A Few Clean and Simple Cards

Hi everyone, it's Charlotte C.  Hope all the moms here had a great day yesterday.  Thank you, Sheila, for having me here this week to share something I found while visiting some blogs.  Too bad I can’t remember where I was to get you the name of whoever posted these card directions. We’re talking clean and simple here.  You know how Sheila is always saying make two up?  Well, with 3 pieces of card stock and scraps of DP I made four up in no time - even when I took a few turns from the original.

The card bases I made are all white, 4 1/4 x 5 1/2, top fold.  Starting with that and following what I saw originally posted, I cut another panel of white card stock at 4 x 5 1/4.  Then take that panel (or layer) and cut it diagonally somewhere along the bottom third.

Lay the bottom portion on the base, bring it down a bit and draw a light pencil line.  The line is where you place your images, and once you put the bottom of the layer in place the pencil line will be covered.  Of course, you can put the piece where you want it, draw a line and then erase it after you stamp your image.

 Now stamp your image along the line.  In this photo you’ll see I used 3 different colors of blue and I actually brought the image slightly below the line because of its size.  The sentiment gets stamped on the bottom panel. 

Now take the upper portion of the layer, place it on the base so that the image is showing, then trim off at the top edge.  Pop up the upper and lower layers.  I didn’t pop up the layers here because truthfully I wasn’t crazy about the card, too plain, but I’m using it here just as an example.

The next card, I covered the base completely with some pink polka-dot paper. The flowers in the space were cut with Art Philosophy using glossy paper and second generation stamping. I pop-dotted the upper and lower layers.  Little strips of the same paper and some bling finished that one and I love it.

Then I took a reverse approach.   After cutting the layer in two I placed a Tim Holtz stencil on each piece and pounced three colors of Distress Ink on them, and this time I put a sentiment in the space, along with a few stamped flowers, pop-dotted the layer panels.  And some bling, of course.  So pleased with this one too. 

A masculine card in blue and brown.   Brown dots made with a pencil eraser!  Layer panels are pop-dotted.  I love the color combination on this.  

I was having so much fun cutting and placing the cut layers on those four cards I thought, hey, what if I made a circle?  So I grabbed a piece of ivory card stock and a scrap of DP and I did just that.  I wish I had brought the circle and cut down further on the DP so it didn't seem so centered (not my intent), but it is what it is.  Once I cut the circle in the layer, then I sliced it diagonally.  Here’s the thing though.  If you start to separate the two pieces the cut circle gets kind of wonky and is no longer a true circle, so I trimmed off ¼ inch from the circle openings and, voila, the opening was perfect for the 1 ¾” Artiste cut and stamp (same stamp I used in the card above).  The DP is adhered directly to the card but the sentiment is pop-dotted.  A few studs from CTMH and done! I can't wait to duplicate this one.

These really came together very quickly.  I should have put a warning that this was picture heavy.  I hope you try slicing up your cards!  Have a great week.