The Secret Garden

Greetings it’s Sue here from the Dies R Us design team with a quad-fold, garden pop-up card.

This card was inspired by some of the Tutti Designs garden dies. The card specifically uses Garden Trellis, Garden Fountain and Garden Bench Set.

I created a quad fold card base by taking two 10 x 7 inch heavy card bases and cut one into a 5 ½ x 7 inch piece and a 4 1/5 x 7 inch piece. The larger piece is scored and folded at ½ inch along long side to form a tab to glue behind the other card base that in scored and folded in the middle. This creates a tri-fold card. Cut rectangular apertures from each side large enough to fit the fountain and trellis dies. Apertures should match up when folded closed.

Now is a good time to use Distress Oxide inks and a blending brush to color the inside of the trifold card a sky blue.

Spritz lightly the 4 ½ x 7 inch piece of card base with water to make it more pliable and use a cobblestone embossing folder to create the textured “floor” of this card. Score and fold ½ inch along short side of piece. Paint or decorated the textured area before gluing tab to center back of tri-fold card.

Cut two fountains from white card stock and ink both sides of each piece using Distress Oxide inks and a blending brush. (Adding the beads is optional.) Using a needle and thread, string seed beads and then adhere with glue to fountain. Glue beaded fountain to front of card aperture, glue second fountain to inside of front aperture matching up with front fountain and hiding the threads of the beading. (My aperture was bigger than the fountain and trellis, so I used thin stirps of clear plastic that I cut form packaging to act as extensions for the bases and tops of the fountain and trellis so that I could glue them to the card base.)

Cut two trellises from white card stock and two from green paper. Cut out the ivy from the green pieces and glue to the white trellis pieces. (An alterative is to color the ivy with green markers on the white trellis.) Adhere one trellis to the second aperture on the card base and then glue the second trellis to the back of aperture matching up lattice work.

Cut a tree and leaves from the Karen Burniston Tree Pop-Up die set. Cut a number of strips of grass from green paper and glue in layers to the inside of card. Position the tree behind the bench on the center panel. (I had to cut a second trunk to make the tree taller.)  Glue down the tree then layers of grass. Decorate with birds cut from Karen Burniston’s Tiny Trees Pop-Up die set.

Cut two of the benches out of heavy brown card stock. Save the four strips that are waste from the die cutting of bench. Cut the top of bench back off one piece as shown. Snip the arm rest from the back of the same piece and trim off extra angled piece. Fold the cut back down to form seat of bench.

Fold down the cut arms. Take the wider of the saved four strips and fold in a rectangle that is 1/ 2 x 3/8 inches and glue ends together. Glue the bench seat to the whole bench piece which becomes the bench’s back. Glue the rectangles between the front curved bench legs and the back curved bench legs. Take one of the thin strips and cut in half. Fold each half into an “L” shape. Glue the “L”s under the fold arm rests and adhere “L” strip to the bench back.

Train the bench to fold up, before gluing on to card base. To glue the bench into the card. Add glue first to rectangle bottom strips and position the onto the card “floor” near the fold. Glue bench back on to center panel of card. Move the bench while glue is still wet for best positioning.

To add some activity to the card, I stamped and colored a Funky Fossil dog stamp I had with Distress Oxide – Rusty Hinge with a water brush. The ball was colored with markers and attached to the dog with a strip of clear plastic cut from some packaging. The dog was then attached to the cobblestone flap by cutting a strip of cardstock and folding into an “L” shape and gluing to back of dog and onto cobblestones.

I covered the fronts of the aperture panels and the back center panel with green patterned paper before adding sentiments.

Sentiments are foiled Spellbinders sentiments I had in my stash and a Riley & Co. sentiment that is stamped on white card stock scrap in green ink, fussy cut and adhered to the back of cobblestone panel.

Hope this fun card has provided some inspiration for your crafting. 😊

SUPPLIES Used from Dies R Us:

Other Supplies:

  • White and brown cardstock
  • Green paper
  • Patterned papers from Park Lane Paperie – Strawberry Patch
  • Clear plastic strips cut from packaging
  • Darice cobblestone embossing folder
  • Crayola Signature Brush & Detail Dual-ended Markers
  • Ranger – Distress Oxide – Mowed Lawn, Stormy Sky, Tumbled Glass, Rusty Hinge
  • Scissors
  • Needle and thread
  • Clear glass seed beads
  • Funky Fossil Designs – Clear stamps – More Furry Friends
  • Foiled sentiment strips from Spellbinders Glimmer System foils and plates
  • Riley & Company -inspirations – Find joy in the ordinary – INS-111
  • Stampin’Up Classic ink pad – Pear Pizzazz

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Thankful Wreath

I like making Thanksgiving Day cards for my family to let them know how thankful and blessed I feel to have them in my life.

This card was inspired by one that Nicky Gilburt made in Die-cutting Essentials, issue 81 using a hexagon base. I used a 3 ¼ inch circle die-cut base since I don’t own any hexagon dies and followed Nicky’s general instructions cutting apart the foliage corner die-cuts.

I colored the die-cuts with Distress oxide inks using sponge ink blender tools and a cotton swab for the tin acorn caps.

The thankful sentiment was die-cut three times (two orange and one yellow that was inked brown) and glued together with the top layer slightly off to have an orange shadow. (I find that using a fine tipped glue bottle really makes gluing tiny die-cuts easy.)

The top layer of large leaves, pumpkins and acorns were adhered with a variety of thickness foam squares and glue dots. The entire wreath is attached to the 5 x4 ¼ inch cardbase with thick foam squares. For the final elements, I used Nuvo drops for the red berries.

Inside an old LDRS autumn sentiment stamp was inked onto autumn leaves insert paper from the Sweater Weather foiled collection, Papercraft Essentials, issue 202.

To hint at what is inside the burnt orange envelope, I stamped the flap with a sentiment from this August’s Simply Cards & Papercraft, issue 220 and the pumpkin and leaves are from last year’s Simply Cards & Papercraft, issue 208 all in a brown ink from Memento.

Thank you for reading. If you enjoyed this blog post, please like it and follow the blog. 😊

Dies:

  • Autumn Wishes die set from Die-cutting Essentials, issue 81, September 2021

Stamps & Inks

  • Autumn Blessings from Simply Cards & Papercraft, issue 220, August 2021
  • Autumn Days from Simply Cards & Papercraft, issue 208, August 2020
  • LDRS Creative – Clear Stamps – Happy Fall Sentiments
  • Memento – Fade-Resistant Dye Ink Pad – Rich Cocoa
  • Ranger – Distress Oxides – Barn Door, Ground Espresso, Mowed lawn, Ripe persimmon, Rusty Hinge

Papers

  • Yellow and Orange cardstock from my stash
  • Insert paper from Sweater Weather foiled collection, Papercraft Essentials, issue 202, August 2021
  • A2 burnt orange envelope from Taylored Expressions

Additional Supplies:

  • Nuvo Vintage Drops – Postbox Red

Split Seas Slider

Life gets rough and choppy sometimes and life isn’t always smooth sailing. Sometimes our friends need to be encouraged to take a chance and try something new. This interactive card is for those times.

This card is the first of a series to use my Ully Cat Designs’ Split-Slider Slimline template.

Split-Slider: Print split-slider template (download under Materials Used) onto bright blue lightweight cardstock and then cut out the top panel and slider arm around the outer red cutting lines. (Note: The printed side of the cardstock will be the back of the panel and when assembled will not be seen.) Using a craft knife and a metal ruler, cut the top panel’s eight mini-easels on the red lines. Next, using a scoring tool, score the green and blue fold lines – green being valley folds and blue mountain folds.

Because the top panel is adhered on three sides to the card base and needs to be raised the thickness of the lightweight cardstock slider arm, place two layers of double-sided tape on the long sides and bottom of the panel making sure not to cover the red lines of the easels. A single layer of double-sided tape should be placed on each of the narrow tabs of the eight mini-easels. (If you are using tape that is wider than the tabs, trim off excess.)

To adhere the slider arm to the mini -easel tabs, first, using low-tack tape, tape the front side of the easels shut. (This will ensure that the easels are adhered to the slider arm in the shut/flat position.) Position the slider arm over the back of the panel, making sure there is at least an 1/8 inch/3 mm gap between the tape along the panel edges and the slider arm. Hold the slider arm in place and remove the backing tape on the lowest easel and adhere to the slider panel. Repeat removing tape backing and adhering each easel. Once slider arm is attached to easels, turn over and remove low-tack tape. Test the slider. You may have to help fold the easels into the fully opened position the first time to train them. Once satisfied with the slider/easels’ movement, remove panel backing tape paper and adhere to card base.

Decorating the Easels: For my die-cut lighthouse and boats, I used Distress Oxides and Inks to color the lighthouse and boat flags, a black gel pen for windows and a silver gel pen to color the anchor. The lightkeeper’s house is cut from a pattern paper and colored with pencil for the grey stone. The blue and white layered sea waves are cut freehand as is the rocky land masses for the three easels around the lighthouse. Make sure you don’t glue anything that will impede the easels from moving. (Note the 2nd & 4th waves on my card have been trimmed to allow the easel in front to operate.)

The gold heat embossed compass on the pull-tab of the slider arm, was stamped on a separate peace of cardstock, embossed and them fussy cut. The compass adds sturdiness to the pull-tab. (Depending on the thickness of your cardstock, you may want to add another circle on the bottom of the pull-tab as well.)

The “SEAS the Day” sentiment is attached with foam squares between two easels and is not adhered to any moving parts.

Inside Decorations: You can decorate as you would normally inside the card. Because of the dark card base, I used paper that looks like an old ship’s log, to stamp the inside sentiments “Enjoy life’s journal” and “We cannot control the wind, but we can direct the sails.”

The back flap of the envelope was stamped with a Sara Davies Nautical Collection sentiment “Adventure awaits” to hint at the enclosed card is about.

I enclose a slip of paper with instructions on how to open the card. (See split slider CRX sheet download below.)

Thank you for reading this blog post. Please like and leave comments 😊

Split-Slider Slimline Template Series:

Day 1 – Split Sea Slider

Day 2 – Cloud Dreams

Day 3 – Triple Hearts

Day 4 – A Valentine for A Baseball Fan

Materials Used:

Please note that this template is copyrighted, and Ully Cat Designs must be cited if you publish a card made using it.

Dies

Stamps

Inks/Embossing Powders

Papers

Miscellaneous

© 2021 Sue Small-Kreider/Ully Cat Designs

Elephants Remember

White elephants can be seen as special creatures in some cultures. This white elephant card was made to cheer up a friend going through some difficult times.

I was trying for a rich and silky effect by doing a blend of sunrise colors over a cut and embossed background that was then gone over with a Cosmic Shimmer Opal Blaze Polish to make it shimmer. The card base is made from shimmer paper as well.

The elephant’s headpiece and covering also have some of the opal blaze polish. The leafy heart die cut was adhered with foam squares to the embossed layer, and the elephant glued to the leaves.

The foiled sentiment was one that I had made previously in a foiling session. It is adhered with foam squares.

Sequins finish the decorations.

Althrough not pictured, I stamped the back envelope flap with “sending you love and Kindness” from a Hero Arts using an ombre ink pad.

Thank you for reading this blog post. Please like and leave a comment. 😊

Materials Used:

Embossing Folder

Dies

Stamps

Ink/Polishes

Papers

Dies/Foiling Plates

Miscellaneous