DIY cards - Stamp By Stamp Creations

Make It Mine Monday: Long & Skinny Card

March 8, 2021 by Cindy

Today I thought I’d try something a little out of my comfort zone. I decided to try a new size card. Have you seen these long, skinny cards? The card is 4” x 9 ¼” and fits perfectly in a letter-size envelope (9 ½” x 4 1/8”).

This is the card I saw that I wanted to make my own. Isn’t it pretty? I love the background and all of the different colored butterflies. I copied the basic design of the original card, along with the butterflies, but that’s about it.

I decided to keep my colors simple and used Blushing Bride, Basic White and Smoky Slate. I needed the Blushing Bride butterflies to pop a little more so I used my new Blending Brushes and lightly colored Velum Cardstock with the Smoky Slate ink. It was just enough to make the Blushing Bride butterflies and the little velum butterflies pop against the Basic White background. One other thing I did to help make the butterflies pop against the background was to use a Sponge Dauber and add a little color around the edges of the butterflies. It really made a difference on the card.

Another little secret is how I was able to emboss the Basic White background without a seam since the cardstock is longer than the embossing folder. I put the cardstock in the embossing folder about halfway. Then I ran it PARTIALLY through my Stampin’ Cut & Emboss Machine. I made sure the end of the embossing folder didn’t go all of the through the roller of the machine. I had to roll it back towards me to get the folder out and then turned the cardstock around and repeated the process. It worked like a charm! If you try this, you definitely don’t want to try it with a folder that has a distinct design. I used the Subtle Embossing Folder that didn’t need anything to line up.

On all of my butterflies I only adhered the bodies down to let the wings flutter. I used the Elegant Faceted Gems to add a little sparkle the butterflies too.

This was a fun card size to make. I’m not sure how often I’ll make this card size since it’s such a large area to fill. I’d have to be working with just the right products (like butterflies!) to make it work.

Have a great day! Take care and Happy Stamping!

Fun Folds: Angled Z-Fold Card

March 5, 2021 by Cindy

Lately we’ve been talking about many different types of Z-Fold cards and today is no different. Today I want to introduce you to the Angled Z-Fold cord or Angled Tri-Fold card. I think most people call it Angled Tri-Fold but you fold the three panels into a Z so to me it’s an Angled Z-fold!

Butterfly Bouquet Angled Z-Fold Card open

When you look at the card in it’s closed position you can see that there is going to be some type of special fold to it. You see the front panel with the designer paper and you can see a little bit of the designer paper on the “inside” or back panel. As you open the card it’s easy to see the angled top edge.

I used the exciting new Butterfly Bouquet products on my card. Gotta love those butterflies! The large pink butterfly is die-cut from the designer paper! You can view all of the products in this collection here. The stamp set and the dies from this collection are actually sneak previews from Stampin’ Up!’s upcoming 2021-2022 Annual Catalog. How fun is that?!

My card is made from 5 ½” x 10 ½” piece of cardstock and will fit in a standard Stampin’ Up! envelope. When closed, the card measures 3 ½” x 5 ½”. Score the 5 1/2″ x 10 1/2″ piece of cardstock along the long side at 3 ½” and 7” to form your panels. To get the angled edge you will then measure 3” up from the bottom on the left short side. Make a light pencil mark. Then draw a light line from the pencil mark to the top of the 7” score mark and then cut along this line. The base of the card is now done and you just need to decorate!

The angled piece of designer paper on my card is 3 ¼” across. The short side measures 2 ¾” and the long side measures 3 7/8”. The larger piece of designer paper on the back panel measures 5 1/4″ x 3 1/4″.

You can make an Angled Z-fold card in many different sizes. The key is to make sure that you can evenly divide the long edge of your cardstock by 3 so that your panels are all the same size. The starting point for you angled edge can be anywhere on the left edge and you can either end your angle at the second score mark like I did or you can take the angle all the way to the upper right corner of the cardstock.

I hope you like this fun and easy Fun Fold! Have a great day! Take care and Happy Stamping!

Get Ready for Spring With Butterfly Bouquet!

March 2, 2021 by Cindy

It’s time to thing Spring with Stampin’ Up!’s new Butterfly Bouquet products! Butterfly stamp, buttefly dies and buttefly paper! All sorts of butteflies!

I didn’t really think I was a butterfly person but as I’ve been playing with these products over the last week they’ve just made me smile….and I haven’t even inked up the stamp yet!

The stamp and dies are an early release from Stampin’ Up!’s upcoming new 2021-2022 Annual Catalog. The designer paper in the Butterfly Bouquet collection however will only be available until May 3rd.

You may be wondering why I am saying “stamp” versus “stamp set”. Take a look at the photo above. The butterflies are all connected. It’s one large stamp! Ink up this stamp and you will stamp 6 butterflies at once! And guess what? There is a die that will die cut all six of them at the same time! One of the sheets of designer paper has these butterflies printed on it so you’ll be able to die cut them also with the single die.

There are both solid butterfly dies as well as intricate dies in the die set. This card was made using the designer paper and the intricate dies. So fun!

You can view these Butterfly Bouquet products here in my online store. Get a head start on those Spring projects with the Butterfly Bouquet collection!

Have a great day! Take care, happy stamping and Think Spring!

Make It Mine Monday: Hey Chick Double Z-Fold

March 1, 2021 by Cindy

Check out this fun Hey Chick Double Z-Fold card by my fellow demonstrator Patti Bagin! There’s so much happening and so many chickens! When I first saw this card I knew that I wanted to give it a try. But to make it my own I had to figure out where to start.

I couldn’t just copy Patti’s card because to start with I didn’t have the designer paper that she used. I did love how Patti made a fence and used that as the second Z of her Double Z-Fold. If you’re not sure what I’m talking about when I say “Double Z-Fold” check out my blog post from Friday. It’s all about the Double Z-Fold.

My card began with the fence. I knew I wanted to use the chicken wire on my fence but since I didn’t have the gray designer paper I had to come up with another option. I decided to a strip of clear Window Sheet and adhere by chicken wire to that. I then needed to add fence posts! The fence turned out just how I wanted it to. The only probably with it is that the Window Sheet doesn’t fold very easily. If I ever mail this card I’m going to have to probably put it in a larger envelope and pay extra postage.

I didn’t want to adhere my fence directly to the card so I used the foam adhesive strips that you’d use when making a shaker card. They worked perfectly! To get the two-tone chicken coop I die cut one from Real Red cardstock and one from Crumb Cake cardstock. I then cut out the tiny pieces from the Crumb Cake chicken coop and adhered them to the red one.

My tip when die cutting the corn stalks and the ears of corn is to to use Adhesive sheets. These pieces are so thin and so small it would be difficult to get adhesive on the back of them.

I didn’t include quite as many chickens on my version of this card as Patti did but I’m pleased with the results. Too fun!

Have a great day! Take care and Happy Stamping!

Make It Mine Monday: Berry Blessings

February 22, 2021 by Cindy

Wow! Winter 2021 Sale-a-bration is almost over! Can you believe it? There’s only a few days left so I thought my card today should use one of the Sale-a-bration items.

I haven’t used the sweet Berry Blessings stamp set yet so I chose that along with the coordinating Berry Delightful Designer Series Paper. So cute! Did you know that this designer paper also coordinates with the Sweet Strawberry stamp set/bundle from the January – June Mini Catalog? So much coordination! I love it!

Thank you to Heather Heroldt for the inspiration. As you can see, the biggest changes were just adding layers to Heather’s card. More layers seems to be what I do best. Ha!

I also decided to stamp the sentiment on the background piece of the card instead of a label and I also used green embellishments instead of blue. I used the Frosted and Clear Epoxy Droplets from Stampin’ Up!’s Annual Catalog and colored them with my Granny Apple Green Stampin’ Blends Markers.

Here’s a picture of the inside of my card. Heaven forbid that I didn’t decorate the inside as well as the outside! 🙂

I love getting my inspiration from fellow crafters. We all have to start somewhere, right?

The sentiment on the front of the card is from the Berry Blessings stamp set but the inside sentiment is from the Sweet Strawberry stamp set, which as I mentioned before, also coordinates with the Berry Delightful designer paper.

The Berry Blessings and Berry Delightful Designer Paper are grouped together as a Level 2 Sale-a-bration choice which means you need to spend $100 on Stampin’ Up! products in order to choose it. Don’t forget that February 28th is the last day of Sale-a-bration so get that order together and head on over to my online store or contact me with your order. I’d hate for you to miss out!

Have a great day! Take care and Happy Stamping!

Make-It-Mine Monday: Snailed It!

February 15, 2021 by Cindy

Oh, my gosh! These snails are so stinkin’ cute! I only have the designer paper right now but I am ordering the stamp set and dies on my next order. I can’t wait!

I usually don’t go for the cutesy stamp sets and dies. I stick with the more traditional ones. However….the more I see of these little snails the more excited I am to have them in my stamp room!

Recently I took a training from another demonstrator which included cards we could make. The adorable card here is one of the cards we were able to make with our kit. I love new ideas!

Hopefully you can see in the photos this is a Z-fold card like the strawberry card I shared with you in this post. The only difference is that the strawberry card had a horizontal layout and this card is vertical.

This card turned out very cute but as I was making it I thought about how I could make it into an Easel Z-fold card like the one I shared with you here.

Of course, simply turning it into an Easel Z-Fold wasn’t the only change to be made by me. Hello….can you say “more layers please”? Ha! Actually, believe it or not, adding one layer and changing the color of the hearts were the only changes I made.

I think adding the red layer and changing the heart to red make things pop a little more on the card. The little resin hearts (that are on both cards) are really fun to add to cards. They come in red and in white. I do have to admit that I didn’t have the Kiss Punch which is where the pink heart came from on the first card. I had to dig through my retired stash of dies to find a heart that was about the right size for my version. This is why I hardly ever get rid of things! Ha!

Have a great day! Take care and Happy Stamping!