT:  you need to cut the slits in the paper from the TOP of one piece of card and front the BOTTOM of the other so that they can be slotted together.

Erase the lines you've drawn.

 

Now you need your coloured/patterned paper to begin dressing up the card.  You need a piece for each visible section of the card, so TWO (2) of each of the following:

• 5.5cm x 13.5 (you then want to reduce the length of one side to 12cm, sloping just like the main card)
• 5.5cm x 12cm (you then want to reduce the length of one side to 10.5cm, sloping just like the main card)
• 5.5cm x 10.5cm (you then want to reduce the length of one side to 9cm, sloping just like the main card)
• 5.5cm x 8.5cm (you then want to reduce the length of one side to 7cm, sloping just like the main card)

Very important to remember when making the two sets that one set will slope to the left and one set will slope to the right!!

I then inked the edges of the pieces with a similar coloured ink.  I've gone for the messy look because...well...honestly, I slipped!

Now you stick them on!  You have to have the two smaller sized pieces stuck on the OPPOSITE side to the taller pieces bceause once it is folded and slotted together, those are the sides you will see.

Before I stuck everything on, I actually assembled the card and then put a pencil dot in the middle of each visible section so that I knew which to paper and which to leave blank.

That said, if you want the back to look pretty too, you could just do twice as much of everything!

 

Assemble the card!!

To make sure that it stays in place once it was sitting right, I cut out a 10cm x 10cm piece of patterned paper and used double sided tape along either side of the join at the back of the card and stuck the paper to it.  This stops it all from wriggling.

It also means that only the middle of the 10x10 piece of paper is stuck down - I avoid sticking down edges when working on a fold, to ensure the card still opens and closes as it should.

 

Next, cut out butterflies and/or flowers with Cuttlebug / punch / whatever.  I stuck them together ( see above) and adorned them with jewels.

 

Next, stick them onto your cascading card along with a selection of other flowers.  What flowers and what layout of them you have is up to the individual - I hope you're all less chicken than me and have that wonderful ability to go crazy and be creative!

And you don't just need to stick stuff to the front of the panels, you can stick stuff to the back as well to add to the dimensional look of the card!  As this was my first attempt, I kept it simple.

Next punch out 3 scalloped circles (or just 3 circle!) and gently, lightly pat some ink of a similar colour around the edge to give it a nice mottled look.

 

I used my computer to print out some little circles with Happy Mum's Day on them (one word on each).  I did "Mum's" instead of "Mother's" so that I could keep the font a reasonable size and consistent between the three circles.  I made the lines around the circles, and the font, a similar colour to the scalloped circles.

Stick the circles onto the scalloped circles.

 

Now it's just a case of completing the assembly!  Since I was keeping it basic and not wanting to overflower it, I filled little annoying gaps with some little jewels and pearls.

What you can do with these cards is limited only by your own creativity!  (as you can see LOL)

Happy Cascading!

Dani :)

 

UPDATE!

6 May 2012

My second attempt - slightly more compact and much more flowery :)

New Baby Birds

LITTLE BIRDY NEW BABY CARD

Congratulations to my dear friend Melissa!!

 

No step by step photos this time, peeps, sorry!  It's pretty simple though :)

(Incidentally, if you're not into stamps and colouring, you can buy these kaisercraft sets as stickers!)

1. Fold a 21 x 15cm piece of pink card in half
2. Cut a piece of watercolour card to be about 9.5 x 12cm
3. Using KaiserCraft Fine & Sunny stamp collection, stamp the row of flags at the top and the three little birds at the bottom.  I have used a corner rounder and inked the edges also
4. Colour the stamps in your favourite method, in this instance I have employed my usual technique of colouring with water soluble pens and an aqua brush - very simply doing a bright single layer colouring and then using the pen tip of the markers to accent the top edge of each flag and then bottom V of each flag.  I also used the pen tip to accent the underneath of birds and their wings and tails
5. Cut another piece of watercolour card (only so that it matches the main piece) 4 x 8cm.  Cut a piece of pink card (the same as your main card) 5 x 9cm.  Round the corners on both
6. Put lettering or greeting on the small white card.  I have used chipboard stickers that are covered in fabric (pre-made because I don't have THAT much time!!) but you can stamp or use rub-ons or stickers etc
7. Embellish with sparklies and use doublesided tape to stick the small white card to the front of the small pink card and then the pink card to the centre of the large white card
8. Stick the large white card to the main pink card using double sided tape.  Keep the top, left and right margins even so that there is a large margin below.
9. Punch two holes evenly at the bottom of the card.  I have actually (stupidly) done mine too big.  Smaller is better!  It's fiddly to get the ribbon through but holds the ribbon in place better.
10. Choose your ribbon!  I've used a gauzy yellow ribbon and a thin pink ribbon and I threaded them through a diamante buckle first.
11. Poke the ends of these ribbons through the holes from front to make then cross them over at the back and tug them back through the opposite holes.  If they don't stay in place on their own (mine didn't this time!) then hold down at the back with some clear gift wrapping tape
12. Trim the ribbon and seal the ends with either glue or a bic lighter (gently and carefully, to melt the ends - sometimes this DOESN'T work!) to prevent the ends from fraying
13. Done!

Here's another card I made with the same stamp set :)  Pretty self explanatory but feel free to ask any questions!

Happy Carding!!

Dani :)

Australiana - Gumnut Babies

GUMNUT BABIES CARD

A Little Piece of an Australian Childhood

Snugglepot and Cuddlepie by Mae Gibbs is one of my all-time favourite books.  Even now as a grown up, I quite happily read it to myself at least once a year - it's just such sweet and beautiful story-telling.  And the illustrations, also by Mae Gibbs, are also magic :)

I did have to search hard for these stamps and it was some time ago so I honestly can't remember where I got them.  But Google can find some amazing things!  That said, you could find other stamps all over the place of just gumnuts and other Australiana that you could incorporate into this style of card.  It's a very basic design so you could do anything!

 

First of all, on watercolour card, stamp your image with StazOn black ink.  Use watercolour technique to colour it (or whatever kind of colouring you want really!  Trim the card up (I trimmed mine so that the branch of the gumleaves would appear to continue off the page), round the edges if you want to, and ink the edges.  I have inked with a nice olive colour.

 

Next, punch three holes in the bottom right corner of the image.  You could of course use a regular hole punch, however I like the more therapeutic method of whacking a special punch with a hammer!!  These tools are part of an eyelet setting tool kit.

 

Using either twine, string or thread - fold your twine in half and poke the loop through the hole so that it comes out the front of the card.

Now poke the straggly bits through the loop and pull gently until it looks like the picture below:

 

Repeat for all three holes.  Don't trim the twine yet - wait until the card is assembled so you can gauge how long you want them to be.

 

Now gather the other parts of your card.  Backing card, which I am doing in a nice olive/gumleaf green.  I trimmed this to be 5mm wider all around than the gumnut baby card and rounded the corners on it also.  Ink the edges in a similar colour to give that slightly "shadowed" effect.

Also have your folded card ready.  It needs to be a cenimetre taller and about 2.5 - 3cm wider than your green backing card.

 

Assemble the card, as above, using double-sided tape. Keep to the left side so that the amount of card around the green is even above, left and below.  There needs to be an "excess" to the right.

 

Because I rounded the corners on my other pieces of card, I have chosen to round the corners on the main card also, but only the right-hand corners.

This is also the time to decide what length/s you want your twine to be and trim accordingly.

 

Stamp a little heart in the top left corner of your illustrated card.

 

Stamp your greeting on the right edge of the card.

 

And there it is - a heart-warming little piece of an Australian childhood!

Happy Stamping!

Dani :)

First iPhone Post!

Having a muck around with blogging from my iPhone!

Following on from my layered butterfly card, my mum said a butterfly mobile would be cute for my niece-on-the-way.

Challenge accepted!

Here is a prototype I'm starting with and refining:

Pinwheel Card - In Development

PINWHEEL CARD

A Developing Project

This is really still an idea in development.  I woke up this morning, saw some gorgeous pinwheel pictures on Pinterest and decided "Heck yeah!  I'm doing a pinwheel card!"

I was bleary-eyed, cranky and determined but suffering a typical dose of early morning laziness- and I'm sticking to those excuses!

So yeah, if it has rough aspects or doesn't look quite right, that's because it's still an idea I'm trying to forcibly rip out of my brain!  Eventually I'll see if I can make it a proper working pinwheel but I suspect I'll need to find brads with longer stems for fastening.

 

 

Because this is for a card, I really needed to make a cute petite pinwheel.  So I figured out that, really, the biggest you want to work with is about a 5cm square.  Choose paper that has a nice pattern on one side and a bold contrasting colour on the other.

Also, from the same paper, punch out a little circle.  My little circle is 1cm in diameter.  It will be used to kind of tidy up the front (as you'll see below).

 

 

Fold your square in half, into a triangle, and then open it out and do the same in the other direction.  These folds form a guide.

Using a piercing tool and a foam mat (I use a cheap old-style mouse pad), make a small hole in the centre of the folds.  This will be where the pinwheel will be pinned together.

 

 

Now cut along the folds, about 3/4 of the way to the middle.  Pierce every second corner of the triangles, as shown.  Also pierce the centre of the small circle.

The block colour side is going to be the back of the pinwheel so I have pierced from that side to make it a little easier to poke the brad through in the following steps.

 

Stick your brad through the circle as it will be at the front of the pinwheel.  Remember when you're doing this, you're working from front to back.  The centre of the pinwheel is the LAST thing you put the brad through.

 

Now, turn your prepared pinwheel paper (try saying that 10 times as fast as you can!) over so the patterned side is up and start gently folding (but not creasing) each pierced corner over.  Gently push the brad through each premade hole.

This is kind of fiddly work because it is small scale.  Pinwheels this small probably need a nice flexible thin paper but it rips too easily so because I'm using thicker card, I have to deal with the "spring" of it.

So, I'm making use of a pair of clamping tweezers.  They are designed to hold on when you let go of them and open up when you squeeze them, so they're very handy for holding together the stuff you have already poked the brad through so you can focus your attention and fingers on getting the the brad through the rest and fastening it.

 

 

I decided to soften the look of the pinwheel by rounding off the corners.  I also trimmed off any bits sticking out from under the centre circle.

(And yes, the brad is different, I admit this is a "something I prepared earlier" pinwheel hehe - I actually like the white brad better, it looks softer and a smidgy bit bigger)

 

I'm attaching my pinwheel to the card with a 3-D Zot - for those not familiar, Zots are awesome and so handy!  You can do dimensional work without having foam dots that can be very obvious when you look from the side.

 

Put the pinwheel aside and prep the other parts of the card!

I am scalloping the edge of my card (which is about 8cm by 12cm when folded) with a Fiskars border punch.  This just adds a nice soft detail to the white card.

You can't see it in most of the pictures but it actually makes the front shorter than the back, which I quite like - just don't forget about it when you're filling out the inside of the card!

I have used the same card as the pinwheel to prepare my greeting.  I stamped my greeting on the block colour side and inked the edge in a similar colour.  I prepared a backing design piece that is the patterned side of the paper and inked its edges with the same colour.

As you will see below, the backing design of the greeting will be fixed  onto the card with regular double sided tape.  The greeting will go on top of that using zots or foam tape so that it stands out.

 

I have also punched out a postage stamp shape to sit behind the pinwheel to help it stand out more.  You could always just cut out a square and ink the edges of that if you don't have a stamp shaped punch.

The postage stamp will be stuck directly onto the card with regular double sided tape.  The pinwheel will be stuck to this using the Zot.

 

 

 

Assemble your card!  I added some little red pearls for something a little extra.  Done :)  I plan to find some exciting new papers with good contrast and colour to attempt this again.

If you make something like this or develop my idea further, I'd love to see what you do!  People can be so creatively different, it's amazing to see people take a starter idea and make it their own :)

 

Happy Pinwheeling!

Dani :)

Layered Butterfly Card

LAYERED BUTTERFLY CARD

Butterflies are a sure-fire way to guarantee a cute card!  Who can resist them??

 

This design makes use of my beloved cuttlebug (which I just don't use enough!!) - but if you don't have one, you could recreate something like this using a large punch instead.  See what's out there, get creative!

 

One of the things you'll need is clear acetate, which you can usually find in online scrapbooking stores.  I've even been known to use the "throw away" plastic sheet from new acrylic stamp sets!

It's not the end of the world if you don't have any, I just think it's a nice way to jazz up the layering a bit!

Cut a square bigger than your cuttlebug cutter and run it through your cuttlebug - for the acetate you'll probably need to run it back and forth through the cuttlebug several times becauase it's pretty strong stuff.

 

 

You will also want to run a patterned piece of cardstock as well as a block colour cardstock through the cuttlebug with the butterfly cutter.  These make up your three layers.

 

 

Because the acetate doesn't cut as easily, you will probably need to do some quick tidying and cutting - I found that the more detailed end of the butterfly (with the feelers) didn't cut out like the other end.  It's pretty cruisy to finish the cutting job because it's cut through most of the way already, which helps guide your scissors.

 

KINDY GLITZ!!!  I love this stuff hehehe

I like to squirt things like kindy glitz and paints into  plastic disposable spoons.  It keeps things neat.

Now you're going to glitter the heck out of your acetate butterfly!  Use a brush if you want, it all depends on the look you want.  Personally I smear the stuff on with my finger most often because it gives better control (especially when glittering edges of things), can give a good textured look...and I like liberal sparklies!

Take a coffee break while the glitz dries :)

Next, ink the edges of the cardstock butterflies.  I like to use something very similar to the cardstock colour to add some depth without it being too OTT - a nice shadowy effect that softens the cut out.  As you can see, I've also gently bent the wings (delicately at the edge of the 'body' - do NOT fold) on the patterned and acetate butterflies. 

 

 

Once that's done, stick the layers together. As with pretty much everything, I use a thin double sided tape - in this case, right down the middle of the body.  Don't put tape on the wings (except underneath the block coloured butterfly) because those are the visible layers!  And don't worry if you can see the tape through the acetate - it gets disguised by a few rhinestones anyway.

Now choose your sentiment stamp and stamp it onto a scrap piece of paper and cut out closely around it.  Also use a scrap piece of paper to plot the shape you want for the "glitter trail" behind the butterfly.  By doing that on scrap paper, you can move things around and figure out your layout.

Once you've got that sussed out, stamp your card for real, stick your layered butterfly on, and stick the rhinestones on in your chosen pattern!  When you stick the butterfly down, the bottom layer (the block cardstock) should remain flat on the page - this is the only butterfly that should have its wings stuck down.

Don't forget to put a few rhinestones along the body of the acetate butterfly - it adds a little je ne c'est quoi to the butterfly as well as hiding the tape beneath it.

Now gently tease up the layers of the butterfly so they sit the way you want - Done!!  Quick and easy and cute :)

Happy Card Making!

Dani :)

Mini Mushroom Card

MINI MUSHY CARD

Getting Your Pun On!

I wanted to make something simple for Mum's birthday that was in-keeping with my dodgy sense of humour.  I'm certain she'll roll her eyes when she sees this!!  My Mini Mushy Card!

 

Stamp your mushroom image onto watercolour paper.  Colour the image in your preferred style (one option would be this).

 

Fussy cut your mushroom!!  This means cut around every little bit of it.  Scissors with awesome control and a fine tip are good for this task and I recommend ones like mine, which are spring loaded (like pruning shears).

I envy those of you with neat and creative handwriting!  Personally, my handwriting looks like it was written with a baboon's butt so...I cheated and typed up my sentiment on the computer!

Cut to size (about 7cm by 2cm).

Cut out the coloured pieces of card.  I have nice shimmery rockmelon and lime coloured card - I cut the rockmelon coloured card to be about 8cm by 3cm, then I cut the lime card to be about 9cm by 4cm.

Once cut out, ink the edges of the rockmelon and lime card pieces with ink of a similar colour.  This is a simple and subtle way of adding a tiny bit of dimension to your card.  Edge inking is also awesome for disguising dodgy cutting! hehe

Not seen in my pictures is also a postage stamp shaped piece of rockmelon card, which I will mount the mushrooms on - I had previously cut this out with my Cuttlebug.  This was a last minute addition -  Ink the edge of this also!

Ok, time to get sticky!  I prefer double-sided tape to glue because it's less messy and there's no drying time.  BUT once it's stuck that's it, no little adjustments.

I've applied double sided tape to the backs of the Mushy sentiment, lime card and also (not pictured) the postage stamp cut out.

I've applied foam tape to the mushrooms and the rockmelon card to give the card a bit more dimension.

One your card layer lime, rockmelon and sentiment at the top.  Beneath that, centred, layer the postage stamp and then the mushrooms.

VOILA!!  Done!

 

Happy Card Making!

Dani :)