Christmas Bows

This post is a shout out for Helen Mangan (my very talented mom). She came up with this brilliant design using the excess left over from little flower lights I was making.. Mom was cutting out all the petals and then ran with making the excess paper into a card. I always struggle a bit with bows and this card is just a genius way to use them.

You could use any die cut shape or punch for this card - circles, squares rectangles.........anything. This has proved to be an extremely popular card at my demos and in fact it tended to be the first card I was asked about by customers. Mom you put me to shame :)

Happy Crafting Everyone :)

Double Opening Card Tutorial

This card goes to prove that crafters are forever thinking about folds and a lot of the time we hit upon the same ideas. I came up with this fold about 2 years ago. At the time I loved the fold but just couldn't take that step to decorate it and make it pretty.

2 years later and I am surfing crafting sites and I find a girl who has come up with the exact same fold and measurements as that's the way this card just works! What was wonderful was she had taken the step I had failed to ............decoration. So all enthusiastic off I go in search of my original fold..........not an easy job as I have boxes full  of folds that I try out, promise myself I will get back to and then get distracted by the next thing!! Well this girl just inspired me to find the card and go for it. I can't find her blog anywhere now and if any of you come across it on your travels please drop me a mail as I would love to give her a shout out for her decoration inspiration. :) This is a great way to use all those teeny tiny toppers that you have hanging around after you have made all your other projects. So go on...........dig them out and give it a go.

 

 Cut a piece of card to 12" long x 6" high (you can adjust the height of the card if you wish)

Score at 1", 2", 4", 8", 10" 11"

Left hand side scores

Right hand side scores

On the left side fold inwards at the 4" score

Then outwards at the 2" score

Fold inwards the 1" score

This is how it should look now.

Now do the same on the right hand side. Fold inwards at the 8" score, outwards at the 10" score and inwards at the 11" score.

Your card is now ready to be decorated.

Cut out        6 x ¾“ wide strips of patterned paper

                   2 x 1¾“ wide strips of patterned paper

 The height you cut these depends on how tall you are making the card. What you are aiming for is a nice little boarder all the way around.

See photos below for where the strips will be placed.
2 on the outside 1" panels

4 on the inside 1" panels.

Now on the outside 2" panels place the 1¾“ strips of paper. Do this on both outside panels.

This is what your card should look like now.

If you flatten out the three right hand side panels you will see there is a strip not decorated. Place strong double sided tape along this piece.

Remove the tape covering

Fold this piece down onto the 2" section as shown below rubbing over it to ensure the tape takes hold.

This is what it will look like now.

Do the same on the left side and the card should now look like these photos below.

 Decorate the inside......

Get your 3 mini toppers and mount them onto some matching or contrasting card. These toppers need to be less then 2" wide.

 Now place your tape on the back . Two with pieces of tape on the right and one with tape on the left.

 Stick your toppers down on the left or right panel of the card. This card has two stuck to the right panel and one stuck to the left panel.

 See the way they interlock.......so cool.

Now you need another 2 toppers. I have made mine circular and again they need to be less then 2" wide.

 These go on the outside 1" panels. Stick one on the left and one on the right.Make sure these toppers stay within the two 1" panels as if you don't they will get crushed when you open the card.

Place a piece of double sided tape on the back of the card centrally (ignore the ribbon in the shot at this stage, I just forgot to move it!!!!)
Now place a piece of ribbon over the tape on the back whilst leaving plenty of ribbon either side.

 Wrap the ribbon around the front of the card and tie a bow.

Hope you all give this a try.

Happy crafting Everyone :)

Random Christmas Cards :)

While looking around my files on the computer I found some of these sneaky cards hanging about so I though I would post them all together as the were all hiding together in a random file!!!

Origami folded star. This card looked brilliant folded in the glitter card and topped off with a silver gem. The paper was sponged in blue ink to bring it all together.

I love making these snowflakes at Christmas especially out of my 12 x 12 papers as they end up huge :). They are so easy to make and put together. Here's one of the many links out there in the web to show you how its done Paper Snowflake

 

 Post It Note masked cards.

 

 This card was photographed very well so its a little bit dark. The snowflake was stamped in Watermark Ink as was the background. I love the subtle feel of this type of card.

 A little Boofle card that lost its way in the computer!

 Glitteration Stickers - Love Em.....

 I stamped the holly out on 2 pieces of card and then sponged the cards in the same coloured ink. I then cut out the holly from one of the sponged pieces and after placing my greeting on the card. I layered the holly around it.

 

 The Welcome Home stamp from Docrafts had a To and From print as well as the message shown here on the left hand side. I just covered the words with small sections of post it notes and then inked up the stamp. This meant that the words weren't inked up and I was left with just the greeting. Some coloring and stickers just finished it off nicely. The image was then mounted onto a small red card.

 A simple greeting mounted onto a tiny red card. Mini cards are just the cutest things. Love em.

Happy Crafting Everyone :)

Have yourself a very Boofle Christmas :)

Well I went a bit mad with making Boofle cards so this is going to be a loooooooooooong post!!!

My favorite card is the little window box card below. It uses the Penguin stamp from this stamp set. I masked the penguin with a post it note and built a big pyramid of Penguins. The little penguin at the top has been stamped out and then I very cruelly cut off his arms and  stuck them back on in a different position so he looked like he was a little bit of a cheerleader :)

This card is made from two pieces of card the exact same size (a front and a back) To create the side frame pieces for this card I cut two pieces of card to the height of my card and 2" wide. I scored the pieces of card  down the length at ½, 1 and 1½.. Fold them in an accordion fold so you end up with 2 M shapes. They will get attached either side to both the front and the back pieces of the card. If you haven't done this type of card before just have a bit of a play and you wil be able to work it out...........promise :)

Cover the front piece of card in your patterned paper using a glue stick to ensure that the paper is stuck down solidly everywhere then cut out your aperture.  Now just stick it all together. Have a look at the photos and hopefully you can work it out. Any problems just give me a shout and I will do a quick tutorial on it, give it a try first though as you may surprise yourself :)

This next card is made by folding over a piece of acetate and again using our M fold (like in the card above) to join it together Have a look at the second picture below and you'll see how its done. I attach it all together and then fold over some paper punch a boarder into it and and attach it to the top fold of the acetate.I cut strips of paper to cover the joins back and front at the bottom of the card and attach them on and then just pop on my decoupage and embellishments.

Front

Side View

Back View

 This is a little gift card holder. I took a square card and folded the front piece of the card in half back towards the spine. Then on the inside part of the flap (see second picture) I cut a slit large enough to hold the gift card but not too big as I need the gift card to fit in and stay snugly in there.I then seal up the front half  flap to the back half flap with double sided tape all around the edges. Pop an image on the front half flap making sure its large enough to hide the Gift Card when you insert it into the card.

 This is a penny slider card (I use 2cent coins to make this work). Some of you will know how to make this card and for those of you who don't I will be making up a tutorial shortly to show you how. I love how the penguin just runs from side to side doing a few little flips when it on its way :)

 

 

 This card is just using the Penguin decoupage ( any chance that by now you are realizing that I love penguins!) I used left over papers from other projects and cut them into strips. I then glued the strips diagonally onto a piece of card creating my own unique background paper. Taking this piece of card  I cut it into 3 sections to create the staggered background. A couple of snowflake embellishments and gems and of course the every fabby Irridecent Glitter glue and a cute little card is born.

 A couple of quick and simple cards made with papers, decoupage and an Xcut boarder punch.

This is a little bouncer card. It fold flat for posting and if I was going to post it I would use a doubled over piece of strong accetage to hold the top bouncer image rather then the wire.

 I love the little donkey in this card. Being the lazy little thing I am I stamped the donkey on grey, cream and red and just cut out the different sections in red and grey and layered them all up onto the one full printed cream colored image. Not a Promarker, Copic maker or coloring pencil was harmed in the making of this card :)

 This is a three layered card. I started with a large square card and decorated it.

 Next I used the same size card as above but just cut a bit off it on two sides to make it  fit neatly onto the card. Don't try to cut the bit off at the spine..............no seriously I did that without thinking!!!!! Shouldn't work so late at night sometimes