Theater Fold Meerkat Birthday Card with Video

Hello and welcome! Today I’ve made an interactive card featuring Meerkats on the Lookout from Gerda Steiner Designs.  I don’t usually make Halloween cards but wanted to do a fall colours card so this is what I came up with.  

I’ve made a video of how to construct this card and it’s probably the easiest way to figure it out.  If you would like to see the video in HD, PLEASE CLICK HERE.

Here’s a list of the pieces of cardstock used and a diagram of where to crease the curtains.

I started by assembling the front first.  I die cut a rectangle from two of the white 4 1/4 x 5 1/2” pieces of cardstock as well as a black piece and then glued these together.  I cut a notch out of the side edges, using a small circle die and partial cutting.  I white heat embossed the sentiment and added the three dots with a white gel pen.  I folded and creased the two sleeve pieces so they fit along the side edges and glued them in place on the back, making sure they weren’t too tight.  I trimmed the sleeves around the notches so it would be easier to grasp the curtains.

For the back and curtains, I ink blended using Distress Oxide inks in Mustard Seed, Spiced Marmalade, Ripe Persimmon, and Candied Apple.  I used a die from Find IT Media called Amy Designs Wild Animals Outback, and partially die cut this from black cardstock to fit along the lengths of all 3 pieces of cardstock.  

I trimmed the two curtains just slightly along the 5 1/2” edge so they would slide more easily through the sleeves on the front.  Then I creased and folded the curtains at 2 3/4” and 4 1/8” for the left curtain, and at 1 3/8” and 2 3/4” for the right one.  Finally, I glued the black die-cut silhouette pieces to the curtains and back and creased along the fold lines.  

I used glue to attach the curtains to the back piece, being careful to only apply glue to the first folded area on the curtains and to try to keep the center fold of the curtains together. Really, the glued area of the curtains should line up along the side edges of the back, but I found it more important for the folded curtains to match in the center. 

I cut a second platform piece from black cardstock and glued the two pieces together.  I cut slits in both curtains at the same distance, wide enough for the platform piece to pull through.  I made stoppers by using pieces of narrow scrap cardstock and gluing these to the ends of the platform so it couldn’t pull through.  Next, I stamped the inside sentiment and clear heat embossed it.

To assemble the card, slide the left curtain through the sleeve on the back of the front piece, and the right curtain through the other sleeve.  I added pull tabs to the curtains by folding a small strip of black cardstock and used the same circle die to cut them out.  Now all that’s left is to just add your images.  Oh, and to play repeatedly with opening and closing the curtains!  Thanks for stopping by and I hope you’re having a great day!

Z Fold Merry Wishes Christmas Card

 Hello and welcome! I’ve got a Z fold Christmas card to share with you today, that features the Merry Wishes stamp set from My Favorite Things. This is an adorable stamp set! 

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I started by cutting my card base from navy blue cardstock (dimensions are 4 1/4” x 11” long).  I creased this at the 5 1/2” mark to make a regular A2 size card.  Then I creased the left hand side again at the halfway mark or 2 1/8”. I splattered the sky with some gold and silver paint and let it dry. 

Next, I die cut a snowbank by using Lawn Fawn border dies and doing some partial die cutting to extend the length so that the snow bank would extend fully across the scene.  The height on mine extends about a third of the way up the background.  I creased this the same way I had done the card base, and then adhered it with glue to the card base, leaving the top border free of glue to later insert my figures.   I cut a second snowbank  in the same way to use along the bottom border.  I creased this one at the 5 1/2” mark, and again at the 7 5/8” mark on the right and then creased and folded this in the opposite direction from the base.  This snowbank only extends about a quarter of the way up the background to allow the snowbank behind to be seen.  I also used a Lawn Fawn stitched heart die to add some detail to the snowbank.  

I adhered the second snowbank by glueing it to the short left hand card base and also on the short right hand side of the snowbank.  

The white trees were cut from white cardstock using the Alpine Trees from Memory Box and then inserted and glued in place just below the left hand snowbank.  The Merry Christmas die is one I had in my stash, and I cut it from a red glitter cardstock, and glued it to the snowbank on the left.

I stamped all my images with Copic friendly ink, and then coloured them in with Copic markers. After fussy cutting them out, I arranged them on my card base.  I wanted it to be a surprise when the card was opened and the whole scene was revealed, so I was careful to place most of the images in the middle of the card.  From the front, only the bird and the cabin are visible when the card is closed.  I added sparkle pen to the tree decorations and lights, as well as the star the bird is carrying.  I also added a Nuvo shimmer pen along the edges of all the snowbanks.  

I added a piece of white cardstock on the back as I felt the card needed a place to write a message.  This truly is a fun card and I hope you’ll give it a try! 

Embossed Christmas Card With Video

 Hello and welcome! I’ve got a very textured, embossed Christmas card to share with you today. This card was completely inspired by my recent re-organization of my embossing folders!

I’ve got a YouTube video of how I made this card, so to see it in HD please CLICK HERE

I stamped the Santa image from the “Peeking Friends” stamp set from Gerda Steiner Designs and pencilled in the rest of his beard.  I used a Copic multiliner pen to go over it and erased the pencil marks.  Then I coloured my image with Copic markers (listed below) and fussy cut it out along the lines.  I used a black marker pen from EK Tools to colour along the edges.  

Next, I diecut the word Joy from white cardstock.  If you have a nice green cardstock or glitter cardstock, that would be even easier.  I was given this die several years ago and it was second hand at the time, so I don’t have the product information to give you.  But any large Joy or Noel die would work here, even alphabet letters.  I had to do some partial die cutting on the “O” to make it wide enough for Santa to not obscure the “Y”.  I coloured the word in with a Copic marker, and went along the cut edges too.  To add some interest to the word, I heat embossed it with clear embossing powder and sprinkled some glitter on while it was still warm.  I did this 2-3 times for even more depth.  

When I reorganized my embossing folders, I die cut tags and embossed those to use as a reference for all my folders.  The tags were so pretty and full of texture, that it inspired me to make this card.  I cut out 12 -  1 1/4” squares from white cardstock and then used different embossing folders to emboss the squares.  Sometimes, I used different areas of the same embossing folder so you don’t even need that many folders. I mounted these squares on foam tape and then adhered them as evenly as possible on my card front.  I had thought I could use my T-ruler, but with the foam tape, this was not really possible.  In the end, I just spaced all 12 squares out on my card front and carefully adhered them in position.  I used glue to adhere the Santa to the word Joy and then onto the card front.  I used the “to the world” sentiment from the MFT stamp set Bitty Holiday Wishes and trimmed it down to fit over the”Y”.

Since I don’t have any bright green or red embellishments, I created my own by using different sized  circle punches to cut out circles from red and green foil cardstock and covered those with glossy accents.  

I made a second card with the reindeer image and cut the Joy out of red glitter cardstock.  These cards have just got so much fun texture in them and I hope you’ll give this a try!  

Copic markers used: E000, R00, R20, C0, C1, C2, N6, R39, R29, R35 for Santa.  G94 for the word Joy.