Looks like not much – a run of the mill 6×6 mini.

Untie the ribbon to open it and it begins to look a bit like a flip book.

Start flipping and..

Blimey it’s big! Over 28 inches from top to bottom.  And what’s the deal with the big empty space in the middle?

OK, so I’m clearly not done yet, as that space will hold another small 5×5 inch mini – probably a pull-out accordion, or maybe a bi-fold,  I’m still contemplating the options.  But then there is the cool thing – it’s really a display stand.

So the idea is that you can either fold it all in and store it on a shelf, or you can open it out and display it like this – and I thought it might be cool to add photo corners so you can change the photo that is on display whenever you want to – then open it up at any time to view the contents.

The one thing I hate about folded flip books is that they always bulge – if the pages are all the same size, they don’t fold in on themselves as nicely as I would like – especially if you have them full of photos.  But because this one has 1/4 inch side hinges on some of the pages, it folds away really neatly, with plenty of room for layers of photos.

I am not sure  will write it up.  While I am quite happy to work through the palaver of covering hinged sides (and I am not going to lie to you, it IS  a palaver and a half!) I’m just not sure I can write it up in such a way as 80% of the people who read it will be able to achieve a good end result.  It’s hard to get all the coverings smooth, and to make them all work to open and fold in (or out) and because the pages are different sizes (again to accommodate the folding this way and that) and there is a lot of smoothing and partially sticking, then scoring and creasing and maybe some trimming, then more sticking and creasing, blah, blah, blah I just can’t see a way to make it clear.

I think if you were to create the pages from double sided cardstock, rather than covering white card, it would be a whole lot easier,  but I began with the bare-bones construction then decorated.  Knowing what I know NOW, I can see how that might work better.  Maybe I’ll do another one to test the theory.  Having said that, then I have to find double-sided cardstock where I like both sides, and like where the patterns fall due to the construction, and that have no direction to them, so I don’t end up with upside down or sideways patterns.  And in the end it might be too flimsy without all the layers.  That much pre-planning for something that may not be sturdy is a recipe for disaster!

The plan is to call it  “All Around My House” and have photos of DD … around the house, inside and out, doing the things she loves to do. It’ll make a change from my usual “days out” minis or “favourite photos” minis which is why it’s not done.  A photo hunt is in order and while I have a few in my mind that I know will work, I also have boxes of printed photos go scour to see what will work.

Hopefully I’ll find time to work on it over the weekend but sadly it isn’t a crop weekend so who knows.

There are two sheets, Hearts1 and Hearts2. You can see an overview here, as well as some overlaid Nesties to show how they can be cut. Also that they are spaced so you SHOULD be able to cut all of them with little waste. You could def. print one in economy mode and make yourself a template of the centre heart then cut that from coloured card or patterned paper to make them more interesting, but my experiences over the last 6 months with colour issues made me scrap the filled heart version, as a solid block of colour runs the risk of looking rubbish on YOUR printer, where a thin line of text will be more acceptable.

Impossible to read in the photo but it says: How do I love thee? Let me count the ways. I love thee to the depth and breadth and height my soul can reach…

That’s the 2″ circle punch, FYI. Then I made a quick card to show one way you might use them.

Loving my Cheery Lynn sunflower, still. And I did something nifty with it.  I got some WOW embossing powders to play with. I had the idea to emboss the die cut but wasn’t sure if it would work.  It did! I feared the fine lattice might be hard to ink and hard for the embossing powder to stick, but it worked great.  I have another idea for then die and the powders, but I messed up the first version so that may have to wait a few days before I can share it.

Basically I smeared Versamark all over the lattice surface – and I found that easier to do before I cut out the flower shape. This one I had already cut off the border but it really is easier, if very slightly wasteful of the powder, to leave the border on – then dumped on the whole pot to make sure I got good cover on it.

Heat embossed.  Hard to see, but it gives a lovely effect, and the lattice is then almost mold-able – I curved in the edges slightly, which you may be able to detect on the final card above.

I also did one with the Gold Satin Pearl that was really lovely, although that was part of the failed experiment.  This was their REGULAR grade powder in Earthtone Pomegranate, a very pretty colour.  I have some mauve glitter I am dying to try with this too. I could have cut the lattice from coloured card, and have done, but the enamel look of the embossing powder just adds something to it, I think.

Anyway, grab the printables if you like and comment with a link to anything you make with them so I can see.

So yesterday I did another window tunnel card (well, that’s what I am calling them.  Never seen one before so if there is an official name I have no idea what it is!) and by-passed the overstamping how-to I mentioned I would do in the first card post.  I thought the might like to see how I did it.  The water-stamping over Distress Ink thing is old, and you can see it in the Compendium of Curiosities on page 35.  Basically you distress ink some cardstock (and I find a good layer of ink, especially layers of colour, gives the best effect) then ink a stamp with Versamark then mist the stamp with water.  Stamp the watery stamp over the Distress ink then dry it with a heat gun – something about the heat makes the bleached-out image clearer.  This is where you should see a photo of that step so far, but my camera didn’t record the photo for some reason, so I had to go back after I was done and take a few more for this.

Wipe off your stamp and dry it.  Then ink your stamp with Memento ink and, not trying too hard to line it up perfectly, stamp over the water-stamped image

What you get is a very cool halo effect.

And if you are a bit off on the placement I think it looks even better!

You can see it a bit on the front of the card with a finer stamp.

Looking past the card you can see that not only is my desk fairly clean (shock!) but my shelves, and even though you can’t see it at all my FLOOR) is tidy and clear.  Astonishing. I feel very virtuous.

Now if only Blogger will cooperate with me.  I may have to try to comment ONLY from my iPad (as I know for example that I can comment on the WOYWW post from there but not from my desktop – how bizarre is that?) and see. I did see many desks last week, and typed out many comments, they just never appeared.

Addendum! I have been watching very carefully my commenting and I can now say that if comments open in a new window, I can almost always add one.  If it is a box at the bottom of the post, I almost always can’t

I grabbed the screen so you can see who I have visited so far (green)  but I couldn’t comment on lots of them.  It bothers me. But if you are green  I did see your desk and I bet I loved it and I’m still working my way thru the rest!

First things first – as I have the Grand Calibur, I can make use of a full A4 sheet and still run it through to cut the apertures.  Knowing that most people have smaller machines, I did a new version that is only 6 inches tall.  That should fit in a Big Shot, and maybe the Cuttlebug?  But the principle is the same.

I sort of planned it as an upright card but at the end decided I liked it lengthways better.

I liked how it looked opened out sitting on the table. I used three shades of pink for the “tunnel” effect.

Let’s do measurements first.  An A4 sheet is 8.27 x 11.69.  If you are using a US letter size sheet (8.5 x 11) you will  have a narrower final page, narrower than the card, so I would amend the scoring as follows:

A4 – cut to 6 inches WIDE and score at 2 1/4, 4 1/2, 6 3/4 and 9 inches.  This will leave you with a final panel of approx. 2 3/4 inches.

US Letter – cut to 6 inches WIDE and score at 2, 4, 6, and 8.  Your final panel will be 3 inches.  It’s won’t really matter.

A bit about cardstock weight.  You will be attempting to cut through multiple layers of cardstock and paper to create the windows. Thinner base card will make this easier. The panels are all at least 2 layers overall so even 160gsm should be fine.

Decorate your panels as you like.  For the other one I used Distress ink, inked the entire panel then stamped. For this one I used a 6 x 12 inch scrap of patterned paper.  I have issues with it, in the end.  First, it wasn’t really enough to fully cover the panels, and second it is a bit hard to read the letters.  Not impossible, but I usually like my text to really POP off the page and this doesn’t.  Rather than do another one, I am going to carry on since I promised instructions.

Looking at the card, we are going to (quite logically) number the panels 1, 2, 3, 4, 5.  OK, now more measurements.

First panel – the first window is two layers.

Standard Circles Small (SCS) – 5th die in, cut the lightest colour. Stick this to PANEL 1 where you want the window to be.

Now, center over this the Standard Circle Large (SCL) – 6th die in.

The trick is you need to secure the die well, you don’t want it to slip. Use low-tack tape and tape it toward the MIDDLE (which you will throw away)

Cut the window in PANEL 1.  This will leave you with a thin circle of light pink card around the window.

Now you need to cut the window in PANEL 2. Using Standard Circle Small, 6th die in, close the card.  Tape the die centred in the Panel 1 window – and this will be to the BACK of PANEL 2.  Open the card and cut.

Leaving you with this:

Now you are going to do the same for Panels 3 and 4.  Here is the complete sequence for you:

SCS 5th die in (cardstock circle)
SCL 6th die in (window)

Panel 2
SCS 6th die in (window)

Panel 3
SCS 6th die in (cardstock circle)
SCL 7th die in (window)

Panel 4
SCS smallest die (window)

For panel 5, cut whatever combination of circles, scallops, pinked circles, etc. you like, just make sure there is an area at least as big as the window in Panel 4.  I used a pinked circle and a slightly larger circle.  Centre you heart in the middle. With the heart centred you can now center the heart in the Panel 4 window then stick the circle to Panel 5 and it will be placed perfectly.

Of course I changed the placement when I changed the orientation of the final card!

It’s hard to see the effect in a flat photo, but I love the tunnel.

and I added a bit of ribbon to cover the bit I didn’t have enough cardstock for – the mostly white strip is the perfect place to write my “love you”s

Although the envelope will keep it closed, I think I might tie some ribbon around the right side of the card anyway, to keep it from springing open as soon as it comes out of the envelope.  And speaking of, I have a 7 1/2 x 3 envelope in my stash of card blanks and it fits in there, albeit with room to spare.  I would make any further cards 7 inches wide (cause remember I do have the Grand Calibur so I can do that) then they would fit the envelope perfectly.

I suppose if you were careful about the card and paper weights you MIGHT be able to do the same with punches, if you had enough sizes.  Maybe a circle cutter too, but I think you would have to be very careful everything was going to line up perfectly!

So if you make one, please share it with me.  And I’ll get back to the over-stamping I mentioned in the last card version, but it’s not rocket science, so that will be much shorter than this!

And I did use a lot more photos than I planned but felt they were needed for it to make sense.  I really hope it does!

It’s playing with my Distress powders this time.  I’ve not really gotten on with them, they never seem to give the exact look I’m going for, and not sure if that’s ME or the product.  I did buy them from the UKS Marketplace, used, but barely, from someone who ALSO didn’t get on with them, so that really doesn’t help me decide.

Big ole’ paint spatters on this one, and a little circular text stamp.  No idea what set it’s from, just in my stash.

See what I mean?  I like it but it isn’t really much different from rough embossing.  I gave it a good shake, to mix the release crystals, but maybe not enough?

Anyway, busy week again, with DDs second transition meeting, and lots of interesting things for her in the works.  I will get to the step-by-step for that card from last week, probably tomorrow, as I have the photos, but in a fit of tidying I put away all the circle Nesties.  Now I need to figure out which ones I used so I can say – just thought it might make it a bit easier for y’all.

Oh and it took AGES.  I may write it up or do a YouTube doodah but that will have to wait for another day.

I had planned NOT to post today, as I was determined to make a Valentine’s Day card for DH and NOT share it till after the big day, because I can never seem to help myself doing it so he sees it on my blog before then and I have to make a crappy rushed one so he gets a surprise. But no, he decided to be really nice to me and come home from the office early so he could take DD skating this afternoon for her local lesson.  And what is in the path from the front door through to the kettle? Yep.  My scrap room. And the card was all over the place, the floor scattered with bits of circles and Nesties in about 10 different sizes, bits of inked card on the table, LOVE YOU stuck to one of them.  Oh sure I could have TRIED to hide it but really, what was the point?

So there you go, thwarted by kindness.

And nice for you as I might as well share it now it’s done.  Doesn’t look like much but that is because I was trying to shoot through the little circle windows on each layer… but open?

Getting the swirls to have that double layer look was an experiment – I’ve done the stamping-over-distress ink-with water before and love how it looks, but this time I did THAT then stamped over it, not really trying to match the images up perfectly, with Memento ink.  I just love it.  Working out the circles was a palaver, but in the end it worked out OK.

Perhaps a bit arty for a man-card, but I like arty and DH doesn’t REALLY care, so I please myself.

Hope you like it.

DD is off to the hospital today to have a new leg brace made so I’ll be a bit busy.  I will share this little card, super simple, but a different use for my printables from a week or so back.

Sorry for the badly cropped photo LOL!  Rather than folding the dahlias, you can line up the circles across a 5″ card like a scalloped border.  The embossing nicely echos the circle motif and it is simple and perfect for men – and we ALL struggle with cards for men, don’t we?  But you could do this with any of the circle printables, even mixing and matching the words, rather than using the Birthday version, of use them all across a scrapbook page as a border, and make them more girly for a more feminine card quite easily.

Give it a go – the idea is easy and flexible and endlessly customizable for almost any occasion!

My desk?  I mess, as ever.  I’ve been working hard to clear up months and months of shoving stuff to the side, or piling things up on the floor (indeed, any flat surface) and am feeling the relief and anticipation of a clean workdesk.

Mostly what is left is the debris from Monday’s post re: the altered mahoosive playing cards.  SO much fun, I am fighting the urge to jump right to a new one.  But I won’t.  I’m sticking to one per week so I can make it last the year and allow new ideas and new techniques to get tested.  I find something I want to try EVERY DAY and am determined this project will enrich my crafting, but it won’t do that if I just push on, using the same old tried and true techniques.

Another little something to share – at the crop last week it was mentioned that there is SO much going on over on UKS.  One of my favourite things is Leo’s Simple Recipes.  It really is the whole enchilada, as we say.  It’s a colour set, a sketch, a counterfeit kit idea and sample layout all in one.  But that isn’t all – one layout appears on the first Tuesday – and that could be with a use-your-stash focus or a new product focus, depending on who’s doing the layout, and then the third Tuesday, an alternate layout using the same recipe.  I got to do the second layout this month (as Darling Julia will recognize because I dithered over it at the crop for AGES) and am pleased with it.  I’m usually not a sketch person.  I recently got Page Maps (used from the Marketplace and a bargain) thinking I might give sketches a go.  Really all I ever seem to take from them is photo placement.  I find without a kick up the rear I will fall back on tried and true placement and that gets boring.  So maybe I’ll find I like using a sketch, even if it is only for where the photos should go. I did follow Leo’s sketch with this one and it didn’t hurt to do so at all!

Anyway, here is the layout.  Some of the supplies are so old, but I am happy to use stuff up.  And seriously, clearing up in my room has reinforced the knowledge that I do not need to buy a single thing other than adhesives to keep creating pages till my deathbed!

Between the Simple Recpies, the UKS Art Journey, Shim’s new class, Cal’s Thursday Techniques, and SNAP:2012 (photography challenge) I don’t know what to take on next.  Thankfully there is no pressure, and no need to get manic about it (although there is a challenge to do one of each thing to get your name in the hat to win a Daylight light, it’s just for January, then everyone can slow right down) which is just how I like it.

Have some car stuff to sort out today, then DD gets her new leg brace made tomorrow and other boring stuff, during which I will ensure my wallet is clutched in my hot little hand the entire time.

Now it gets weird.  There was an elderly man walking past my car while I was clearly in a flap about my wallet.  He just stood there staring at me with this smile on his face.  I looked at him, simply unable to process why this guy was grinning.  He said “I was just wondering what you were looking for” to which I replied “My wallet.” He carried on grinning and walking and I carried on hunting under the seats, in the grocery bags and on the ground.  Oh how I wish I had asked him point blank had he seen it!  I went in to the store and had a look in the aisles I knew I visited and went to the service desk to report it but there was a queue.   I hopped in the car and headed back to the Charity Shop because that was the last place I KNEW I had it. No joy, and now DH was panicked as well.  He’s very good about photocopying the contents of his wallet, and I’m not so good.  But me losing mine meant him being inconvenienced as well if we had to replace all the cards, etc.

Back to Homebase, no queue so I stepped to the desk and asked if anyone had turned in a wallet.  She asked my name and pullet it from under the counter!!  The elderly man had found it and had literally just turned it in!!

OK so here is the conundrum! I can’t seem to decide if I wanted to thank him or give him a slap.  He asked me what I was looking for, I told him, he had found it, maybe even had it in his pocket WHEN I TOLD HIM, and never said a word, but waited till I drove away and THEN went to the store to turn it in.

In my more generous moments I can give him the benefit of the doubt, as what Brits call a “purse” I call a wallet, and what I call a purse, Brits call a “bag” or “handbag”.  So maybe he was confused.  But I was CLEARLY in a panic, LOOKING FOR SOMETHING.  He had found  SOMETHING, and clearly a pretty important something – the kind of something that someone would be in a flap about. Me in a flap, looking for something.  Him having found something.  If he would have said he found something, asked my name, or what it looked like, ANYTHING, he would have known it was mine and I would have thanked him over and over.  He would have felt good about helping someone, I would have had only 5 minutes of panic rather than 20, could have bought my shelf and gone home.  But no.

In the end all’s well that ends well, I have my wallet (and my shelf) but I will spend the rest of the day baffled by how the situation played out.  And wondering if I HAD asked him, would he have handed it over?  I have no idea.

On a brighter note I finally added the journaling and the title to that layout I posted AGES ago, and have taken to every crop for a couple of months and never managed to complete.  I just love the colours and the photo.  And I’m glad it’s finally done!

I wanted an interesting base to experiment with art-journaling techniques, which is not something I’m really comfortable with. These are BIG so plenty of room to do a lot.  The idea was to do one card a week and at the end of 52 weeks I would have a completely decorated deck, and have tried out a load of techniques.  I could then, if I liked it enough, turn them into a proper deck of cards.  There are places that will take your art and put it on a deck for not a massive amount of money.  I’ve always wanted to do that, just never wanted to take it on using just a tiny card.

Anyway, I started – and it occurred to me that others may want to play along.  Or not LOL!  But I am on week three and I thought I would share my progress and see if anyone else is inspired to give it a go. You need one of the massive card decks (although you COULD do it on standard cards that really is quite a small area to work on and I feared detail would get totally lost) and then anything else arty that strikes your fancy.

Week one was the King of Diamond.

It’s hard to tell but the diamonds at the bottom are embossed and then I dragged a card in black paint to highlight the lines.  Stamped a few crowns and encircled them with red paint on a milk bottle top.  Stamped the word with a stamp I love but never really found a use for.  Not my favourite but acceptable for a first go.

Next week was the Queen of Diamonds.

Really liked the swirls stamped and clear embossed then spritzed over with two colours of red dye ink and a bit of purple Cosmic Shimmer.  So long as I don’t actually shake the bottle the CS spray acts ALMOST like plain dye spray! Some coffee stain stamped circles and white paint lines, a text stamp (pretty light and hard to see, but it’s there, and a big Q, tiny QUEEN and crown. Better, but still not my favourite!

This week was the Jack of Diamonds!

Def. my favourite so far.  And I can see an improvement in composition and technique so I am happy the project is doing what I hope it would, getting me comfortable with all the various techniques I know about but haven’t really made use of.

Stamped the yellow text and embossed then sprayed ink, swiped Distress ink, over stamped, dragged paint, etc. Here’s a bit of a close up:

So next week we move into numbers with the 10 of Diamonds.

It’s fun, and I hope I can make the time each week to keep it up because just playing with the supplies and trying out different things gives me a good sense of their properties.  I even thought I could switch tracks and turn it into an art journal of sorts, but if I were to do that I think I would not keep the numbers and suit on show but cover the card entirely.  So maybe after I finish this experiment I’ll feel like taking to that next level.

If you do think you might do something similar I’d love to see it.  I’ve not done any SBS photos because there are 1000 (who am I kidding? 100,000) people out there who are way better than I am at this sort of thing.  But if I ever do something that I think is uniquely my own, I will share more full.