Interlocking and Locking Gate Fold Cards

 

Here are two types of Interlocking Gatefold cards and a Locked Gatefold.  First and last are decorated with the discontinued Wildflower Birthday DSP - which includes cut outs and pop outs.  All are basically just a standard gatefold.  It is the decorating that makes the "interacting" or "locking part.  

Card #1 (above): This first one consists of a frame that is a bit larger than an additional mat.  The frame is glued to only the left side of the card, and the mat is glued only to the right side of the card.  The mat (with focal glued to it) threads through the frame for this card.  The sentiment is also glued only to the right side of the card.

Card #2:  

Here's the second type of interlocking gatefold.  The interlocking part is the small gold heart at the bottom.  It is actually two hearts interlocked.  Here are some pictures to show you how it was made:

 

 

It starts with two identical shapes (hearts this time).  Each is cut halfway through the center - one from the top and one from the bottom.  These slits allow me to slide the two together like this:

 

 

When fully slid together they look like this:

 

As I said, the one on the card is made from gold foil.  After creating it, I glued the back layers to the card fronts.  With one glued to one side and one to the other.  To open it, slide the card fronts slightly apart up and down to disconnect the hearts.

 

So far as decorating is concerned, I used the discontinued pack called Marbled Elegance, along with the discontinued die set called Hearts of Elegance.  The large layered heart with attached sentiment (Thoughtful Moments hybrid embossing folder), is only glued to the left side of the gatefold card.

Card #3: 

This Locked Gatefold is fairly simple, though it might require trimming the gatefold just a hair so there is a sliver of space between the two flaps to allow for the "lock".

To make the lock, cut 3 identical pieces - this time I used 1 3/4" circles - cut from the same cardstock as the focal mat. Score and fold 2 of them in half.  The Stampin' Up! Paper Trimmer makes this really easy - see picture below.

 With the two circles folded in half, glue to the back of the focal:

Glue the third circle over top of them to keep them in place.

 

Slide focal over the card front - circle centered over the edges:

I could certainly have decorated this more - like with added bling or border die cuts.  

 

Also, this could be created in several ways.  For example, the focal could be made separately and glued to one side of the card front with a sentiment made with smaller locking pieces underneath as the "lock".

Acetate Gap Card

 

This is an "Acetate Gap Card" where a piece of the card front is cut away, a piece of that cut for the right side, and the gap filled with acetate.  Though often the gap is smaller, in this case I cut a narrow 1/4" on each side which left quite a large gap. I cut pink strips of cardstock to cover the areas where the white cardstock strips were glued to the back of the acetate.  

 

When it comes to decorating, I've mostly used papers and pop out pieces from the discontinued Wildflower Birthday DSP.  I fussy cut white cardstock to back the elements glued to the acetate so that the glue isn't visible.  As you can probably tell, the birthday cake is glued to the acetate - as is the striped paper.  But the flowers are glued to the inside of the card.  Here's what it looks like when open:

 

 

 

 

Cutaway Sides in 2 Forms

Today I've got a couple of quick fun cards.  I decorated them using the discontinued patterned paper (Wildflower Birthday DSP), pop out pieces from the same paper pack, and die cut/embossed sentiments from Gold Foil using the Thoughtful Moments hybrid embossing folder.

Card #1:   

The first, a simple card with cutaway sides - is made by taking a standard A2 card and cutting 1" off each side of the card front.  

To decorate it, I simply took a 4" x 5 1/4" piece of the patterned paper.  After trimming 7/8" off each end, I glued those pieces to the sides of the inside of the card.  

After trimming 1/4" off the remaining piece, I flipped it to the reverse and glued that to the center of the card front.  Then I added one of the pop out pieces from the paper set and glued it in place.  I finished with one of the sentiment pieces.

Card #2:

This one is a cutaway easel.  It starts the same as the last one, but I scored the middle piece in the center horizontally at 2 1/8" to make the center piece like an easel.  I added an embossed piece of white cardstock (Soft Waves 3D embossing folder) - glued just to the lower half of the center card front.  It serves as a mat for the pop out focal and added sentiment.

 

I added a small piece of the gold foil on Mini Stampin' Dimensionals to the inside of the card to serve as a stopper for the easel.

 

Woven Border Card

Today I've made a Woven Border card.  The weaving along the fold makes a fun detail.  The hardest part is making some ruler marks and drawing some short lines.  Here's what you want to do:

 

On the fold side of the card, draw a parallel line 1/2" from the fold.  Then, mark every 1/4" along the line and the fold.  At the top, mark half-way between the fold and the 1/2" line.  Draw from there to the first mark down on the 1/2" line.  Then, draw a diagonal line from the top of the fold to the next free mark on the 1/2" line.  Then draw parallel diagonal lines down the fold until you get toward the bottom.  Finally, draw a line from the last mark on the fold to the point halfway between the fold and the 1/2" line.

 

Now, with the card still folded and starting at the bottom, slice the small line, cutting off a small triangle.  For the next line up, carefully slice from the fold to 1/4" from the bottom.  Then slice all the rest of the lines between the fold and the 1/2" line.  Open the card and place it face down.  Again, starting from the bottom, skip the first point and fold the next one down - then slice it off.  Your card should now look like the picture above. 

 

Continuing from the bottom, skip the next point and fold the next down like in the picture above.

Tuck this piece below the first point - see picture above.

 

 Continue folding every other piece down and tucking it in place until you get to the top:

 

The top one is in two pieces - fold them each down and glue in place:

 

Fold close and decorate as you choose:

 

In this case, I used papers from the Wildflower Birthday DSP.   The focal mat was die cut using Everyday Arches. The balloon was a punch out from the DSP.

 

I think what I've shown is the best way to do the woven border, but I made a couple of others as I figured out what I liked.  The weaving isn't as great on these, but it's not too bad, so I finished them as well - using more papers from the same set.  Here they are:

 

 

Keyhole Aperture

Today I have a quick card made as a "keyhole aperture".  This is simply a basic aperture or hole in the card front - except that it has a cover over it that is attached with a brad so it can rotate to show the aperture.  The card base was an A2 sized card made from Pool Party cardstock.  Inside are two panels of Basic White cardstock (each cut to 4" x 5 1/4").  

The aperture (hole) was cut with one of the Everyday Arches dies.  I cut the card front using one die and the white backing piece with one just a bit smaller to form a bit of a frame for the aperture.

The card with the cover in place is shown below:

It was made pretty easily using the discontinued Wildflower Birthday designer series paper set from Stampin' Up!   The "cover" is one of the tags cut from the set - matted on white.  I added small pieces of one of the papers near the top and bottom if the tag to dress it up a little bit - along with a greeting stamped toward the bottom in Pool Party ink.  The decorations around the edge were cut from Gold Foil sheets with dies from the Delicate Framing dies.

When the card is open, this is what you see:

 

The die cut piece from the card front is glued to the inside of the card - with a punched out piece that came in the same designer paper set. 

Holy Land Exhibit Layout

Here's a really quick layout made about our visit to the HolyLand Experience.  This time I'm not using a scrapbooking workshop kit.  I’m starting with a sketch from one of the Creative Design Team Sketchbooks that I’ve purchased - along with paper and cardstock that I've pulled.  

Focus on Focals

 

Today I have three quick cards demonstrating different ways of creating a focal.  

A Quick Card

Today I had a quick card making class for some visitors.  While they were working, I created this quick gap card.  It's made the same way as card #3 here.  Basically, after creating an A2 card from a 4 1/4" x 11" cardstock, I cut a large piece off.  Then cut another piece from that that was the same size as what I left.  The final piece was turned sideways and glued to the small piece of card front left - then to the other piece of cardstock that was placed to complete the card front.

I decorated it with papers from the Kintsugi Inspirations DSP, and decorated with bowl & flower die cut from one of the papers using a couple of dies from the Inspiring Imperfections dies.  

I glued the peach colored paper in place before matting it like would have been best, so I used a marker to draw lines around the paper.

I added the bowl, flower, and sentiment with dimensionals. 

Playing with Paper - Coloring with Stampin' Blends

Today I needed a quick card for a birthday that I didn't know was coming.  

I wanted to do something different, so I chose papers from Botanical Textures DSP (discontinued) - a black and white design, and added color using a Soft Sea Foam Stampin' Blends marker.  

Next, I chose Soft Sea Foam cardstock for the card base and Basic Black and Basic White cardstocks for mats & such.  Because it was a special birthday, I wanted to spell that out.  I had two die sets that I thought I could combine to create the focal message.  Both were discontinued, but there are some newer dies that would work. The first was the Wanted to Say dies - where I got a matted "Happy Birthday".  There's a lovely new set coming out the 5th or so of May that would work as a replacement - it's called Words and Wishes.  The 2nd was called Birthday Celebration - and had numbers dies.  These could be replaced by the Alphabet A La Mode dies.

Because the "Happy Birthday" was composed of the words stacked together, I had to die cut them carefully and then fussy cut to cut them apart.  (You won't need to do that with the newer dies as they're made separately.) I then also used the "Birthday" part to get the extra "th" I needed - fussy cutting them apart as well.  After cutting the "60", I glued it to black cardstock and fussy cut a mat around it, since the number dies didn't have a associated mat die.  Oh yes, you can probably see that I used Soft Sea Foam cardstock for the letters/numbers, and Basic Black for the mats.

I created these words and numbers, added them to a rectangle of white cardstock, then matted that with black before adding it to the card front using Dimensionals.

The final piece was to add some embellishments made using Extraordinary Flora Washi Tape on white cardstock cut with Extraordinary Flora dies. 

Inside: 

The sentiment inside was created with the Hybrid Embossing folder called Thoughtful Moments.  I inked the folder with Memento Tuxedo Black ink - and then colored it with the same Stampin' Blends I used to color the paper.  The rest is made using the same things I used on the card front.

Memories in Bloom - 3rd project

Today's two-page scrapbook spread started with the Memories In Bloom Scrapbooking Workshop kit.  This is the second kit I've worked with, and this time I decided that instead of making the whole kit, I'd focus on one project.  I started with Project #3 because I thought it would work best with my photos.  I made the background pretty much as directed, but changed up the photos, embellishments, and title. 

 

Here's the process video for this scrapbook layout.

 

 

Or you can look for the process video on my YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/@CheringLOP 

Notes and Totes

I've done something different for our 2nd class this month.  Instead of continuing to explore Z-fold cards, we're exploring a fun stamp and die set called Notes & Totes.  In the process, we're answering these questions: How do I start with a new set?  How can I use it with patterned paper?  How do we make a 3-D version of this "tote"?  This blog shows the resulting projects.  If you'd like to see how they're done, check out the video here:

 

Weekend Adventures Kit - A Third Extra Page

Today I have another EXTRA scrapbook page from the Weekend Adventures Scrapbooking Workshop kit. 

Here's a short video about making this page:

 

Everyday You and Me

I just realized that I never got this layout posted - and it's one of my favorites!  I made it in the middle of February.  

I think this was the first scrapbooking layout I've made using Stampin' Up! products.  Oh, wow!  So much easier than the HOURS I used to spend looking through papers and cardstock in my stash trying to find things that went together well and worked with my photos!  I had purchased the Everyday You and Me papers with sticker sheet, and the coordinating set of 12 x 12 cardstock (unfortunately no longer available), and it was so easy to pull together what I needed!

A2-sized Z-fold cards - March Class 1

Today's class was about making true Z-fold cards in an A2 size - NOT fold-back cards, but cards where all three panels are the same width.  To make the card bases, I needed cardstock that was larger than 12".  You can see what I did - including how to cut something that's a bit longer than 12 x 12 - in this video. 

These projects were made using the Florals in Bloom designer series paper (DSP), as well as a couple of retired papers from packs we’ve used previously (Floral Impressions, Otterly Adorable)

You can see closeups of the cards we made below.

Modifying a Scrapbooking Workshop Kit

Today I've got several scrapbook spreads that started with this Scrapbooking Workshop Kit from Stampin' Up! called Weekend Adventures.  It includes instructions for creating these three double-page spreads about being in the "great outdoors":

I chose to adapt this kit to create several pages with different themes.  I have two videos that show what I did.  Weekend Adventures Part 1 covers the basic modifications I made and why - along with cutting the papers and arranging the layouts.  Weekend Adventures Part 2 covers embellishing and finishing.  This includes a bit at the end of the video about how to add brochures or other large memorabilia to your page without taking up a bunch of space.

 

 

This post shows my finished pages.

Aspects of Composition - February Class 2

I apologize for the late posting of these class projects - but the delay means there IS an accompanying YouTube video!  

This class is part 2 of Aspects of Composition.  In it, I discussed the following concepts: Visual Weight and Balance, Proportion, and Odd versus Even.  These cards were created to demonstrate some of these concepts.  All three focus on the Trusty Tools stamps and Trusty Tools dies.  Below is a closer look at each card.

Aspects of Composition - February Class 1

 

Mea culpa!  I THOUGHT I had posted this month's class cards a long time ago, but I guess with the steep learning curve about creating You-Tube videos, it skipped my mind.  BUT, the good news is that if you want to see how to create these cards, I have a video!  Here's a link to my YouTube channel.  I'd love to have you subscribe.

 

This month's classes were about aspects of composition in card making.  This first class was specifically about: focal, rule of thirds, and visual triangles.  You can watch it here:

 

 

Here's a look at the cards we made - each one demonstrating one or more of those concepts.  All cards used papers from the Floral Impressions DSP (designer series paper).  

Heart Easel & More - January Class 2

Today I have four cards - made from two different half sheets of designer series paper (DSP) called Marbled Elegance.  I also used stamps and dies from the Hearts of Elegance bundle.  I'm using up some of my stash, so both papers and stamp/die bundle are currently discontinued.  However, there are plenty of materials currently available that would work well.  Try this paper, and this stamp/die bundle.

There is a video that shows how I made these cards - here:

 

More Easels

Today I have a few more easel cards - same structures as the last post - just decorated differently.  I'm again using up some of my Stampin' Up! stash, so not all materials are still available.  If they are (as of this posting), I'll add links so you can find them.  Most card bases start with Basic White Thick cardstock, and many use Tuxedo Black Memento ink.

Variations on Easels - January Class 1

Today I have a trio of cards that are all variations on easel cards.  While it's fun to use new things, sometimes we need to use up our current stash, and that's what I'm doing with these cards.  So, many of the items are discontinued, but you can find plenty of pretty papers, stamps & dies to use to make similar cards here. Where materials are still available as of this writing, I'll provide links to them. 

 

You can find a video about how I made these cards - here: