A wet snowy night for Christmas Eve and Santa and his reindeer are feeling a bit blue with the weather, but whoever receives this card will be cheerfully surprised when Santa pops-up.
This is a slimline card version of a non-traditional color scheme Santa scene that I used on another project that will be unveiled during the sneak peak week of Karen Burniston’s December 2022 release.
To create the the inside pop-up scene, I used four of Karen Burniston’s previously released die sets – Sleigh Pop-Up, Christmas Animals and Gnome and Santa. I had to reverse the direction of the sleigh to make it work with the reindeer dies. The reindeer are each made up of two die cuts that are glued together at their antlers and have the face colored on the front side only, but with narrow strips of cardstock forming “U” shaped bases for the feet to be glued onto. Blue and white baker’s twine is glued on to the reindeer for the harness and reins.
The front sentiment and pine branches are all by Karen Burniston. The tiny bows are from the sleigh die set while the pine branch is from the Holiday Charms set.
Velvety flocked paper lines the inside of the card with crisp white snowflakes (from holiday charms and sleigh die sets) and a fancy edged label for a personal message finish the inside scene.
As per my usual, I like the back of the envelope to hint at what is to come. The stamps are by Paper Discovery.
This is a card for the vintage train lover in your family. It has a steampunk meets art deco vibe.
Using a new die set by Anna Griffin, the Antique Train Slimeline Easel Dies, it came together quickly using just two types of cardstock, one sentiment die, a fine-tipped permanent marker and some gold glitter drops.
The die set cuts the easel base and the shadow outline of the train as two separate dies. I used a double-sided 180gsm weight cardstock from metal textures collection by Craft Consortium for these two pieces. The train is cut from Hunkydory’s oxidized metals collection of 220gsm mirror cardstock. Using the fine-tipped permanent marker to color the roofs and stacks of the mirror card train, I found I could also color a scrap of the mirror card and then cut the wheels and cow-catcher grate for added dimension.
After gluing the train to the gray shadow piece, I filled-in much of the void spaces on the train with the marker. With the train flat, I used some gold glitter glue or drops to create the wheel center caps.
The sentiment was cut three time – one in mirror cardstock and twice from thick black cardstock. The three layers were glued together and the words “Happy” and “Day” were colored with the black permanent marker.
To assemble the card, the easel base was folded on its score lines and glue placed on the long thin tab. The shadow backed train was then positioned over the card base centering the train within the card base’s outline. Pressure was applied to the tab to adhere the train back to the easel. The sentiment was glued on to the inside of the card once the position was established to have it hold the train in its open easel position.
The card fits into a #10 business envelope which has been stamped with VersaMark watermark ink using a bowler hat and sentiment “Hat’s off to you” stamps from Colorado Craft Company.
Thank you for reading this blog post. Please like and leave comments 😊
Valentine’s Day is coming and a handmade card in masculine colors with a bit of stitching and soft bling, maybe just the thing for your loved one.
In playing around with the Spellbinder’s Layered Stitched Background dies, I realized that if put side-by-side, two of the backgrounds would fit on a slimline card for a #10 business envelope which would go well for the masculine card I needed to make for Valentine’s Day. The card is to be attached atop a chocolate bar.
I had enough large scraps of pearlescent coordinating green cardstock and a pale celery green textured paper to cut two each of the layers. (I saved all the out-cut pieces and tiny dots to use in other cards.) The card base is a brown flowery patterned cardstock with a white back cut into a 6 ½ inch x 9-inches rectangle, scored and folded in half.
The stitching was done with three strands of brown embroidery floss. Using clear tape on the backside to adhere the thread tails to the card.
A fine tipped glue bottle is the easiest way to apply glue to the fine lines of the top two layers of the die-cuts. (I cut the thicker, middle layer from the lightest color to add contrast to the two other shades of green and to make the medium green fine line detail pop.) Once the lattice layers were glued together it was easy to adhere them to the stitched layer.
Hot foiling the inside of the card needed to be done before the stitched panels could be adhered to the card base. Spellbinders calls their hot foiling system glimmering. (Here are two videos explaining the hot foiling process – Jennifer McGuire and Yana Smakula) I have found their Quick Trimmer to be much easier to cut the foil with than scissors. I usually do a batch of hot foiling when I get out the Glimmer Hot Foil System heating plate and my die-cutting machine as it takes time to heat-up and cool-down. (I use a die-cutting machine that can take an 8 1/2 x 11 inches sheet of paper but the system can use a smaller 6-inch wide machine too.)
I did some small sentiments first on scraps of the green cardstock and a piece of cream cardstock using scraps of different foils. Some worked well, but some had issues. (I do these as practice runs as I only had one shot at the card inside.) I positioned my foiling plates and rose blush foil on the inside of my card and taped them down using low tack tape. (The plates moved slightly when I ran them through the die-cutting machine and made the sentiments a bit wonky. I should have taped both sides of the plates down.) A sand eraser is good for removing errant foil bits but be careful when using white corded cardstock as the eraser will wear away the color to white.
Once the foiling was completed, the stitched card layers were glued to the front of the card base.
The front sentiments “FROM ME TO YOU” (in Speckled Aura foil on cream cardstock) and “XOXO” (in Aura foil on dark green cardstock) are glued to other scraps to give them some firmer stability before being adhered to the card front with foam squares. Ten gold sequins were added to the tops of the stitching and where the lattice frames meet for a bit of sparkle.
A gold heart rub-on transfer was added to the back of the brown envelope. A chocolate bar will be bundled under the card-stuffed envelope and tied with a white ribbon for presentation.
Cards for tiered birthdays (as in 29 again and again) can be fun to make when you add in a pop-up element like a third tiny cupcake.
This card was inspired by the Karen Burniston Mission Poppable for August 2021 to use her Parcel Pop-Up die set. In addition to that die set, I used her Cupcake Pop-Up, the sentiments of “You’re Sweet” and “Happy Birthday,” and the candle from the Cake Pop-Up.
The double side paper is from Echo Park which is an older set designed by Lori Whitlock called Happiness is Homemade. Because the heavy cardstock is double-sided, it cut down on heavy layers of decorative papers.
I assembled the parcel pop-up as shown in Karen’s assembly video But I did not put on the decorative square front panel or flap. I also used a longer strip as the pop-up arm so that it would be tall enough to be seen behind the cupcake pop-up which was cut from a scrap piece of card stock and cut with tabs at the top and bottom to attached to card base and the parcel mechanism front.
The sentiments are cut once from pink glitter cardstock and once from glossy white paper (backside of some packaging). The white is just slightly seen so that the red on red stands out on the “You’re Sweet.” I used a topper from the paper set that had an oval design and the used an oval die to cut it out to frame the cupcake.
Because the card is a slimline size card to fit in a No. 10 business envelope, I needed a large white paper doily to fill the bottom half of the card and allow for a space to write a personal message.
The back of the envelope is stamped with a watermelon colored ink using a cupcake and “Made with love” stamps from Simply Made Crafts.
Thank you for reading. If you enjoyed this blog post, please like it and follow the blog. 😊
Hello, it’s Sue from the Dies R Us design team and today we are making a slimline pop-up Halloween card.
You will need:
One lightweight white cardstock 8 3/4 inches x 3 7/8 inches
One lightweight white cardstock 9 inches x 3 7/8 inches scored and folded 1/4 inch from top
Two black spider web paper 8 3/4 inches x 3 7/8 inches
Two orange leaf paper 8 1/4 inches x 3 7/16 inches
One orange leaf paper8 3/4 inches x 3 7/8 inches
Two 1 1/2-inch circles
Cut from House & Fence Pop-Up set
One green patterned cardstock platform
Two black fences coated with clear gloss
Two path stones from gray or black inked with white
Cut from Holiday House Set
Two houses complete houses including roof, trim, windows and door(I cut the door from a skeleton paper. The orange and red papers had a shiny coating on them.)
Cut from Tree Pop-Up Set
Two trees from gray paper
One set of oak leaves from orange sparkle paper
Cut from Halloween Charms set
One Happy Halloween from black paper
Three blacks from Happy Halloween oval in black
Two spiders from black and use die stencils and white gel pen to ink in face
Cut from Winter Charms set
One large fir tree
One small fir tree
Save trimmed strips for additional decorations
Do a practice layout before adhering pieces to front panel (I decided I didn’t want the windows boarded up if the skeletons lived there.)
Use strong red double-sided tape on the platform tabs and on the top tab of longest white card base piece. See photo for exact location of tape. Adhere the longest card base to shorter base. The tab will be on the card back.
Use Scor-tape on the decorative paper panels, placing in one the backside of panel on all edges. To make the panels easier to position, peel back tape at all corners and fold backing paper so the tails stick out from edges as shown in the photos. Once positioned where you want press down corners and then peel off backing paper on each side and press don to adhere.
Once all layers of decorative papers have been adhered to cover all four sides of card base, place the platform on the bottom inside of card with taped edges just below the case base fold as shown in photo. Hold center tab down and peel off tape from it and the two platform tabs. Fold down card base top and adhere base to it. Fold down front tab of platform to desired position. Peel backing off tape and adhere to base. Platform should pop up when card is opened. Fold the two strips cut with platform die and glue into slots as shown in photo.
You can now decorate the card. Assemble houses as shown on packaging. Glue trees to inside top panel before gluing house to pop-up piece on platform. Glue fir trees to strips on platform. One of the orange circles is glued behind the Happy Halloween sentiment on the front. Trim fence to fit the edge of platform and bend back one section to be a gate. Trim off the gate’s “foot” as it will be a catching point when the card is opened and closed. It is easier to glue down the stone path before gluing on the fence.
The finished card will fit into a #10 business envelope. (I stamped the back of my envelope with a dancing skeleton.)
Hope this fun card has put a smile on your face and provided some inspiration for your crafting. 😊
Papers from Stampin’ Up, Martha Stewart Crafts, American Crafts, Craftsmart
#10 Business envelope – kraft paper
Memento Tuxedo Black ink pad
Dancing skeleton stamp from Riley & Company
Don’t forget to come join in the fun at the Dies R Us Challenge Blog. There’s a new challenge theme offered on the 1st and 15th of each month and one lucky randomly drawn winner will receive a gift voucher prize to the Dies R Us Store.
For your convenience, all the important Dies R Us links are provided below.
One circle the size of the castle from green card stock
One circle at least a half inch larger all round the size of the castle from blue paper
There are two ways to create the card base – one using two single side flaps in the center of the card acting as the hinge with the top black 9 x 4 piece, and the second way using a single piece folded to form the 9x 4 card base. (I will be showing the first way in photos.) Glue top-flaps to short sides of the green card base. With these flaps closed, glue the two side flaps to the center of card base. Glue the final top-fold flap to front side of the two center flaps.
Castle – Lightly ink the embossed tower and wall pieces with a grey or black Distress Ink. Folded the six score lines on the castle piece.
Adhere all decorative pieces to front and back of castle piece except for back/inside short wall and back/inside drawbridge tower pieces. (You will adhere these pieces once the castle is installed to card base so they can cover over the green and twine pieces.)
Glue tab to undecorated side of castle to form a six-side circle.
Fold both the green circle and the blue circle in half and cut along fold. Glue one half of blue circle to center of the center flaps along the center fold. Adhere the other side of blue circle to other side of fold allowing a small gap along the fold so that the card can open easily. Center the green circle pieces over the blue circle and tape the green circle at sides using removable tape. Using the pop-up die with the nubs, center the nubs over the fold or gap on the green circle and tape. Move the taped green circle with die taped to it to die cutting machine. Remove all the tape from the die and green circle after cutting. Fold up the cut tabs in the circle. Glue the green circle on to the blue circle with the tabs up.
Match the drawbridge tab to the inside of the castle and glue in place with the door/bridge open. Thread twine through top holes in tower. Adhere the solid tab to the inside of castle opposite of drawbridge opening. Glue brown door to top of drawbridge matching up holes. Thread twine through drawbridge holes and glue to underside of bridge and then adhere bridge open to blue circle. Glue remaining decorative pieces to inside of castle to hide the green tabs and twine.
From scrap green cardstock cut rectangles to hide the blue showing from where tabs fold up. (An alternative would be to cut circle slightly smaller than the green circle of a thin paper that would mimic grass or stone of a castle floor to cover the holes.)
(If your tallest tower hangs out when the card is closed, you can trim the tower some and reglue the flag. I decided that I could live with the hint of the flag showing.)
Knight, Princess and Dragon – Assemble figures following package directions. To attach the figures and trees to the card, first glue any decorative background papers to the back of the three flaps. Layout the position of the figures and trees with angles platforms making sure none of the figures will show when the card is closed. Adhere the figures to platforms and then to the card base following the die package instructions.
Card Front – Adhere a starry night paper panel to black front card base and the other piece to the back side of card base hiding the flaps’ tabs. With card closed, glue black side of front panel to center flaps.
Secure the inside of black panel to card base with washi tape. Glue “ing” to “wish” to form the word “wishing.” Adhere sentiments to front of card.
A personal message can be added above and below the castle.
The finished card will fit into a #10 business envelope.
Hope this pop-up card has put a smile on your face and provided some inspiration for your crafting. 😊
Patterned papers, pearlescent and solid colored cardstock
Gold and red foiled paper
#10 Business envelope
Washi tape – grass pattern
Don’t forget to come join in the fun at the Dies R Us Challenge Blog. There’s a new challenge theme offered on the 1st and 15th of each month and one lucky randomly drawn winner will receive a gift voucher prize to the Dies R Us Store.
For your convenience, all the important Dies R Us links are provided below.
Mothers and daughters can be so alike and yet not see it. Here are two cards made for a woman who has recently received a job promotion and a birthday card for her 13-year-old daughter.
Both cards are made using a Studio Light stamp and die set designed by Karin Joan called Betty. It is much like creating paper dolls. The main head and shoulders die cuts four individual pieces -head, 2 ears and the neck and shoulders. I laid out the position of the hair, ears, facial features stamps as well as the jewelry stamps before I did anything else. Next, I stamped and heat embossed the facial features.
The three hair dies can be combined in a multitude of ways to create different looks. Both the mother and daughter cards use the back full hair piece placed at different heights to create long or short hair. The front bangs pieces are different. The daughter’s hair is accentuated by a large bow.
The set comes with several collar line options. I have used the V-neck for the mother and the off-the-shoulder cut for the daughter. For jewelry on the mother, I’ve used a flower hair pin stamp for the earrings (stamped and heat embossed before the head was glued over the hair) and the heart and chain stamps for the necklace.
For the sentiment on the mother’s card, I used the sentiment stamp included in the Betty set to stamp and heat emboss the “She believed she could, so she did!” and die-cut the “Happy Birthday.” (The words on the stamp “so she did!” are so fine, I found that they didn’t heat emboss well, so I stamped that line in black ink and then cut it out and glued over the blurred embossed one.) Next the sentiment was die-cut using a scalloped stitched rectangle from Tutti Designs. For the daughter’s card, a Poppy Stamps “Happy Birthday” die was used.
Both cards used layered mats of printed papers on both the front and back covers. Inside the cards have been left blank for personal messages.
Thank you for reading. If you enjoyed this blog post, please like it and follow the blog. 😊
“Beautiful things come together one stitch at a time,” is the sentiment of this friendship card made with a new Lou Collins Text{ures} die and stamps along with some vintage stamps and heart die.
The Fabric Edging Die Set has a die that cuts a course woven strip of hessian or burlap which I used as the base for weaving embroidery floss in bright rainbow colors for the flaps of this asymmetrical-gatefold slimline card. Once the weaving was completed, I covered the back of the weaving with white cardstock cut ½ inch longer than the woven panel to use as a tab to glue to the 8 ½ inches x 4 inches rectangular card base.
For the lacy heart, two hearts were cut using the lace heart die by Moda Scrap of Elizabeth Craft Designs. Each heart is folded in half and the lacy side covered in Persian Red Nuvo Embellishment Mousse.
The solid part of the folded heart is glued to the inside of the flaps lining up the tips of the heart halves to make a whole heart when card is closed.
Before gluing the flaps to the card base, I stamped, and heat embossed the two sentiments in black detail embossing powder.
On the front of the card are three stamped and watercolored buttons from the Fun Stampers Journey Button Bliss set.
The envelope back is stamped with another sentiment from the same stamp set in a dark blue ink.
Hope you enjoyed this quick card. If so, please comment and like and follow this blog. 😊
Hi, it’s Sue here from the Dies R Us Design Team with an interactive Father’s Day card.
This card is made with Karen Burniston dies focusing on the Tiny Trees Pop-Up in a 3 3/4 inch x 8 3/4 inch card base. (I used a thin white card base cut 8 3/4 inch by 7 1 /2 inch folded in half and covered with four panels of 3 3/4 inch x 8 3/4 inch decorative papers.)
Cut the number of trees you plan to use and assemble using the packaging directions. Decide on placement of trees based on where they will be in the folder position. (For slimline cards the trees must be place on the center fold rather than using the offset piece which allows for trees to be added off the center card fold.) Glue down tree frames and wait until glue has set to attach trees.
Die-cut four bears (Winter Animals) stenciling through the die with a black fine tip pen the eyes, nose and mouth. Run the stenciled bears back through the machine with the embossing mat and plate for your die-cutting machine to emboss the face and bottom feet. To make a baby bear, cut the bear just below its paws and then slide the bottom piece up under the arms and trim off excess edges. Glue together. The baseball caps are made by die-cutting the engineer’s cap from the Tiny Accessories 3 die set and rounding off the puffy crown and bill of the cap. (I tried to make the logo of the recipient’s favorite baseball team on the caps.) The fishing poles are described below. Drops of Glossy Accents were added to the bears’ eyes and nose to made them standout on the dark brown cardstock.
The stream is made with a long scrap of shiny spray painted paper in blue, gold and silver that was die-cut several times using the hill die from the Long Nature Edges die set. These wavey pieces were then glued to a strip of blue cardstock and fish cut from the Camping Charms die set, were added to the stream flow. The same fish were embossed, and their eyes stenciled in black ink and then glued to a piece of string or cording which was glued to the stick charm from the same die set. The rings were all cut off of the charms.
To make the bears stand under the trees inside, a small strip of green cardstock was cut and scored to form a cube. The cube is glued to both the card base and the tree frame and then the bear is glued to the font of the cube.
Decorations to the card include one tree front with leaves and three birds cut using the dies from the Tiny Trees set, two apples from the Tree Fruit set, and a white blanket from the Picnic Elements set. The blanket could be used to write a personal message on.
The “Happy Father’s Day” was cut three times from thin cardstock using Karen Burniston’s Alphabet dies. The layers were glued together and then glued to the front of the card using a T-ruler to keep the letters in a straight alignment.
Hope this fun card has provided some inspiration for your crafting. 😊
Trees and sky printed paper from Die-Cutting Essentials issue 32
Colored and shimmer cardstock scraps
Ranger Glossy Accents
Natural colored cording
Black fine tipped pen
Stampin’ Up – Early Espresso ink pad
Stampin’ Up Best Catch stamp set
Neenah Social –No. 10 envelope – Natural kraft
Don’t forget to come join in the fun at the Dies R Us Challenge Blog. There’s a new challenge theme offered on the 1st and 15th of each month and one lucky randomly drawn winner will receive a gift voucher prize to the Dies R Us Store.
For your convenience, all the important Dies R Us links are provided below.
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