MINI SLIMLINE FANCY FOLD

 Quick easy and a MINI!!!  What could be better? I wanted to have another fancy fold option in mini form and there really aren't very many options out there for the mini slimline cards.  I always like the look of the stepper cards and thought they shouldn't be too hard to re-size.  Boy I was right.  Super easy once I figured out you can't just grab a piece of 6x6 piece of paper.  Duh what was I thinking?  That sure did make it super mini lol.  Anyway for those who make steppers, you know the process of assembly so all I'm really going to do here is give you the basics.  Like the base size and the cutting area.  Since it's a mini scraps of DSP can be used for the layers which is a double plus of this card.

Here's the template:

Your base card stock is 6" x 7".  Just follow scoring above and cutting line.  Then here are the 3 cards I made using this size.  They fit perfectly in those Dollar Tree envelopes.

Off to get more Halloween cards done before Halloween so see you next time.

Faux Stepper Card

 Hello!  It's time to jump into Christmas cards. We are jumping Easy Peasy so that you can whip out quite a few of these in mass production quickly.  I'm doing a Faux Stepper card today.  This one fits perfectly in your general envelopes because it measures  4.25" x 5.5" when folded.  Your personal message goes on the back.  If you are using colored card stock for the base of the card just make a small label piece to place on the back to write on.

To make this card you need the following:

(1)  solid cardstock  5.5" x 7" scored with 7" top of scoreboard at:   1 3/4,  3 1/2 & 5 1/4

(1)  solid cardstock  3 1/4" x 8 1/2" scored at 4 1/4

(2)  DSP  1 3/4" x 5 1/4"

(2)  DSP  1 3/4" x 1 3/4"

(1)  White cardstock for a label on back if it is needed.

(1) 3"x4" Christmas cut apart from 12 x 12 sheet for front

Score the 5.5 x 7 solid card stock and then add the 1 3/4 squares dsp to each end of first scored section.  Skip next section then in third section add one strip of 1 3/4 x 5 1/4 dsp. Accordion fold the piece and set aside.  Next fold 3.25 x 8.5 piece of solid card stock and adhere Cut- Apart to one side.  Glue this to the accordion fold piece centered as shown to the front with the 2 small squares on either side.  Glue the back to the last accordion fold back to complete card.

Basically, this is it.  Now time to embellish.  With the extra strip of dsp 1 3/4 x 5 1/4 glue this to the bottom back of the card.  Above that will be where you will put your message.  If using colored cardstock you will want to add a piece of white cardstock back here to write on.  Then on the front add embellies where you think they are needed.  Maybe some bling or flowers or even a holiday wish if one is not already on your cut-a-part.  As you can see I kept mine super simple with just 1 embellie.  I will sign my card on the back.

Thats it for now so until tomorrow.  Yep tomorrow!  I have catching up to do lol.

All Flowers can be Perfect

 Hello!  My apologies for this extremely late post.  Seems like this one got lost in my list.  I guess I wrote it, saved it and then skimmed over it to right the next one and then completely forgot about it and it just kept sliding further and further down the list.  Today as I was surfing through some of my old posts, I noticed this draft.  I could not believe how far down it had slipped.  So I thought what the heck, I'll share it anyway with you today.  It's a few months old but I hope you still enjoy it.

Alot of times we are told nothing is perfect.  Well that is not quite true when it comes to flowers.  A flowers has so many parts that there is always something perfect about it.  It could have a perfectly straight stem or the perfect curve to the stem.  The pedals may be a perfect shape or each one shaded just right.  Even when a few pedals are missing on a flower if you turn it just right it can still look perfect.  And so can be paper flowers made by an over anxious 7 year old! LOL

Over the weekend my granddaughter was dropped off while the parents went to have taxes done.  Of course she wanted to do a craft and with her drop off being at the spur of the moment I was not prepared.  So the quickest thing to do was suggest we needed some flowers for some tags I need to make later.  Well she was more than eager to help out.  She got out a couple punches and grabbed just a couple pieces of cardstock and punched away. Then it was time to assemble.  She did not want to take time for shaping so it was gather a couple and just glue them together to be fluffed later.  I thought she would like to use some foam dots too but after doing 1 she changed her mind and went back to the glue.  What is it with kids and their love of glue?

She made a few which we put aside for later use.  She was returning in a few days and I figured we would make a few gift tags then.  Here are her flowers.

Not too bad considering that she only had 2 hours here and she gathered all the punches and paper and punched the flowers first. They are a bit wonky. They were definitely flat as a pancake until I pulled up the pedals some.  She forgot the leaves but got to those later.  So at first glance, no not perfect but perfectly loved. Then I took a couple and made a few embellies for her to see how we can add them to a tag when we get to that project.

She had not seen the embellies until she returned on a different day. When she did return she was eager to sit down with the tags, flowers and embellie ideas and go to work making a few more embellies and then on to the tags.  She decided to package these up and give to her mom as a surprise gift.  What a sweetie.  She kept asking me to make flowers with her but she is very competitive.  If I made one better than hers she gets all sad and pouty claiming she can't do anything right and then gives up.  So to not have that happen I helped by cutting the sentiments and adding fishtails to some or cutting scraps into smaller squares to add to the embellishment.  Just so she saw me working on her project made her happy.

See her flowers turned out "Perfect".  Perfect because she made them.

Til next time..............................................

Crafting at the cabin TAG TIME

So Hello!  Another beautiful day at the cabin and another day of paper fun.  Remember earlier I did a post about those 12 x 12 sheets that are in pads of Designer Papers that we never really know what to do with?  They are the full sheet scene type sheet that are usually used for scrapbooks but we as card makers or in my case tag maker rarely have any use for those pages and usually end up just sticking them in a corner somewhere.  In that post I did the more country style Christmas tags in a hunter green, browns and brownish reds.  This time I'm going for other sheets that have even larger prints on them.  I'm talking sheets like these.

Well I learned something while trying to work with smaller paper pads for the kids' kits over the 4th of July and that was that I really do prefer to use these bigger 12x12 sheets that I would normally ignore for the tag backgrounds than use the smaller all over prints.  Why???  Because when you cut these sheets into the desired number of layers you need, each tag looks totally different.  In comparison, if you had cut out the layers for your tags from a typical all over print all tags would look identical.  So I took those 3 sheets, cut them into 6x6's for easy traveling and decided they were the next cabin project. You can already tell that the tags are all going to look different just by cutting these sheets into 6x6's.  

Along with brand new embellies to adorn these tags.  By brand new I mean brand new homemade lol.  I plan on using some embellies that I have pre-made at home from punches my granddaughter Claire has done for me.  She is such a great helper.  She is just turning 7 and absolutely loves anything crafty and when she saw all my punches laying around the dining room....well she just could not resist.  So I handed her a bunch of coordinating colors for the tags and set her up to punch away.  Here's what she gave me in one evening!  Yay for my Claire Bear!  So this collection of tags are all going to be done in BLUE.  I know.  You're thinking blue is not very traditional but we don't always have to have red and green for Christmas.  I think blue is a perfect winter color so those are the colors I gave Claire.    

Well we started out with Blues and silvers until she found the paper that had gold in it and then she wanted "Golden" stuff. LOL  So though it wasn't in my plan I let her punch some gold shimmer paper.  I'm sure I can squeeze it in somewhere.

So here we go!  I used 110# white card stock for the tag bases and cut various size tags.  I got quite a few 6X6 pieces out of those 3 sheets of 12x12 designer paper but I didn't want to go too crazy with the number of tags.  Plus I wanted to be able to use some more of those sheets to help establish the embellies.  Claire, being only 7, wasted quite a bit of useable paper while punching so I did end up turning her scraps into usable scraps and set them all on the side for a different project.  You already saw those scraps used on the small winter set I made for another niece -in-law.

So most of the embellies that I had made for my niece-in-laws tags were Blue/White & Silver so as I started putting together this set things looked too familiar to me.  I am not a creature of habit.  I do not like repeats and I like things to be a tad different so after laying all the embellies on top of the bases I had decided to wait until I got home to make a few that had a little pink an gold in them to add to the blues and silvers.  Feeling much better after making a few more embellies, these tags went together lickity split!  Mainly due to the fact that everything was all ready to go so all I had to do was lay out all the tag bases that I had already adhered the first layer of DSP on and start applying the embellies.  I think I like this system.  I might go get some containers and have them filled with embellies that  I pre make and then all I have to do is cart the containers and tag bases up to the cabin with me.  It's a thought.......though I don't usually follow through.  I tend to take the "Long road home" LOL    

So as you can see after I got home I got a bit crazy.  Basically because we ended up staying home longer than  I expected so I had way more time on my hands.  I was able to add some pink to my Blue tags and then as you can see add way more tags.  But thats ok I'm sure going to need them come Christmas.

Well that's it for now.  Til later........................