Not much of a tutorial here, there was really nothing special about how they went together. I didn't take a ton of photos for these, but I did take some.
I cut the pieces for both cards before I started assembling them. As I usually do, I put each card set in it's own plastic bag so that things didn't get mixed up. I've started doing this with all of my projects, even when all I have is the paper picked out. I put the paper and pdf file (cut directions) in the bag so when I'm ready, everything is at my fingertips. No more digging through the trash when I can't find a missing piece.
The cards I made were the castle card from the Box Card kit and the ferris wheel card from the Summer Box Card kit. And here are the photos. And as is usually the way this works, these are thumbnail photos. If you would like to see a larger photo to see more detail, click on the photo where you will be whisked away to my photo gallery and a larger image. Most of these are 2000 pixels wide, a few are only 1000 pixels wide. To see the full 2000 pixel photo, click on the little magnifying glass at the top right of the photo. So, here we go.
First off, here are the pieces for the ferris wheel card. The paper I got was from Joann's. They had a huge sale online (I've found better deals and a larger selection online) with half priced card stacks and three dollar shipping. It would have cost that in fuel to go to the brick and mortar store. The only drawback is it is most certainly not immediate gratification, but who doesn't love getting stuff in the mail? The paper I used for the bases was Baby Boy and Baby Girl from Me & My Big Ideas (mambi). I tried to keep the paper patterns as similar to one another as I could, so there would be continuity between the two box cards. Twins and all that.
All of the pieces
I embossed the panels. This paper was a different color on each side and I took advantage of that. I used the dots embossing folder from Darice.
This is the inside of the card - I cut two of the ducks and two of the panel. The original calls for just one duck and one panel, but I thought it would look more finished if it looked the same from both sides. And I doubled up cutting on those little u shaped pieces along the top.
Close up of the duck and banners (made with DCWV Glitter Stock pad)
I branded both cards inside in an inconspicuous area. Let's not forget who made these. I'l ltake the credit, thank you, very much.
It's officially a box.
The back side of box.
Now, this was one of the discoveries I made that really excited me. Mini stamps. The last few times I'd made stamps, I wasn't happy with them. They were not clean and crisp, even though they were a lot bigger than this one. Well, as happens so often (I'm sure this isn't just me) you can spend hours and hours looking for a resolution to a problem and not find anything that halfway works. Then, a few months later you search again and voila! The answer to your problem. In this case, I was "cooking" the stamp to long to begin with. It goes into a light box and it was being overexposed. I followed directions every time, but the directions were wrong for me. Instructions say one hundred seconds, but sixty worked much better. When I realized how small the sentiment area was, and I also realized after checking my stamp stash, that nothing I had would work there, I was at a loss. So, lightbulb moment! Make my own!
Which I did. I made nine "Happy Birthday!" stamps with nine different fonts. The size of the negative where all nine Happy Birthdays! were is 4" x 2.5" and you can't go to the edges, so they're pretty small. Unfortunately, I didn't do a good job of the initial cleaning (where you get rid of all of the excess gel with a brush and dish detergent) and the holes in the letters aren't clear in some of the stamps. Like the B in Birthday. I'd not gotten all of the gel out before starting the hardening process. But in all, it took about twenty minutes from start to finish. In these two photos, you can see how small the stamps are. Oh, the stampmaker I have is an ImagePac Stampmaker. You can shop around for a better price, I got mine from DickBlick.com. Walmart has some good deals on the negative paper. But DickBlick.com has some decent sales for the other consumables. Brian went to a local plastics place and bought acrylic block remnants and cut them to size for me, I attach the stamps with my much loved Beacon 3-in-1 glue and I put some empty wooden thread spools I got over on eBay from China as handles. It works for us.
For the castle card, for embossing the outside panels, I use the bricks embossing folder from Dariece. I also inked the folder before embossing, which gives the bricks even more of a three dimensonal look. See how the "grout" is darker? Ink, baby. That's ink. Something I do every couple of months, is head over to Amazon.com and search for embossing folders, then buy the add-ons. I can usually get enough to reach the magic $25.00 limit. If you look closely at the door in the castle card (bigger picture?) you'll see a little Teddy Bear inside. I cut that out from the paper I used for the boy's card. Continuity...
The backside of the finished cards. I didn't put foam spacers here since I think it would make it harder to write on the paper.
The window at the back of the ferris wheel card.
Both cards, finished and sitting on their respective envelopes. The patterns of the inside of the envelopes are identical, the color is what's different. I choose advanced cutting in Silhouette Design Studio when I have something that has scoring on it. I can choose a different depth for the blade, say choose the vinyl or copy paper setting . When I'm working with it, I actually score it again with a straight edge and scoring tool. But there are still puncture marks where the paper is folded, which makes it weaker. From now on, when I do the envelopes, I'll be using packing tape on the inside of the envelope along the score lines to strengthen the folds.
The flattened cards - the elastic cord that I used to make the card magic, was purchased from Amazon. My go to store for just about anything. I wound the cord around one of those wooden thread spools. It works.
Cards in the envelopes. For the edge of these envelopes, since I didn't want my mother-in-law to have to mess around looking for tape or glue, I used Scor-Tape. All she'll need to do is pull the cover tape off and they'll be ready to close.
The reason I link to so much of what I use is so that you can see what I use. If you buy it via my link, great, as I said before, I get a small commission. But if you feel like doing the research, I'm sure you'll find some of these things cheaper elsewhere. I like Amazon because we have Amazon Prime and it works for us. When we go to Walmart, I'll check out what they've got because five bucks here or there doesn't hurt as much as getting a lot of stuff all at once. And I have it when I need it. Also, eBay is a huge resource if you don't mind the wait for shipping from China.
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