SURPRISE!

Yes, here I am, appearing out of the crafting void. Life has been keeping me busy doing things other than stamping and cardmaking, but I had to make cards for the holidays!


Here's what I made for this year's holiday card exchange (at an author fan site of which I've been a long-time member):

Since I knew that I'd be making a bunch of cards, about forty, I tried to keep it simple. HA! Never works out that way. I just had to keep embellishing and adding small touches here and there. I do like how this turned out though.


So I started with precut and prefolded cards from Michael's Recollections line, conveniently already on clearance. The snowman was made using a Sizzix Bigz die and embossing folder combo (Snowman & Hat)—make your die cut then run it through your machine of choice inside the embossing folder. Worked great! I'll just add in here that I used the Sizzix Vagabond machine for this part of the process and it made it extremely quick and easy. I even cut out the hat from black cardstock in the same pass. I just laid the white over the snowman and the small piece of black over the hat and ran it all through. The snowman was embellished with Glaze pens for the eyes and carrot nose and then a snowflake from the Martha Stewart line of punches. I added the silver hat band with a silver metallic marker and dabbed on a spot of Frosted Lace Stickles. Another Martha Stewart punch, this time a border punch, helped me create the plaid border. Martha's baker's twine formed the scarf. The final touch was a couple of spritzes of Perfect Pearls Perfect Pearl Mist. Love that added shimmer and snowy look! 


Happy Holidays!

Bigz Pop Up die in action

Here are the details from when I used the Sizzix Bigz Pop Up die to make the card that I posted yesterday.


This is one of the XL dies and it requires the longer XL cutting plates--unless you've altered some, they're too wide to fit through the Cuttlebug. You can use a couple of the long decorative strip cutting plates with these dies instead, a work-around that I've described before. With this particular die you might be able to use the regular C'bug cutting plates since the cutting area is actually fairly small. I'll double check that. I use these XL Bigz dies with my Big Shot. I sandwich it between the two cutting plates with the cutting side up and the card stock on top of the cutting surface of the die.


This is how it looked after it was run through. It's not nearly as big as the die itself. I hope you can also make out the fold lines. I didn't use a crease pad. Turns out I didn't need one anyway.


The enclosed instructions said to fold along all of the creases, not worrying about which way to fold for now. Okay. I just folded any which way. Now it looks like it's writhing there.


The dot that you see on the inside of my card is a centering mark that I made. I also highlighted some of the folds with dotted lines so that you can see where the glue or tape needs to be placed. The two trangular areas with the check marks are where you place your glue. Also, take note of that cut out notch that's on the left hand side of the die cut. That's a good way to make sure that you have the die cut oriented properly.


Once the glue is in place, fold the die cut so that the glued areas are on the outside of the fold, as I did above.


In the above photo, I'm getting ready to line up the fold of the die cut with the fold of the card. I'll also line up the point of that triangle with the centering mark that I'd made earlier.


Place the die cut down and then burnish to affix the glue on one side. The arrows are indicating where the two folds are now overlapping.


Open it up and burnish the other side so that the glue will adhere nicely there as well.


Now it's time to make that pop up. Reaching underneath the die cut, press on the folds from the under side to make them into the mountain folds that I illustrated above. It helps to close the card a bit, too.


Here I've labeled the tab and the slot into which the tab will slide. There really is a slot there.


After folding the locking tabs back out of the way, pull those free ends toward each other.


Now slip the tab into the slot as I've indicated using the arrow.


This is the view from the other side. I'd unfolded the side tabs to lock the main tab in place. You can also reinforce this area with some tape so that nothing will come loose.


You now have a platform for whatever you'd like to have pop out of the inside of the card.


Place some glue on the platform, then place your object face down on the left hand side of your open card. My object was white, so I put some scrap card stock behind it to make it easier to see.


Close the card so that the object will be stuck to the platform.


And voila! There's a pop up flower when the card is opened.

The instructions for using this die and the die cut were included with the Sizzix die packaging. It takes much longer to describe and illustrate the steps than to actually do them, but I think you can see that it's not all that complicated. I think this die cut makes it very easy to make fun pop up cards. There are a number of steps involved, but overall it's a very straightforward and handy way of making a card with a little extra surprise inside it for the recipient.

Sizzix Bigz XL pop up die

I've had the Sizzix Bigz XL Pop Up die for a while. I hadn't had a chance until today to pull it out and use it. It was not difficult at all to use or to assemble. I snapped some photos while I was making the following card, but I've run out of time this afternoon to post the step-wise version. I'll save that for next time. I wanted to go ahead and post the card that I made though.


That's how it looks when it's closed. For reference, this is not my usual A2 size card. I made this one bigger, 5" x 6 1/2". The stamps are all by Stampers Anonymous and stamped using Memento inks.


And here is the card opened up. The die cuts are the new Spellbinders Blossom Nestabilities dies. The leafy embellishments are by Sizzix/Stampin' Up--the Little Leaves Sizzlit die.

The details will follow at a later date. :-)

multi-challenge GW card

Things have been busy here, as you can probably tell by my lack of posting recently. I've squeezed some crafting in here and there, and I have a card to show for it. Some background first though--on the Gingerwood stamping forum, there have been a number of challenges issued. The first was to make a shaped card. I didn't get to it. The next one was to use an old stamp, I think, or some supply that hadn't been used in ages. I didn't get around to that one either. The most recent one is to make a manly card of any sort. Well, okay. I got tired of not participating, so I rolled those three challenges into one card, and here it is....


Here is my circular saw-shaped card. Doesn't get more manly than power tools, eh? LOL! I used the pinking circle, regular circle, and paisley Nestabilities dies to cut the die shapes. The "saw blade" is card stock covered with aluminum foil. The "Thanks" die cut was made using a Cuttlebug die--yes, this was a shortcut. The rest of the words were made using Sizzix Sizzlit alphabet dies--something that I hadn't used in ages!

I made the card so that it could open. I did this by folding my navy card stock before cutting it, and also leaving part of the fold intact inside the cutting edge of the die.


Here I've opened the card partway to show the rest of the blade. I also placed a smaller paisley shape behind the card front. Not traditional placement, but I hated to cover up the blade and I did want to have a place to write. I added the zigzag edge to mimic the blade--this was from a set of clear stamps by Inky Antics that I don't think had ever been inked, but that I've had for years.

So there it is--my three challenge card. :-) Oh, and my apologies for the play on words. ;-)