Hearts and Flourishes Anniversary Card

(inside:  Best wishes today & always!)

This CAS card features a die cut that was adapted from the cut file called “5×5 Hearts Flourish Card (design #116160)” by Daniela Angelova which I purchased from the Silhouette store.

The panel was cut from champagne shimmer card stock from the Recollections and was paired with gray and ivory both from the Recollections Coffee and Cream heavy weight card stock pack.

The greeting is from the Gina K Designs “The Wetlands” stamp set and was heat embossed with versamark ink and Recollections silver embossing powder.

You can see the greeting better with a little less light:

Thanks for checking out my card project!

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Perfect Together Anniversary Slider Card

This interactive card has a cute couple inside that comes together for a kiss and hug when the card is opened  I made this card for my husband for our 30th wedding anniversary.

I had seen a card with a similar sliding element online a while ago and searched high and low for a video tutorial on how to make one.  I finally found one, but there seemed to be an error with the measurements because the pieces did not fit properly and the card would not open all the way.  (Maybe it was me!)  Anyway, I took the general concepts from the video and got to work trying to figure it out.  After going through quite a bit of paper, I came up with something that finally worked for me.  (HERE is a tutorial on how I made mine.)

The man and woman die cuts were adapted from an image I found online that I “traced” and cut with my Silhouette software and die cutting machine.  I cut several of each and layered them to make them thicker.

The black die cut frame on the card front was made with a silhouette file called “you and me” by Rhonna Farrer (design id #173722) that I purchased in the Silhouette store.  The file contains the words, and I sized and welded it to the frame I created.  The Love Word paper is by The Paper Studio.  I covered it with a piece of vellum so it wasn’t so dark and busy behind my die cut frame.  The “perfect together” on the inside was also created and cut with my silhouette.

The anniversary stamp was from the “Lacy Borders” set from Gina K Designs.

Thanks for checking out my card project!

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Once Upon A Time Anniversary Card

I recently posted Peek-A-Boo graduation cards for my kids, and here is another one I made for my parents’ 55th wedding anniversary.  When you open the card, the wedding day image from the front “transforms” into a photo of my mom and dad now.

I used Gina K Lovely Lavender and white card stock along with “Fancy Swirl Foiled – Silver” card stock from The Paper Studio.  The sentiment (inside and front) was computer generated.  To create the frames and openings, I used a die from the Spellbinders “Artist Trading Cards” set (S3-208) and a We R Memory Keepers Frame Punch Board.

There is lots of shine on this card!

HERE is a video tutorial from You Tube that shows how to create this type of card.

Thanks for checking out my card project!

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“I Do” Wedding Box Card (take 2…and 3!)

(inside: Wishing you a beautiful life together)

I can be very stubborn and don’t give up easily on an idea that I am not thrilled with, even when it would be so much easier to just start over!  I thought I was done with the wedding box card I posted yesterday, but I ended up back in my craft room last night, (still trying to design a card base to hold it) and this morning (trying to improve on the stand-alone box card design – that I show towards the end of this post and have since added to yesterday’s post).  Sorry for the long post; it’s been a long few days!

First, the card base design…

The first challenge was to make my new card base work with the “monochromatic-ness” of the piece I created yesterday.  I know I said I was determined to stick with one color, but it just wasn’t working for me with so much card around it.  Maybe next time!  I ended up using Karen Foster’s two-sided “Congratulations” card stock, more from the Recollections “Shimmer Champagne and Silver” pack, and some Gina K charcoal brown (for the front).

The second issue that needed to be addressed:  the whole box card portion shifts to the right when it is folded flat but shifts to the left when it opens which created a problem with making it fit (when closed) but also making it “appear” centered (when opened). After much playing around, I ended up making a gatefold card base with uneven front flaps.  The left flap is wider to compensate for the extra space created on the right when the box card portion opens and shifts to the left.  (It’s not perfect, but it’s better than when my side flaps were the same size.)

I un-attached the front flap (of the box card) that I had tacked down yesterday, lined the top and bottom with some of the congratulations card stock (it was sticky without it!) and added a panel for my sentiment and signature.  The stamp used is from the Gina K Designs “A Beautiful Life” set and was stamped with Stampin’ Up Early Espresso ink.

I originally wanted to center my greeting panel on the card front by attaching it directly to the left panel, but you could see some of the back of it hanging over the left side when the card was opened, and I wasn’t happy with the way that looked.  So I ended up adding the greeting panel to a belly band that slides on and off the card which worked out well because the thick card did not want to stay closed without it!  The stamp is by Hampton Arts (no name on it) and was stamped with Early Espresso ink.

Just for fun, I decided to try adding a battery operated tealight under the box card portion….

While not exactly what I was going for, I could live with this base design which works with the skinny box structure.

Once I finished with this card, I got to work re-doing the actual box card.  I changed the dimensions and added some patterned paper to spruce it up a bit.  Here’s my new design:

I used all the same materials and elements that I used on yesterday’s card, but I needed to add a few additional things since the box was bigger.  I needed an extra “row” inside my box so I added a scrap of a die-cut that looked like it could be flowers, grass, etc.  (It is actually part of a tree die cut that I had planned to put behind the gazebo, but it was much too busy.)  I also added the love die cuts on both side flaps (made with my Fiskars Teresa Collins Love Punch); they just needed a little something.  The Karen Foster’s “Congratulations” card stock added a bit of interest while still keeping the card monochromatic – sort of!  (The sentiment is under the front flap as it was on the original card.)  I like this soooo much better as a stand-alone design!

Thanks for checking out my card projects…again!

“I Do” Wedding Box Card (with photo of new card design added)

You’ll see as you read further, that I was not happy with the dimensions of the “finished” design that I originally posted.  After posting that version of the card, I went back and reworked the design, and I’ve amended this post to include the “new finished” card (above).

Here’s the version I thought was my finished card at the end of day 1 (and the card I originally posted for this post):

This version is still quite different from my original idea!

When I first sat down to make a wedding card, I knew I wanted to try a white on white, monochromatic card.  I’ve tried this on several occasions in the past and always ended up adding another color.   I was determined to stick with one color this time, and that’s about all that was left from my original idea for this initial version!

My first thought was to attach a few wedding themed die cuts to an embossed card front.  In order to help my die cut layers stand out from one another, I cut them several times and stacked/glued them together creating chipboard-like cuts.  They were so sturdy that I started thinking that they could very easily stand on their own and then tried to create a z-fold card inspired by this sample I found online:

Isn’t it just the cutest?!  Anyway, I created my pop-up mechanism (similar to the crib above with the three parallel panels but made with very short, plain strips instead) and attached the gazebo and the bride and groom die cuts to it.  (I planned to use the heart on the front when the card was closed.)  The problem was that I wanted my inner pop-up pieces to be completely hidden when my card was closed, and I just couldn’t figure out how to make that work with this z-fold type card base and the size of my pop-up structure.

So my next thought was to use my pop-up mechanism to create a box card.  It ended up skinnier than most box cards (because it was supposed to be in the z-fold!), and it also became super tall when I decided to put the heart on the front flap.

I was not quite ready to give up on the z-fold design, so I glued the flaps down (mistake?!) and wasted quite a bit more paper and time trying to come up with a card base that would work with my box card.  No luck so I finally decided to leave it a “skinny” box card and call it a day.  (It’s the weird size that is still bugging me.  Sigh…..)

The card stock was from the Recollections “Shimmer Champagne and Silver” pack.  I embossed the background panels with the Sizzix/Stampin’ Up “Stripes” embossing folder.  I used the “Gazebo” d-lites die from Spellbinders, the “Hollowout Heart” die from Whitelotous, and the “Bride and Groom” die from Otgo.

There is space on the back for a message to the bride and groom.  This card folds flat for mailing, and when folded, it measures about 7.75×4.5 inches.  I created a custom envelope for this card, but it would have fit (with extra room) into an A9 (5.75 x 8.75 inches) envelope.

Thanks for checking out my card project!

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