Arched wishes fun fold card

 A quick post today to share a fun fold card with you. The fold is a pop out swing card. I've used the fabulous Everyday Arches dies, the Arched Wishes stamp set and the gorgeous Everyday Skies pattern papers. 

The papers range from bold and dramatic to calm and peaceful colour palettes. For today's sample I chose to go for a calm and delicate look.

I think the balloons from the Arched Wishes stamps add to the whimsical feel to the card.

Whilst the Everyday Arches dies make for an unusual appature for this fun fold.

All in all a fun card . If you'd like to see how to make this card then watch out for my Live at 5 on my Facebook page here on Monday the 28th of April 2025 at 5pm BST. 

Here's the video

Lovely Garden fun fold thank you card

 Pattern paper is such a valuable tool for a crafter. You can use it in so many ways. From using it  as a background layer to making it the star of the show pattern paper is so very useful.. and beautiful 😍.  Today's inspiration is a fun fold where the pattern paper is front and center.  I'm not sure what the fold is called so if you know or have suggestions please leave a comment. The paper used today is from the Lovely Garden paper pack. These double sided  papers are bold and striking with their beautiful floral design on one side and striking monochromatic image on the other.

Choosing a fun fold that shows of both sides of the pattern paper is always fun and especially when the papers are as striking as these ones! So that's exactly what this card is all about.

Start by chosing your double sided pattern paper then cut a piece that measures 16.5cm x 20.5cm. With the wrong side up score the paper along the short side at 6.5cm . Next rotate the paper and score at 14.4cm. Flip the paper over and  fold both sides inwards. This creates a natural diagonal score line on both parts to leave a square on the top left corner. Watch the short video below to understand 😉

Once you have your pattern paper folding mechanism create the card base with a piece of coordinating cardstock measuring 14.85cm x 10.5cm.  Then adhere the larger center panel of pattern paper to this panel. Next cut cardstock panels to decorate as desired. I would suggest that adding a panel of cardstock to the inside portion of the small square that folds over is a good idea 💡 

I have used the stamps that coordinate with the papers.  Called Thankful Garden these open line work images are perfect for colouring in.

The card folds flat for posting and will stand!

Here is the finished card from the video above using the same lovely Garden paper pack and Thankful Garden stamp set.

Friends of the Ocean fun fold birthday card

 Do you ever make a card love it, then when you go back to look at it again realise you made a mistake? But you also realise it's too late! Well that's exactly what's happened with today's inspiration!  I made the card using the beautiful Friends of the ocean pattern papers. I just love the beautiful bright colour palette used for these fun papers.

The colours and patterns in this paper just work so well together.  I love using paper packs because you know they're going to coordinate together with out any hard decisions! 

The card base is a very easy fun fold version of a gatefold. For this card I made a belly band to secure it closed. Which just slips on and off .

The card base is 14.85cm x  21cm scored at 5.25cm,  10.5cm and 15.75cm ( 8½" x 5½" scored at 2⅛", 4¼" and 6⅜"). The scores are folded as valley, mountain then valley. 

The fun surprise on the inside is the pop out. Create the pop out mechanism before decorating the card base.

To create the pop out mechanism all you need is a piece of cardstock measuring 4cm x 12 cm scored at 2cm, 4cm, 5cm, 7cm, 8cm and 10cm (1½" x 4½" scored at ¾", 1½", 1⅞", 2⅝", 3" and 3¾"). Fold the scorelines as valley,  mountain,  mountain,  mountain, mountain then valley. Adhere a piece of cardstock measuring 4cm x 5cm (1½" x 2") to the center panel as shown below. 

Then adhere the mechanism to the center panel of the cardbase  on the left hand side as shown below. Taking care to adhere just upto but not on the center scoreline. 

Next adhere the other side, again upto but not on the scoreline , as shown here.

Now decorate as desired. Make sure that your pop out portion doesn't extend beyond the center of the card base. You want the card to close flat over the center decoration.

This fun fold stands beautifully on the mantlepiece yet folds flat for posting. 

Can you spy my big boo-boo 👀? 🤣 it wasn't until I was writing this post that I realised what I'd done 😳 Even after all these years I still make those silly mistakes 😜 

Floral Delight fun fold card

 Fun folds are often a great way to showcase, also known as using up 😉, your pattern papers. Today's inspiration has lot's of different papers used. The papers are from the oh so gorgeous Floral Delight and equally beautiful Floral and Gingham vellums. The card base  fold is a really easy one called a book binder fold I believe. Created by simply adding a score line to the front of the card 2.5cm (1") from the center scoreline of the card base. Adhere this panel to the card base back. This fold works well on both a standard book opening card or my favourite a top folding card. You can also decorate in either a landscape or portrait orientation. 

The sample today is a top folding card base in the portrait orientation. The decoration is simple just panels of pattern paper and a sentiment. But the added wow on the front are these cute paper beads made with scraps of the pattern papers. Paper beads are so simple to make and can be any size you like. Take a strip of paper approximately 2.4.5cm wide at the top and trim it diagonally to a point at the bottom. So that you create a long tapering triangle. Use your fingers to lightly curl the paper. This breaks the fibers and makes it more malleable. Then take a wooden skewer or a very narrow paint brush handle and starting with the wide end roll it up. When you get to the last 3cm apply adhesive to the back of the paper. And as you wind them up they will be secured in place. Leave to dry then they can be used. You can cover them in clear nail varnish if you want a shiny appearance but for today's project I didn't. 

The inside of this card is also decorated with panels of the blue check vellum and the oh so simple pop out feature. 

The pop out is a simple square of pattern paper measuring 15cm x 15cm ( 6" x 6") scored in half both horizontally and vertically.  Then score diagonally from 1 corner to the opposite.  Next fold the horizontal lines towards the center to create a diamond shape. Then adhere to the inside of the card  and decorate as desired.

Lots of opportunities to use that beautiful pattern paper you have stashed away with  this card don't you agree? 

Quivk and easy cards with pattern paper scraps

 Big question are you a pattern paper holder? Or a you a stash buster? Well for many years I was a horder but lately I've been busting out cards using my pattern paper stash! But and this is the big one... I still have to save all the off cuts 🤣 They're just toooo gorgeous 😉. So what to do with all those gorgeous scraps 🤔 well on my recent Live at 5 over on my Facebook page I shared some quick and easy cards using some of those pattern paper scraps.

These are simple cards that use the leftover scraps from my pack of Floral Delight papers and Floral and Gingham vellums . 

I love the crisp and fresh look of the papers with their shades of yellow and orange.. perfect for anytime of the year.

The vellums that coordinate with the papers have the added advantage of being easy to hide adhesive due to the pattern and colours 😀.

If you'd like to see how the cards came together then watch the video here

Delightful Wishes card

 Want to turn a forsythia into an orchid?  Well I think I have with today's inspiration using the Delightful Wishes stamps.  All it took?... a change in colour palette! The translation took place by changing from yellows to lilac and pink!

By keeping the design simple and the colour palette simple too the end result is a clean and fresh looking card.

The simple addition of some simple scored lines on the white mat adds texture without distraction from the focal point. These are easily achieved with your trimmer and scoring tool or with a scoreboard or even a ruler and a score tool.

Keeping the sentiment simple on the front doesn't mean that you can't go to town on the inside though 😉. 

So what do you think has the forsythia turned into an orchid? 

Simply stunning Delightful Wishes cardwishes

Every year Stampin' Up! bring our 5 new colours. The colours are only around for 2 years and are in addition to their core colour families.  Called the  In-Color collection they are stand alone but work so well with lots of other members of the Stampin' Up! colour families . This year the 2025-2027 In-Color collection is made up of 5 beautiful colours that are sure to become favourites . As ever the colours have fun names. Cloud Cover is a soft grey/ pale blue . Darling Duckling a soft dusky yellow. Next is a colour who's name suggests green/blue Secret Sea.  Strawberry Slush is as the name suggests a beautiful pinky red. And finally Timid Tiger a gorgeous shade of orange. Over the next few weeks I'll be sharing projects using these gorgeous colours starting with today's inspiration.  

The card is created using the twig die from the Delightful Wishes dies. As soon as I saw this die I knew I'd be using it for more than just a twig!

I was drawn to using the new Secret Sea colour for this project because I wanted a simply stunning card and I think it turned out just so!

The card was created by die cutting the "twig' from a panel of Secret Sea cardstock.  Next I took a blending brush and added the same colour ink around all the cut surfaces.  Then die cut 2 "twigs" from gold foil. 

Adhere the cardstock pieces onto a card base made from the same Secret Sea colour cardstock.  Then carefully inlay the gold pieces into the gaps. 

The sentiment is from a stamp set called You are Remarkable.  This set has pretty images and wonderful inspirational sentiments. 

Save the pieces of the gold foil and Secret Sea twigs and use them to decorate the inside of the card.

So how do you view the "twig" die now? My first thoughts were lightning 🌩 and could be great for Halloween 🎃. 

My second thought was kintsugi. This is the Japanese art of fixing broken ceramics with precious metals in the belief that imperfections can be viewed as  an integral part of the history and value of a piece.

I love the stunning simplicity of this card. I think Secret Sea may be becoming a firm favourite of mine. What about you?

Delightful wishes best wishes card

 Did you know that you can create custom backgrounds for your cards with just stamps and inks? Well today's inspiration is a simple card made special by its custom background.  The background is created using  forsythia images created with the Delightful Wishes  stamp set. This beautiful photopolymer stamps set features 4 seperate stamps that line up to create the gorgeous forsythia image. This allows you to use any colour combinations you desire to create unique images.

At first glance you might be a little confused by what goes where but I have a short video to share with you at the end of this post that shows how I put them together. The stamps used are the bottom four of the above image.

Here is today's inspiration. 

The colour palette for this card is the inspired by a piece of textiles that caught my eye. 3 of the colours are from the upcoming 2025-2027 In-Color collection.  Called Timid Tiger,  Darling Duckling and a returning In-Color Strawberry Slush these three work so well together and were a great match along with shaded spruce add petal pink for the colours on the material. 

The wishing part of the sentiment is die cut from the coordinating Delightful Wishes dies. The die cut strawberry slush panel is dry embossed using the Mini corrugated 3d embossing folder . Just place your cardstock in the folder at an angle to get the diagonal ridges. 

Here is a short video sharing how I put them stamps together to make the forsythia image up.

Floral Delight suite fun fold card

 Monday afternoon is Live at 5 time for me over on my Facebook page here. (Just remember that's 5pm here in the UK 😉.) I'd love to have you join me . So is you don't already follow my Facebook page please do 😊. What do I do on my lives? Well it varies sometimes it's unboxing new kits other times it might be showcasing a stamp set or like yesterday's I made an easy fun fold. The fold is inspired by a video I spied by a lady called Diane Tuggle. In her video she used imperial measurements so I have adjusted them for us metric crafters.

For both the live and today's version I have used products from the Floral Delight suite. I have made so many beautiful projects using these products, there are more to come too 😍. 

For today's version I have used the hexagon dies from the Meant to Bee dies. Yesterday's uses the Everyday Arches dies but the fun fold will work  with all sorts of shapes, circles , florals, trees.... the list is as long as your imagination ✨️ 

This fun fold is called a freestanding pop up card. The only measurements you need are the for the card base. For piece one they are 10.5cm x 7.5cm scored at 2.5cm and 5cm.  Then for the second piece a piece of cardstock measuring 7.5cm x 7.5cm scored at 2.5cm and 5cm.  The only other dimensions you need to consider are those of the envelope you're using. Think about will the finished piece fit inside 🤔. 

I have used 3d foam to adhere the decoration on the card. The flowers were fussy cut from the beautiful Floral Delight pattern paper.  

Use up the pieces from the edges of the pattern papers to decorate the back of the card . This is where you will write your personal message. 

The card folds flat for posting and fits inside a C6 envelope. I have made so many projects using the adorable Tiny bee trinkets that I had to use some of the gorgeous Brushed brass butterflies to add a little something something to the project!

Here are both today's sample and the one made during my Facebook live yesterday. 

Here is the video showing how the project is made enjoy 😀

Delightful Wishes retro birthday card

 Yesterday I held my spring all day event. This event was an all day class filled with lots of great company, wonderful inspiration and creativity. The featured products were the gorgeous Floral Delight suite. It was just perfect for a spring event with it's beautiful shades of yellow colours and blossoms. The suite includes the Floral Delight  pattern papers, Floral and gingham vellums , the cutest Tiny bee trinkets and a gorgeous narrow yellow ribbon. 💛 🧡 💛 a true feast of spring for the eye!

Whilst everyone was creating their own beautiful projects I did a little Crafting myself! This suite is just so inspiring that I couldn't stop creating with it 😜. 

So today's project is one that was created as I sat with the amazing crafters and is influenced by their creativity. 

I'm calling this card a retro birthday card because the colour palette just reminded me of the browns, yellows and oranges of my childhood in the 70's . What do you think? Does it have a taste of the 70's in the colours? 

To create the texture on the yellow cardstock I first created a mask using one of the dies from the Delightful Wishes dies. I die cut it from a scrap of vellum but any thinner non porus medium will work such as thin acetate. 

I then took some embossing paste and using a palette knife swipped the paste through the the mask onto a piece of yellow cardstock. 

Repeating the process over the cardstock until it had the look I was after. Top tip when using embossing paste have a bowl of warm water to hand to wash your tools in immediately after using them. If you don't the paste doesn't come of and you risk ruining your tools. The paste dries quickly so it's best to have everything to hand before you start.

I used the embossed panel not only on the front of the card but on the inside too!

The combination of colours and texture with the satin ribbon and embossing paste give this project lots of va va voom.

The beautiful forsythia stamped image is achieve by stamping each part separately. I would recomend starting with the highlight of the blossoms first. Then use the blossom nside stamp, next the twig and finally the leaves. It sounds tricky but I promise it's not that bad as these stamps are photopolymer so easy to see through 😀. 

So does this card have retro vibes? Or is it just me 😅 ?