Box card – SDC 151

OK so I am going to go out on a limb here and call this a BOX, for the purposes of the Stampotique Designers Challenge.  It’s been a LONG time since I did one of these but as I was using some Stampotique stamps I figured I’d check.  OK technically it may not conform to the ideal definition of a box, but what the heck? I’ve already done the definitive BOX for an SDC ages back anyway:

That series of nested boxes was for SDC 9 (What Summer Means to Me) and can be seen more fully in my Stampotique menu at the top. THIS is for SDC 151!  Blimey.

Anyway, DS was after a card to give to his GF and wanted something complex and interactive.  He never asks for much…. so I had the idea to make one of the pop-up box cards.  As I said yesterday I was 90% done with it when I told him the quote I wanted to use: You’re my sun in the morning and my moon at night (from a Springsteen song but sung by Southside Johnny and the Asbury Jukes) and mentioned it would have been nice had I thought to make it two-tone/double-sided.  DOH!  Me and my big mouth..

I had to then re-do the box part and add another side to the pop-up section.  I considered a number of option for the box itself, but wasn’t happy with one solid colour.  I wanted the Morning side to be light and bright, and the Night side to be dark.  Nothing for it but figuring out how to adapt the box.

I started with two pieces of A4 card – one black, one cream.

Each piece was 5 3/4 x the width of the card.  A4 is a bit narrower and a bit longer than US letter, but that is fine.  Each piece is creased at 1 inch, at 4 inches, at 5 inches and at 8 inches.

On A4 card that leaves you with about 1/4 inch at the side.  US letter it will be more like 1/2 inch.

In order to join the pieces and to neaten up the slot that allows the pop-up, I cut down about 1/4 inch past the final crease. You can make your pop-up any size you want, but try to keep it to no wider than 3 3/4 inches so you leave about 1 inch on either side of the pop up.  Crease between the cuts.

Fold back along the new crease line and stick to the back of the box.

Your slot is now nice and neat and the side flaps can be joined to create a base with one side one colour and the other side another!

You can obviously tailor this to whatever size you want, so long as you use the basic principles of having the distance between the edge and the first crease the SAME as the distance between the second and third crease, and the distance between the first crease and the second the SAME as the distance between the third crease and the last crease.

Creases:  1 inch (distance of 1 inch ) at 4 inches (distance of 3 inches), at 5 inches (distance of 1 inch) and at 8 inches (distance of  3 inches)

Keep in mind that is for 1/2 of the box base.  Frankly, I couldn’t have made one this big, where the box when collapsed nearly completely covered the pop-up, from one sheet without buying a HUGE piece of cardstock.  Necessity is the mother of invention, right?

After that it is exactly the same as the basic card – I knew what I wanted to make, knew how to do it, but had NO IDEA what it was called!  After an unreasonably long hunt I found this tutorial.  She calls it a free-standing pop-up card.  Works for me… Obviously the tutorial is for a solid, one-colour cardstock base, far easier but smaller.

Here it is!

Oh and just BTW, it looks like it would fit in a C5 envelope.  I didn’t have one, so I just collected the scraps from my desk and decorated an plain old mailing envelope.

MORNING side:

and NIGHT side:

You can see that the card is not totally flat.  When pushed flat-flatJust the heart shows.

Popped up:

and

The box-base allows the free-standing of the card, and the bits that are hidden provide a place for whatever sappy nonsense DS wants to add.

Phew.  Hope she likes it.  Given she spend an afternoon here playing with the Gelli plate with ME, and she is into art in general, I’m betting she will.

Hope it all makes sense but if not, feel free to ask and I’ll try to clarify if I can!

 

SDC 111 – Color Challenge

This week the SDC challenge is a colour one, yellow, orange and purple.  Funnily enough I used those colours for an OLD challenge, using iris folding (just about the only iris folding I have ever done!)

That was SDC 8 (!) and PURPLE.  This challenge is 111.  I’ve not done EVERY one but I have done a LOT of them yet never once have  I won the draw.  To be honest I’m not even sure if I am eligible – or in fact if it would be worth winning – as I live out of the USA.  It would be lovely if the winner was outside of the USA and were able to collect the “prize” from an in-country shop that sells the stamps.  I so need some new ones but haven’t been able to do mu usual $100 order delivered to wherever we are in the USA.  But my in-laws are due for a visit in November so there is hope.

Anyway, here is THIS challenge project.

It’s another note card holder, but resolving one problem with the usual one .

It always irritated me that if you pick up the original one, and by chance turn it upside down, all the cards and envelopes fall out, due to the opening being at the top. This way, with the opening in the middle, that doesn’t happen.  BUT, the stuff does tend to shift towards the middle/spine when you open it, although I guess I find that preferable to them all tumbling out on to the floor!

Really the only change you need to make is to make the bottom flap equal to the middle section.

You still cut away the sides, it’s just a bigger area!  This also solves the other niggle I had, which is the pocket, when attached in the common way, by the little side flaps, tends to let the cards catch on the flap.  Or at least it does for me.  Making the pocket a solid piece, attached at the back, makes putting in and taking out the cards just a little smoother.

Then I made a set of note cards.  I was looking for some “clean and simple” way to make cute notecards and that left out my USUAL method of dealing with the Stampotique images (Copic colouring) and making the Word Search printables gave me this idea.  It may need some refining, but I like them well enough the way they are to post them.

A close-up may help you see better what is going on!

The process is actually easier than you may think, and I will try to work thru it and capture the steps for you then add them tomorrow for WOYWW, as I have some other ideas for the technique and that is def. what will be on my W on W!

SDC 110 – Tags

Decisions, decisions.  To add the custom banner for Gelli Play or SDC.  I’ll decide when I finish.

Summertime, with the kids underfoot, always means I wear my many Mom hats more than usual.  This little tag book reflects some of those hats.  Chauffeur, Nurse, Washerwoman and Cook.  Washerwoman seems to be the most worn hat at the moment.  While I love the summertime freedom from the tyranny of the school uniform, it does make for more laundry.

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There is room on the back to list the number of loads of laundry, meals cooked, trips sorted, etc.

I may have to change that Gallery – for some reason WordPress refuses to allow me to Preview my post so I have no idea what it will look like till I publish.

On that note, I found that I had to set things aside yesterday to do a little baking.  DS was going to a BBQ with some old school mates and I wanted to make some cookies for him to take to share.  But I didn’t want to go to the store.  I had to find a recipe that was edible, good even, that could be made from just the things I had on hand.  I found this recipe for a Wacky Cake.  No eggs, no milk, no butter.  Perfect.  But I didn’t want to make a cake, too hard to eat at a BBQ.  I just altered the recipe by cutting the water in half (so 1/2 cup rather than a full cup) and added a bag of dark chocolate chips.  The first batch I baked for 8 minutes, and while they looked lovely on top, the underside was too gooey and they were pretty fragile.  The next two batches I cooked for 10 minutes.  They were better.  The top is crispy, the underside more cake-like.  The tablespoon of batter spread a bit to produce a nice sized cookie, and they would be yummy used to create a Whoopie Pie sort of thing, with two cookies and some ice cream filling.

They would have been better had I had actual white sugar instead of only Demerara. But DS and DH liked them a lot.

And speaking of DH, he placed in the chili cook-off!  Runner up, with loads of nice comments from the judges.  Considering the winning “chili” ( I feel the need to put that in quotes) had POTATOES in it, I’m not sure if that makes it a triumph or not!  But he was well chuffed.  And placing means he goes to a final cook-off in September.

Now I have to find a home for this:

United Kingdom Chilli Cook-Off
Isle of Wight Chilli Fiesta
Runner Up

The whole CHILI (American) v CHILLI (UK) spelling thing confuses my spell checker 🙂

SDC109 – Clean and Simple

LOL!  I almost didn’t bother with this, given my proclivity towards 3d paper sculptures and that “one more thing” that Julia blogged about (that was a surprise – surprise that she actually listened to my prattling as we drove!)  SDC Challenge 109 is  CLEAN and SIMPLE – not words that spring to mind when I do a Stampotique project. But I needed to make a few cards for DDs classroom teachers and assistants and this one came together clean and simple so I though, why not?

I just stamped the (oddly, my only Stampotique NOT Penney/Torrente) image onto the street name lists from one of my old London A to Z and added it over an embossed file-card thingie.  A tiny bit of simple stamping and a scrap of ribbon and DONE! I actually really like it.  And I think DDs teacher will too, if fits her.  I’m amazed my stamping is a neat and straight as it is – I often make a hash of that and have to do 3 or 4 ones before I get one I can use!  This time, first time was the one.  I would call this a 5 minute card for sure.  And from scraps too so quick AND economical!

SDC108 – French Flair gothic arch

I’ll admit, I totally forget yesterday when I did my WOYWW post that Weds. is also the debut of the new Stampotique Designers Challenge.  So I set aside the ATCs to do that instead.

All in all it went together rather easily, and I certainly enjoyed making it.

I had in my mind that I would have a go at a gothic arch.  I had seen references to a Gothic Arch challenge blog on other WOYWW desks but when I went to have a look it looks like it stopped new posts last year!  That’s me in a nutshell, a day late and a $ short, as they say.  Never mind.  I sent ahead with is anyway.

Never having done one before, I was a little all at sea, but what I ended up doing was starting with a base of a lovely old Paris postcard image from The Graphics Fairy.  I printed it twice, then cut a pretty basic arch shape out of one of them.  I added some Distress Ink then brushed on some thick gold paint around the inside of the arch.  Hard to see, but I added pop dots/foam pads around the cut out area.  Sticking the cut-out to the outer edges of the 2nd image, and having it popped around the open edges gave the whole thing a real depth.

For the bottom edge, to create a stand element, I cut a bit of an old frame embellishment, wider that the base.  By sticking THAT just at the sides, it created a bowed effect.  that allows the arch to stand up freely. A scattering of vintage-y elements and the quote from Casablanca finished it off. For that, I used a bit of this image, just cutting out the PARIS word digitally to make the text banner.

I coloured the stamped images with Copics but then knocked back the brightness a little with some Vintage Photo distress ink. The little couple are the same two I used on the True Love box, for an SDC challenge eons ago,  and I like to think of them as having grown up and moved on but alway remembering their time in Paris fondly. In order to get the best image the biggest I had to lead off with the surprise inside.  Not the way I would usually choose to do it, but hey ho, the magic of WordPress dictates it.

SDC107 – recycle

SDC 107 is RECYCLE IT! This was an easy one.  I never seem to throw anything away.  I try, but on the way to the rubbish bin I almost always look again at the things I am holding and start taking bits out I’ll save that, I can use THAT, those colours are fab... This piece is basically recycled everything.  The CD base is an old Winnie The Pooh cd that came with the Sunday paper, probably back when DD was about 5 or 6 (she’s 16 now), the text is printed on a scrap from a Pan Pastel technique where the rest formed an ATC background.  The ribbon was from a bit of packaging (chocolates maybe?) and the bits that cover the centre hole in the cd are also scraps from random projects.

The base I mentioned the other day when I was talking about the Gelli plate play.  This is what it looked like with just the pull from the plate and the Pearl-ex and acrylic medium on it:

The quote is from A Confederacy of Dunces (again) and the font ( called Collateral Damage) is very much in the Ralph Steadman / Fear and Loathing style . I was reading Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail recently so it was on my mind.  The font isn’t that easy to read, but it says Oh Fortuna! I am strapped to your wheel. Blind, heedless goddess. Do not crush me beneath your spokes.

From an angle the Pearl-ex in medium is better seen?

Off to crop in the AM so scheduling this one.  Hopefully I’ll have time to link it in the morning!

SDC105 – a bank

It’s been a while since I ‘ve done the SDC Challenge, and 105 – anything but a card, appeals.  I probably need a few new stamps, if I am going to insist on only using the Stampotique range, despite them opening up the challenge to using any stamp.

How it came about: One of my commenters, Petrina, does the most wonderful business-card sculptures.  They are pretty freakin’ unbelievable.  Anyway, I had grabbed a template from her freebies section for a little pyramid stand thingie, with the idea that it would be a great little thing for displaying ATCs.  I had a plan, but something came up and it got pushed to one side in my head.  I did THIS instead.

The thing is, the template isn’t just a stand, it’s also a bank! Download it here. Having JUST had to transfer some money to DS at Uni, the idea for this project was one that I could SEE in my mind before I even started to work on it.

There were a couple of issues – first, the template is probably designed for US money.  No t sure a 50p piece or a £ coin would fit.  If I do another one, as a bank, I would alter that.  Also, I think I would make the back so it opens like a flap, to access the money.  I wouldn’t want the recipient to have to destroy it to get at the money!  One more thing, which this will explain:

The template has the little triangle cut out to create the holder for the card. But it is very thick.

 For a card, it probably works perfectly.  But I wanted a little figure. So I decorated the template with distress inks, stains, and stamping

I punched out a bunch (like 6 or so) circles from pretty heavy cardstock.

I decorated one of them and made a stack – that fit fairly snuggly in the slot

Then I stamped and coloured the little figure and stuck him to the circle stack.

Could I find a 5p piece?  Nope.  Not even down the back of the sofa.  I DID have a dime in my US money stash, and that worked fine.

I took the additional step of adding a 2nd layer of cardstock to the back of the template, just to make it that little bit stronger as a bank.  Probably no need it you are doing it as a display stand or something similar.

So there you go! So easy, and it might be something to keep in mind for the kids and summer holidays.  If you cut the slit and the slot, they should be able to decorate and fold and stick.  Then they can bug you Gimme Gimme Gimme all summer long…..till it’s full!

I’m betting you can already guess what the “original idea” for this was…. but you’ll have to wait till I finish it.

SDC99 – some assembly required?

There is so much back story to this one LOL! But I won’t make you read it before showing you the project, for  SDC99 – Summertime:

First, I went to the library and stumbled on this book:

It is full of interesting packaging items, from boxes and bags to displays and folders.  It comes with a disk of .eps files.

I opened up the file from the disk (yes, I KNOW – a library copy, checked out by who knows how many people, and the disk was not scratched!) in Intaglio.  I converted it to a PDF for Editing (which breaks apart the bits) and re-grouped them as I wanted them.  Then I copied over the base into a new file, and scaled it up 300% (which made it fit an A4 sheet.

I did the same with the circles, more so I had the exact size of the center cuts than because I can’t manage to cut a circle! Now the nifty thing – I can save the Intaglio file as an .svg.

And THAT means I can open and cut it using SCAL.

Which would be fine if I had a bigger machine than the baby bug.  So in the end to make full use of ALL the A4 sheet I cut it by hand.  I did all the decoration and assembled it for the photo, but it breaks down flat if you want it to:

This project came about due to a collision of a lot of things.

• Obviously, finding the book
• then needing to make a special new baby card – I had the idea I could use the structure from the book to make the card, but make it so the slot in the top could hold a photo or the birth announcement.
• but then Blinded By the Light (the Springsteen version NOT Manfred Mann – please!) came up on my iPod in the car – followed within a song or two by Madman Mora Blues by Boiled in Lead – Madmen being the link… but I digress…
• and DS is a drummer, due home for a summer visit, and I just KNOW he will want to get in to the garage and drum, long and loud…

Now the lyrics are shortened a bit, and that is both due to the length of the quote, and size of the font (before you ask, Hot Coffee)  as well as me being overly sensitive to how they might possibly be construed.  It has everything to do with the UK substitution of BUM for BUTT, and hearing something voiced by a homophobe on TV that made me think BUMMERS might not be something I wanted to put on a card.  And then while I think  American Indian has been shelved for Native American… or has it??  A simple card becomes a minefield of potential offense to SOMEONE, and 20 years on the Internet has taught me that if there is possible offense, sure as eggs is eggs, there will be SOMEONE who WILL take offense and make it a point to tell me I have offended them.  Still I am taking a chance with Madman, but there is simply not enough of the original quote left for it to make sense if I leave that off!

Some assembly required (for the card) and no offense intended…..

Bathtub Marci? SDC 97

It seems that I only join in with the Stampotique Challenge when I see the challenge and have an immediate idea for it that I think will be cool.  This little project actually started out as a traditional Bathtub Mary shrine but morphed into Marci when I spotted the challenge on the SDC blog! Not one to do things by halves, despite me always saying how lazy I am, I cut three of the images of Marci – I think that satisfies the challenge…

When I was thinking of the usual Bathtub Mary a couple of weeks ago, I had picked up a couple of little paper boxes from HobbyCraft – one was actually a flip-flop, the other a plain rectangle that fit the flip-flop inside – you see, these Mary’s are made from an old bathtub, partially submerged in the ground, with a stature of (usually, but sometimes Jesus or another saint) Mary placed inside.  I wanted the bathtub shape to be able to be “submerged” in the box. I tried to convince DH to swing by the local Catholic church last week when we were out and about, to get one of those little dashboard statues, but no luck there.  Then on Saturday, when I was literally RIGHT THERE (twice!) I forgot all about it.  Good thing too or I might never have gotten to this version.

I snipped off the flip-flop part and used the lid, as it was a little more shallow, and seemed to work better than the quite deep base of the box.

I painted it white, inside and out, and then gave it a coat of Mod Podge, so it looked a bit more like porcelain.  I cut a thick slit-like hole in the lid of the box and sponged some green paint all over the lid and the box base.

I stamped Marci three times, and coloured her in with my Copics, all identical.  I chose as close to the Virgin Mary blues as I could find.   Then I cut her out – one with a border of white, which pretty much disappears against the white of the “tub” and two partial-cut ones, right along the edge.  I layered them, as in decoupage (in the UK-cardmaking sense, not the glueing paper sense!) so I had a bit of a 3D version of her.  I used the tiniest foam pads imaginable to stack the images.

I had to fight with the garage door to get to some train model-stuff that I swear we have been hauling around with us, back and forth across the Atlantic, since DS was about 3 or 4 (He’s 20 now!) That is the grass on the box, and fills the bottom of the tub, so it really looks submerged. A few paper flowers (although traditionally Mary is surrounded by cheap plastic flowers, I do have SOME standards) and a little cross at the top finishes her off …

Maybe you can see how she is stacked up in this shot?

…and a little plaque which I made by finally dragging out the metal dies to stamp (letter by tiny letter) her name.

I just love her, if I’m honest.  She makes me smile every time my eye falls on her, sitting on my desk. Hope you like her too.

SDC86 – Red, Pink and white

Well I am getting lax in doing the Stampotique Designers Challenge lately. But I finally got a new stamp so I figured I’d better follow the tenets of Use Every Stamp, a free class I am taking from My Creative Classroom, and ink the darn thing.  So I did.  This is the Valentines Day card I made.  But there is so much more to how I got here than just that!

You can see it has a sort of Waterfall card structure, but nothing attached to it – or at least not the usual three or four squares.  I just wanted the stamped figure on it so I simply attached that to the lowest scored area and left the other ones as simply folds.

When you pull, the greeting is exposed.  Because the figure is attached with foam pads, it does sort of “lift” off the surface a bit more, even if it doesn’t rise up the card, IYKWIM:

The background is using one of my Gelli Prints – using red, pink and white, obviously!  That inspiration came from Carolyn and her Gelli Party posts.

But how did this all begin? This morning, I was looking for a box for the paints that are on my desk – I just wanted something to put them in so I could move them off my desk quickly while I did something for the challenge, then put them all back out so I could do the last few pages for the Gelli Print mini I was working on, rather than storing them in their usual home.  I spied a box on the shelf and dragged it out.  Buried under a load of rubbish inside was a surprise – a bunch of unmounted text stamps that I got in some grab bag or another at least 10 years ago!

I had to assume that if I hadn’t mounted them, I must not have fancied them at the time.  Would I fancy them NOW? The first thing I did was ink them to see what they said.  There were only two that I knew I wanted to use and an idea bloomed.

You can see the propeller lifting up the figure – that required a mask and stamp positioner.

What about the other, you ask?  Well, when you open the card…

and eagle-eyed readers can see the other stamp!

In one card  managed to include the majority of the things that I have going on at the moment.  A rare thing, because I am aware my blog is a bit schizophrenic at the moment – I seem to jump from organizing, stamping and cardmaking, Project Life, both scrapping and printable creating, Gelli plate play, and more.  Keep me from getting bored, I guess, but not sure if never knowing what to expect when you visit is a good thing or a bad thing! Now I have to take a WOYWW photo while the light is good then decide where my mojo is heading for the afternoon!  At the moment I have NO IDEA …..