TIPS AND TECHNIQUES

Wednesday, January 31, 2018

Toddler Card

Well hope your warm where your at because over here its darn right cold!  One good thing about the cold is that I hate going out in it so it gives me plenty of play time in my craft room.  Last week I had a few Birthday cards to make and as you may have read I was not pleased with many of them.  Doing all those different folds enabled me to find a simple one for a Toddlers Birthday.  Although one that I had already made could have been used, it looked too girly for the cute little 2yr old boy who was having a birthday.  So back to the drawing board.  I saw a video on a real simple fold card.Seen Here.  But no matter how many times I I cut and folder there was no way I would end up with a center panel being 7"wide and though it doesn't look like it in the photo they gave the DSP is cut at 5" which should have made the 6" high card have a top and bottom border of 1/2".  EY YI YI!  But you know what??? When this card is folded shut it will fit into a regular 3  5/8" x 6  1/2" standard envelope.  So that's a plus since you can get a box of 50 at the dollar store.  It sort of folds into it's self.  Ok I probably have you confused so lets just get on to the card.
Now as I said this is for a 2 yr old and it was literally last minute.  Slapped it together and ran out the door.   I made a few changes to the directions.  Since the side panels were suppose to be 2" wide your paper had to have started out as a 11x6 not 11  3/4 x 6 but that would give you a center panel of 3".  Which is what the card is above.  Not 7" as stated in original directions.  Now if you want the card to be an A2 size you need to start with card stock 5.5 x 12 and score at 2, 4, 8, and 10.
Above in the top portion on left is the re-vamped card with the size fitting a 3 5/8 x 6.5 envelope and on the right is the card re-made to fit an A2 envelope.  For the one on left you would have a piece of card cut to 11 x 6 and scored at 2, 4, 7, 9.  The A2 size one on the right would need a piece of card measuring 5.5 x 12 and scored at 2, 4, 8, 10.  I was so engrossed in what the measurements of this card should be that I never even realized that the A2 one I made is just a gate fold card decorated on the back side instead....duh.  Sometimes it takes my brain a bit of time to catch up.  lol  Also you can see closed (bottom right) its just a gate fold.  Now the card on the left bottom when it is closed it closes onto its self.  So it's not a "true" gate fold.

Above is the back and it's hard to tell but it folds over its self making this card narrower.  
Boy I just re-read all this and it sounds confusing to me.  Hope you can understand me and give this narrow one a try.  Its really a cute sized card when opened.

Ok well I'm going to go find another confusing card.  lol  Maybe I'll share another.
Til then........................

HAPPY CARDING!










Tuesday, January 30, 2018

THE PERFECT CARD??

So I now have these 2 awesome glue gun holders and new glue guns and I need 2 great cards to go with them.  Boy am I stumped.  I spent an entire week folding...searching Pinterest....tossing....starting over and nothing I did was pleasing to me.  I mean you can't have an awesome gift with a mediocre card.  So far these are my unhappy ones.


I really wanted a fancy fold so I tried variations of the diamond fold and then a trifold accordion and although I liked the papers on the 2 cards on the left I just couldn't decide how to finish them.  So on ward to the other 3 which were OK but I didn't like the color choices.  The middle one looks more like a toddler birthday card to me.

Finally I decided on an envelope card.  Since I needed 2 I decided to try 2 different folds.  The first one is a typical envelope card and the next one is a napkin fold which is sort of like an envelope. 




 I like the way both of them turned out.  The papers that I used on both cards was from a paper pack I got at Tuesday Morning called Downton Abbey.  I loved the Victorian look these papers had.  Oh and on the first card the pink floral paper was not part of the Downton Abbey pad.  It was just something I had in my stash.  I have no idea what paper line it is from.  Anyway the ladies liked their cards and that is what counted so it was worth all the trial cards.

Til next time
HAPPY CARDING!!!!

Monday, January 29, 2018

GLUE GUN HOLDER

Hi friends.  Today I wanted to share a gift idea for your crafty friends.  I have a small ladies group that I get together with frequently for card making and crafting.  For each Birthday I try to come up with some sort of unique little gift.  One year I made them little totes from VHS holders Seen here and another year it was a bow maker.  Another it was a card stand.  Some day I'll post them lol.  Anyway this year I decided on glue gun holders and brand new glue guns to go with them.  I found an idea on Pinterest... showed my husband a picture and he went to his garage to try and replicate it.  It turned out great and now I have him making 4 more for birthdays this year.  One in January, 1 in February and then on to October and December.

I actually love the tiles.  We found them at The Tile Store and there were 9 on a sheet.  I guess that means he can really make me 9 of them!  LOL  Actually he was going to work on a smaller scaled one for my mini glue gun.  Can't wait for that because if you own a mini one you know they tend to fall over ALL the time!

Now to come up with perfect cards for the 2 current birthdays.

I'll be back soon
HAPPY CARDING!