Whip It Up Wednesday: Birthday Card for Nan

It's that busy time of year where we have lots of birthdays in our family, as well as things like Father's Day, and that means lots of cards! Hopefully I'm not boring you too much ;)

This card is for my Nan's birthday. She lives a 5 hour drive away from me so I don't get to see her anywhere near as often as I would like. I hope she likes her pop-up bouquet card!

This idea comes from Martha Stewart's site, where you can also find downloadable templates if you so desire. This is the original version:

 I like to make things up as I go, so here's how I made mine.

First we need to make seven flowers. For each flower, you need one square of coloured paper. I used squares approximately 3" x 3" in purple, blue and yellow.

Fold your paper in half, then half again, like so:

Fold in half diagonally, like so:

Then take some sharp scissors and cut the end so it's rounded. 

When you open it up you should have a flower shape!

 

Now cut out one petal. Pop a bit of double sided tape on one of the petals next to the newly created gap, then stick the petal from the other side of the gap onto it. This gives you a 3D flower!

 

Now make 6 more ;) You need 7 in total.

To assemble your card, take one flower to use as the central flower and on the back of each petal use a small piece of double sided tape to attach it to the petal of another flower. You should have something like this when you're done:

Now use small pieces of double sided tape to attach the tips of adjoining petals where shown in this image:

Now you should be able to fold it down flat along a the centre, like so:

Pop a piece of double sided tape on the middle petal (the middle petal on my yellow flower below), and then close the card around it to attach. Repeat with the other side of your bouquet so that both sides are secure. 

If you want, cut some leaf shapes and fold them in half to give a 3D feel.

Attach them anywhere that they don't get in the way of opening and closing your card :) 

The inside is done! It's up to you to decorate the outside ;)

Happy Wednesday!

Whip It Up {Sunday!}: Scrap Buster Father's Day Card

It's Father's Day today! So I thought I'd share the card I've made for Dad this year :) 

You can adapt this to any occasion, it's really easy and it's a great paper scrap buster!

What you need:

* Lots of strips of colourful, co-ordinating paper in various thickness

* Small rectangle of vellum paper

* Slightly larger rectangle of colourful paper

* A "base" card

* Scissors (normal and decorative)

* Glue

* Gold pen for embellishment

* Split pins / brads

* Foam photo mount stickers

What to do:

Make up your "base" card if you haven't already. I wanted mine to fit inside a standard envelope, so I slipped the edge inside the top of the envelope, scored across where I wanted the top of the card to be, folded it at the score and trimmed off the excess.

Now cut your scrap paper into lots of strips. I like thin strips, but vary the thickness a bit for added interest. I also like to use different textures and types of paper if I can. Make sure you have enough strips to cover the front of your card.

Now, glue them on! I did mostly horizontal strips. First a layer of the longer, thicker strips then on top of that I added a few of the thinner and shorter strips. I also ended up doing a few vertical strips.

Let it dry then trim off the overhanging paper.

For added durability and longevity, I gave the front a thin coat of matt Mod Podge. You don't have to of course! Or you might like to be different and use gloss!

Now to embellish! I took a piece of vellum paper and wrote my message in gold marker.

I trimmed it down, then using my decorative scissors cut a piece of scrap book paper to sit behind the vellum paper so my wording would stand out. These two layers will be attached together using split pins, and I find it's easier to put the split pins through if I pop holes in the right spots first. Use the tip of some sharp scissors or an awl.

Attach the pieces, then place some foam photo mounting stickers on the back.

Attach this to the front of your (now dry!) card. You can stop here if you want, but I went ahead and added  a few swirls to the card with my gold pen for extra interest.

Happy Father's Day to all the Dads out there!

Whip It Up Wednesday: Quilled Father's Day Card

For us, Father's Day is just around the corner! 

So I thought I'd share the quilled card I made for my Dad's birthday back in July.

What You'll Need:

* White glue

* Plain paper

* A "base" card

I made one using a square of patterned vellum paper attached to coordinating cardboard using brads.

* Embellishments

I used gold wrapping paper and gold 'heart' stickers

What To Do:

Assemble your "base" card. Mine looked like this:

I just attached my vellum paper using brads in each corner - easy peasy!

Next cut your plain paper into thin strips. So I could cut them into strips of even thickness, I folded the paper into a 'fan' first then unfolded it and cut along the creases. I did quite thick strips because I folded them in half to give the paper extra thickness before I glued it down. 

If you don't fold, then you'll just have more delicate quilling, so it's totally up to you!

Lightly drawing with a lead pencil, sketch your letters or whatever shape you're quilling onto your card as a guide to where to stick you paper strips. 

Roll one of the folded strips into a tight coil then let the coil unravel. Work out how you want the strip to sit, coil any 'straight' ends if you want and trim the excess paper. Apply glue to the underside of your strip and attach it to your card. You might need to hold it in place a little until it's tacky and keeps its place.

Repeat this process to finish your first letter.

Then do the remaining letters. 

I also did a strip above and below my letters, with some curly embellished edges.

I decided this looked a bit plain, so to fancy it up, I cut out a large heart from wrapping paper, put a little bit of glue on the back of it and carefully slipped it behind the vellum paper.

I also added some gold heart stickers behind the vellum.

Then I decided I didn't like the brads I'd used, and swapped them over :P

Next time I'd do the quilling in black or something dark to make it stand out more, 

but Dad thought it was pretty cool, so that made me happy! 

Have a great week!

Card Making Resources: Wordle for Parents

In preparation for making a Father's Day card for Dad, I've been playing with Wordle! Have you checked it out yet? It's great fun! Here's one I made with words relating to my dad:

 I thought I'd share a few of the graphics that I made using Wordle that relate to parents so that if you want, you can print them out and use them on a card too! 

To save an image, click on it to bring up the full-sized version, 

then right click on the full-sized version and save it to your computer!

Wordles for Dads:

 

Wordles for Mums: 

Wordles for Parents:

I hope you find some of these useful! I'll share the birthday card I made for Dad with you next week :)

Have a wonderful weekend!