Paper Pros Challenge - Spring Fever

For our monthly no-stress just-for-fun Paper Pros challenge, the theme was set by Sandy Diller as Spring Fever. I've been teaching a lot for the last several months and have been unable to participate in the challenges, but I lucked out this month because one of my class projects for Friday fits the theme!

This Friday I'll be at Kaitlyn's Crop 2019 Spring Fling teaching a 2-card class. The class kits will also include a die. In addition, students may shop our entire line at the Scrapp'n Savvy mobile store at the crop. 

The first card features the Woven Basket Box Card die set and also incorporates decorator dies (bird, frame, heart) from the Frame Pull Pop-up. The borders and twigs come from our Border Blends - Party die set.

The other class card is a Rockin' Rectangle Pop-up birthday card, featuring the ostrich from Feathered Animals. It also uses decorator dies from the Cupcake Pop-up, Rectangles - Crosshatch and Birthday Charms.

All items in the kits are pre-cut. Here are the items students should bring to class:

• Scissors
• All your favorite adhesives including liquid glue with a fine tip, tape runner, double-sided tape (0.25" is best), miniature glue dots, pop-dots.
• Tweezers or Quick Stik for placing small items like ostrich parts, hearts and sequins
• Pen or pencil
• Paper piercer and a piece of foam to pierce into
• Bone folder
• Optional: Wink of Stella (or similar) glitter pen
• Optional: Inks and blending tools for brushing edges 
• Optional (but recommended): print out the card photos for reference OR save them to your tablet to refer to in class
• Smart phone or tablet to take photos of the hundreds of sample cards on display

If you're not taking the class but would like to check out the rest of the Paper Pros projects, you'll find the links in the left sidebar under Design Team and Paper Pros.

Happy Crafting!

 

My Knight Pop-up Card - Paper Pros Challenge

Once a month we have a for fun challenge with a friends group called the Paper Pros. Raquel Mason set the theme for this month as "What's in a Name?" and challenged us to use a die set that started with the same letter as our first name.  I decided to use the Knight and Dragon die set and actually get a jump (gasp!) on my Anniversary Card for (gasp!) OCTOBER!

The card is a very simple design. It measures 4.25" x 4.25" square when closed. I used the Knight die to cut a window into the front of the card and then assembled a bunch of knights from all white cardstock. I glued the knights into a collaged mosaic on the front of the card, cutting off partial knights where they extended off the edge. I then traced around all the pieces with a fine black pen.

Through the window you can see a silver knight, lined up perfectly with the opening. As the card opens that knight starts to move, attached to a platform from the Upsy Daisy Pop-up die set. 

Once the card is open the silver knight stands on the ground in front of the card. I used my leftover knights to decorate the background plus added a greeting using Word Set 5 - Royalty. 

It was fun to make my knights-a-plenty card. Plus it's nice to have an anniversary card all ready for my real-life knight come October.

Here are the other Paper Pros participating this month and links to their "What's in a Name?" cards:

Karen Aicken

Frances Byrne

Fran Sabad

Raquel Mason

Sandy Diller

Here are links to the products used in my card. I also used silver ink, white and red cardstock. 

Valentines Washi Tape Tree Pop-up Card

For this week's Paper Pros challenge the theme was set by Frances Byrne as "Tag, you're it!" and we were all instructed to incorporate a tag element into our cards. 

I'd been wanting to make a Valentines version of my December challenge card, the Ribbon Tree, but with washi tape instead of ribbon. I found the perfect tube of crafting tape at Michaels a while back and have been trying to carve out the time to make the card that's been rattling around in my head. 

For the tag element, I decided to turn the card into a window card with a tag-shaped vellum-frosted window that would allow the pretty washi tapes to be visible in the closed position and then stand up into a Valentine's tree as the card opens.

My card measures 4" x 4.5" in the closed position. It's just big enough to hide the Christmas Tree Pop-up when closed. I used the Tag Book Pop-up for the window, frame, greeting tag, paper clip and hearts. The front decoration is just a piece of patterned paper from my stash, beads strung on twine and wrapped around the ribbon knot, and die cut hearts from washi tape. The collapsed tree is visible through the vellum.

As the card is opened the tree starts to stand up. I used a very lightweight white cardstock (60#) for the tree so that I could add the strips of washi tape before die cutting, making it very easy to construct. Instead of the star I used hearts for the tree topper.

The card's interior is the same patterned paper, kept very simple to let the tree have all the attention. 

To balance the window on the left side of the card I added the same tag shape to the right side and stamped it with a greeting from an older Stampin' Up! set called Lovely Amazing You, using my Misti to position the stamp perfectly. The paper clip is a die included in the Tag Book set.

 Here's the video this card is loosely based on:

My Valentine's version uses these "stash" supplies in addition to the ones linked below:

• Echo Park "Happy Days" patterned paper (retired) - Bottle Caps #HD19005
• Bazzill "Pomegranate" red cardstock
• Pink twine and various beads
• Creative Impressions Ribbon
• Stampin' Up! Lovely Amazing You stamp
• My Sweet Petunia Mini MISTI stamp positioning tool
• Tsukineko Versafine Tuxedo Black ink
• Recollections Crafting Tape tube - Valentine's Day
• Lightweight (60#) white cardstock

 And then here are the items with shopping links:

November Class Projects plus Paper Pros Challenge

Today is our monthly for fun Paper Pros challenge with a theme of Winter Birthday, which worked out perfectly with one of the cards I'm teaching this week.

For tomorrow's class at Scrapp'n Savvy, we will be making three cards. The first (my Paper Pros card), features the Snowman Twist Circle (minus the snowman) to make a distinguished penguin birthday card. A clear panel on the front of the card allows the penguin to peek out in the closed position. Then, once opened, the circle spins him up into the center of the card, holding a gift. Opening the card also reveals a white circle as a place to write a personal message and sign the card.

The penguin from the Winter Animals set is wearing fancy dress courtesy of the new Tiny Accessories 1 die set, which adds the top hat, monocle and bow tie. 

Also on the agenda for tomorrow's class is a Katherine Label Pop-up card featuring the new Cat and Dog die set. I've always loved this Riley and Co. Funny Bones stamp and it worked perfectly for a funny card to send to a friend. By rolling down the corner of the card, the kitty peeks out, and then rises up with the pop-up as the card is opened.

Also on the agenda for tomorrow's class is a combination of three new dies - the Tag Book Pop-up, the Flowers and Bee, and Word Set 4 - Just a Note for this pretty "hello" card.

As usual, it's an ambitious class, but we'll do our best to leave with three finished cards. If you're in class, here's what you need to bring:

• Die Cutting machine with plates and platforms for wafer-thin dies.
• Removable tape to hold dies in place.
• Pokey tool to eject dies
• Liquid glue in a fine tip bottle - VERY IMPORTANT - there are small pieces on these cards and you need to be able to glue them down. (You might bring your Xyron X sticker maker if you have one)
• Other adhesives - tape runner, double-sided tape, small glue dots, pop-dots
• Pens - black pen to add stripes to the bees. White gel pen to color the cat's tail and paws. (I will bring some white pens to share, but bring one if you have one)
• Save the card photos to your tablet or phone OR print them out to refer to in class.
• Optional tools - embossing stylus to shape flowers, brayer to press down glued items
• Optional decorating items - brown ink with a blending tool, Wink of Stella or similar glitter pen

If you are in class tomorrow, you will receive TWO dies in your class kit - the Tiny Accessories 1 and the Flowers and Bee. The other three new dies from the Fall release will be available to purchase at Scrapp'n Savvy and yes, I am bringing enough for every student in both classes to be able to purchase the new dies. 

 For folks outside of the Houston area, here are links to the dies used in the class cards:

Paper Pros Challenge - Holiday Cards

Welcome to this month's just for fun no pressure challenge with the Paper Pros. Caz Counsell set the theme this month as Holiday Cards.

Before I share my card, let me take a moment to talk about craft idea inception. I am blessed to be surrounded by amazing crafty ladies who combine and style my dies in clever ways. When I designed the Katherine Label Pop-up I always had a window card in mind. I am a huge fan of pop-up cards where you can see the item in the closed position and then watch it move as the card opens. The Katherine Label lends itself well to that idea because of the way it lifts up. 

The first step in the idea inception for today's card came when Karen Aicken had the brilliant idea to swap out the Katherine label shape for a circle, creating a window card, but round. She made her fabulous Ghost Wreath Card

Karen's card sparked an idea in Fran Sabad, who mentioned how inspired she was by the circle idea and promptly created a delightful Phantom of the Opera Card with a rising chandelier.

Fran's card inspired Shelly Hickox, who immediately envisioned a circle window card with a rising moon and then came up with a clever idea to attach clear strips to the mechanism so that, as the moon rises in her G-G-G-Ghost Card, the ghosts (attached to the strips) rise up from the graveyard. 

Which brings me to today's card, which is a combination of all the clever circle-Katherine ideas before me. My idea was to create the stacked snowman from the Snowman Twist Circle and then use the Katherine mechanism to make the snowman expand as the card opens.

The card measures 5" x 5" in the closed position. The patterned paper was sitting on a big untidy pile of random older papers on the floor and happened to be on top of the pile. I thought the little asterisks on the side reminded me of snowflakes, so I chopped the paper into three 4.75" squares and got to work. (Echo Park "Scoot" collection, paper name Helicopter #SC41010, from 2013)

I used the Nature Edges to add drifts of snow to the bottom of the paper squares, stopping the snow when it reached the borders. The two largest circles in the Twist Circle were nested together to create a thin ring to surround the opening, made with the second-largest circle. I added a piece of transparency between the paper and the card to act as a window pane.

As the card opens, the Katherine Label mechanism rises up. The head of the snowman is attached to the top of the mechanism and the middle circle is suspended halfway through (and yes, I know I need to do a video on this technique, so stay tuned!) and the large stitched circle is attached underneath the mechanism. 

It's not easy to see in this photo, but the snowman's arm is attached to the mechanism so it rises up like he's waving. A ribbon scarf and some glitter snowflakes complete the scene.

The greeting is two layers stacked for dimension from Word Set 3 - Holiday.

Make sure you check out the other cards by the Paper Pros:

Caz Counsell
Karen Aicken
Raquel Mason
Frances Byrne
Fran Sabad

Here are shopping links for the dies I used on my card.

Paper Pros Challenge - Halloween

 Today is our monthly no-pressure just-for-fun challenge with the Paper Pros. The theme for this month is Halloween so I decided to make a 3-page Charm Accordion. I taught how to do this technique in a previous challenge HERE.

I found an older piece of striped Halloween paper in my stash and cut 6 paper pages to decorate both sides of the album. I trimmed out the center squares and used pinking shears along the edges of the paper. Normally the Charm Accordion uses a piece called the Charm Frame to glue between each of the pivoting squares, but for this assembly I decided instead to enlarge the size of the pivoting squares by turning them into labels. I attached the medium label from the Katherine Label pop-up to each of the pages. Each label had twine attached behind it so I was able to then tie the pages together to hinge them. The smaller label (green) is from the Gift Card Label set. 

The decorations for each page came from the Halloween Elements set, along with the flourish that comes included with the Charm Accordion. I accented all the black pieces with Nuvo Crystal drops to make them shiny, taking care on the "Boo!" greeting to leave some areas of the cardstock exposed for a distressed look. 

When folded up, the Charm Accordion is small and fun size - 3.25" x 4.25" and mails easily in an A2 envelope.

Make sure you check out the other awesome Halloween makes by the Paper Pros. Here are some links:

Karen Aicken - Bat Pop-up Card

Frances Byrne - Boo! Twist Circle Card

Kelly Booth - Halloween Gift Card Holder

Fran Sabad - Phantom Pop-up Card

Raquel Mason - Haunted House Pop-up Card

Sandy Diller - Spooky Graveyard Pop-up Card

Caz Counsell - Creepy Hands Pop-up Card

Shelly Hickox - Halloween Charm Accordion

Here are shopping links for the items used in my card:

Paper Pros Challenge - Summer Road Trip to Wine Country

Today is our monthly no-pressure for-fun challenge with the Paper Pros.

Sandy Diller set the theme as "Summer Road Trip" and I know that the other Pros have wonderful cards that match the theme perfectly.

Me? Not so much!

I was STUMPED! Despite living in a papercrafter's hoarding den, I couldn't find any paper or stamps in my collection that would match the theme. When I arrived too early to pick up Karl from work yesterday I had a chance to pop into Michaels and see what I could find. My idea was to take a page from Karen Aicken's style - she uses a lot of pre-made embellishments. Sure enough, there were a lot of fun stickers for Road Trip themes and I started to pick out a couple when I spied something . . . wine stickers!

WINE! I love wine!

And as it turns out, John and I are attending a wedding this summer in wine country, so that counts as a summer trip. We are flying to the wedding, but then will rent a car to drive north, so the road is involved, too. Perfect!

I decided to make a 4-page Charm Accordion, but to change things up a bit by staggering the pages.

To make the Charm Accordion staggered, cut each card in half so you have individual pages. Then flip Pages #2 and #4 so the pivoting square is closer to the bottom. You can hinge the pages using the included hinge die OR, as I did for this card, just use a strip of the same color cardstock and hinge the entire height of the page with a thin folded piece of cardstock. From there, it's just a matter of assembling as usual by adding a Charm Frame between each of the pivoting squares.

I used the Charm Accordion die again to cut my patterned paper backgrounds. I trimmed a bit off of the edges of the patterned paper so I would have a brown border. The "Welcome to Wine Country" sticker worked perfectly on Page 2 so that when the card is closed, it is also visible. I did remove the back layer of the sticker so it wouldn't be so thick.

My second sheet of stickers were puffy wine glasses and wine bottles filled with glitter. I stuck two wine glasses back-to-back and punched a hole to create a charm. I used the jump ring die that comes with the Charm Accordion to hang the charms from the frames. The wine bottles went onto the pivoting squares, embellished with sequins and the die cut heart charm from the set.

The greeting is one of my favorite Funny Bones stamps. 

In this angled view you can see the third charm hanging in the center between the pages. 

Check out our Videos Page to learn how to assemble the Charm Accordion OR if you learn better with written instructions, check out our Instructions Page to download a PDF Owner's Manual. 

Also make sure you check out the cards by the other Paper Pros who are participating this month. Their cards are AMAZING!!

Sandy Diller
Karen Aicken
Frances Byrne
Fran Sabad
Raquel Mason

Supply links:

Dad Charm Accordion - Paper Pros Challenge

Today's Paper Pros challenge theme was set by Shelly Hickox to make masculine birthday cards. What I really needed to make, though, was a Father's Day Card, so I went rogue!

I wanted to use the Charm Accordion die set, which creates an adorable little 2-page Accordion in one pass. Then, you can use the included hinge dies to expand the album into a 4-page, or 6-page, etc. See how this is done by watching the assembly video for this die:

But . . . I wanted a 3-page album and I didn't want to hinge just one page onto the end.

So what I did was to start with a 4.5" x 12" strip of cardstock and folded it at 3.5" from the end. Then I placed the fold right up to (but not crossing) the edge of the die. I used temporary removable tape to keep the cardstock aligned with the die.

After die cutting, I had a 3-page album! I used a trimmer to take off any excess cardstock from the third page, so it would match the width of the other two pages (3.25")

The other modification I made to the album was to make an elongated charm frame by gluing two charm frames between each page and then trimming out the center with scissors. This will allow me to hang a larger charm between the pages.

From here it was just a matter of decorating. Both sides of the album got panels of patterned paper. I used the die to cut the pages and then trimmed 1/8" from each edge of the paper. A labelmaker was used for the greeting.

The chipboard letters were from my stash and fit the squares perfectly. I also found the metal tool charms in my stash and knew they would be perfect for my Dad's card, since he is a mechanic and always has tools in his pockets. Since the metal charms are heavy, I used metal jump rings instead of the paper jump rings that come in the set. 

I did use a paper jump ring for the heart charm in the lower right corner. This view shows the other metal tool charm.

Check out all the other masculine cards on the Paper Pros blogs here:

Shelly Hickox
Kelly Booth
Fran Sabad
Raquel Mason
Frances Byrne
S@ndy Diller
Caz Counsell
Karen Aicken

You can find my new dies at many retailers, both local and online, as well as on our website here:

Paper Pros Challenge - Spring!

Hello, long lost friends! 

It's time for another Paper Pros Challenge and the theme this month was set by Karen Aicken, who challenged us to make a card celebrating Spring, using  blooms and/or butterflies.

I decided to get a jump on Mother's Day with a Butterfly Double Pivot Card for my Mom.

This technique is simple, and you can watch three different videos on how to do it on this post: Double Pivot Cards. The videos will show how to create the accordion card first, then die cut each half. For my card, I was using a thick cardstock so I decided to die cut each card separately and then join them together. I'll explain how I did it.

First, I cut an 8.5" x 11" piece of pink cardstock in half, making two 5.5" x 8.5" strips. On each strip I scored at 4" and then at 7.5", creating a card with a 4" panel, a 3.5" panel, and a leftover 1" strip (the tab). I arranged the strips so one had a right-facing tab and one had a left-facing tab and then added 3" x 4.5" pieces of patterned paper (SEI Vanilla Sunshine) to each panel, using a temporary removable tape. I die cut the Butterfly Pivot Card into each card, making sure I measured the distance from the die to the top of the card so I could duplicate it for the other side. After die cutting I removed the patterned paper rectangles and snipped out the butterflies from the patterned paper. This left me with two pieces from each rectangle - one to fit above the butterfly and one to fit below the butterfly. I glued the patterned paper pieces onto the cards, creating the patterned background.

To join the two Pivot Cards I first trimmed off the side panel from one of the cards (either one - doesn't matter) and then used the other card's tab to join the two, trimming the tab as necessary to avoid the butterfly area. To join the pivoting butterflies themselves, each one had a small tip of the wing that had crossed the fold, so it was just a matter of choosing one to be the tab and trimming the other one away. Here's a view of the back of the card, showing the connections.

The Butterfly Pivot Card comes with decorator butterfly dies, so I used those with the leftover patterned paper and a piece of glitter paper from my stash to decorate the card. I incorporated a few smaller butterflies from the Butterfly Accessory die set, which perfectly coordinates.

A Double Pivot Card is impressive, but easy. (My favorite combination!) For the front of the card I kept it very simple with just a couple of strips of patterned paper and a ribbon.

Remember that Pop it Ups dies are only available in 2017 or until they're gone, whichever comes first, and while I am not ruling out the option of a re-release on certain styles, I can pretty well say for certain that the Butterfly Pivot Card will not be one of those re-released styles. So I guess I'm saying . . .  get it if you want it! I'll include some Amazon links below, or you can always find great deals on my dies at It's Cheaper than Therapy.

Pop It Up Metal Dies by Karen Burniston, Butterfly Pivot Card

Pop It Up Metal Dies by Karen Burniston, Butterfly Accessory

Elizabeth Craft Designs Steel Cutting Die, Tags Pivot Card

Sizzix Big Shot Machine Only (White & Gray)

Want to check out the other great cards by the Paper Pros? Remember this is a no-stress, no-committment challenge, so not everyone participates. The links to the other Paper Pros blogs are in the sidebar at the left. 

Happy Crafting!

 

 

Paper Pros Challenge - Shake it up!

Happy Tuesday!

 

The former Pop it Ups Designer Challenge team has regrouped as a friends group called Paper Pros and today is the first of our monthly no-pressure challenges. Summer Hills-Painter challenged us to "Shake it Up" by incorporating a shaker element or action wobbler into a project of any theme.

 

This is a version of a Twist Circle Window Card (Video Link) but as a shaker card instead. I started with a 4.75" x 12" strip of patterned paper (Authentique Legacy "Kindred") and scored it into three 4" panels. I cut the base of the Twist Circle die over the right fold and cut the upper portion of the platform from the leftover paper. Next I folded the left panel underneath the center panel and die cut through both layers with the medium circle die from the Twist Circle set. Between the two layers I added a square made from two transparency pieces sealed around the edges and filled with silver confetti and micro beads. I made a similar shaker label by cutting the label out of both patterned paper and transparency and then hand stitching the two together with yellow thread. This was easy because the label die creates decorative pierce marks around the perimeter. Before stitching the top edge of the label I used a paper funnel to fill it with the same silver confetti and micro beads.

The card measures 4.75" x 4" when closed, so it will mail easily in an A2 envelope. The greetings are from a Stampin' Up! set from my stash called Sale-a-Bration "A Happy Thing"

Here's a close-up of the window area when the card is closed. The flower embellishment is visible through the window in the upper right.

As the card is opened the Twist Circle mechanism starts to lift and twist the interior shaker label.

Once the card is open the flower has moved to the left side and the "Love Life" (same stamp set) greeting is revealed. I also added flourishes from the Merry Christmas Pop-up die set. The flowers themselves are a combination of silk and paper flowers from my stash.

Here's a close-up of the shaker label:

Also, congratulations to Lana R. for winning two dies in the 25,000 YouTube Subscribers giveaway from the last newsletter. Here is Lana's winning comment, chosen by random draw:

 

"Your cards are amazing! But I am a little intimidated by them."

 

Lana, I hope you've had a chance to try your dies and that you're no longer intimidated! 

 

Here are links to the other Paper Pros.

Caz Counsell - Valentines treat boxes with wobbling critters
Fran Sabad - beach-themed shaker card
Karen Aicken - pop-up Valentine with shaker balloon
Sandy Diller - accordion Valentine with wobbling bear
Frances Byrne - pop-up Lorna label window shaker card
Shelly Hickox - screen card with Heart Pivot shaker 
Summer - Hills Painter - coffee-themed shaker card
Raquel Mason - http://raquelmason.blogspot.com
Helen Cryer - http://diningroomdrawers.blogspot.com
Kelly Booth - http://cruzinkellster.blogspot.com
Donna Wright - http://oldredshed.blogspot.com

Here are shopping links for the dies I used on my card.

Elizabeth Craft Pop It Up Metal Dies By Karen Burniston-Twist Circle Pop Up Elizabeth Craft Pop It Up Metal Dies By Karen Burniston-Labels & Circles Elizabeth Craft Pop It Up Metal Dies By Karen Burniston-Merry Christmas Popup Sizzix Big Shot Machine Only (White & Gray)

InLinkz.com

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