Cutaways - 2026 June Class #1

Today I made three different fun fold cards – they are “cutaway” cards where part of the card front is cut away. Here's a video showing how I made two of them:

 

I’ll be using papers from a previous Product of the Month called Painted Illusions, and the very pretty pearlescent Pastels Shimmer paper.  I’ll also be using several older stamp and die sets from my stash – one of which is the fun Notes & Totes dies that are on Last Chance sale as I write this.  

Ink & Paper Pieces Part 2 - May 2026 Class #2

Today I have several cards made using items from the Waterside Retreat collection which includes the Waterside Retreat papers and the Relaxing Waterside stamp & die bundle.  This class was inspired by a challenge to "use the last stamp or die set that you purchased" - which for me was this Relaxing Waterside stamps and dies.  

So, I used those to support my main objective, which for this class, was that I wanted to demonstrate some additional techniques for creating backgrounds for cards.   

Here's a video that demonstrates some of these techniques and shows how I made the first 3 cards that are posted here: 

 

First up are two options for coloring a background with ink. Students will make one or the other.  Their 2nd card will be what's listed here as card #3, and then they will be given patterned paper and cardstock to make their own design for a 3rd card.  My card #4 is an example of one way they could do this.  And finally, I have a 5th card that was made for a message board challenge and will not be a part of the class.

A Special Gift

Make a quick gift that a love one will cherish!  This one is an 8 x 8 scrapbook showing pictures from a very special birthday celebration.

For tips, tricks, and "how-to's", check out this video:

It's SO nice to have stamps and dies that you can use to make your scrapbooks special.  Right now, there are a couple of products that I especially recommend:

Alphabet dies are GREAT for creating your titles. Stampin' Up! has a great set on last chance sale right now - the one I used for the title on the 2nd and 3rd pages of this scrapbook. It's called ALPHABET A LA MODE and is currently 40% off! 

Some of the stamps I used came from the CELEBRATE TOGETHER stamp set (which is ALSO 40% off as I write this!): Others came from discontinued sets, but there are several really nice new sets you can pick up here.  

You can subscribe to my YouTube channel here.  

And make Stampin' Up! purchases here.

Ink & Paper Pieces - May 2026 Class #1

 

Today I have two class cards featuring pretty papers and ways to use them.  I also introduce a fun fold I'm calling a Pillar Gatefold.  

The paper pack that I’m using for these two cards is one called Botanical Textures.  It has been discontinued, but the new catalog has a lovely paper pack that would work well for these techniques.  It’s called Artisan Sketched Garden and has several floral prints that would be so much fun to use this way!  Another new one you could try if you want a paper that is just leaves, would be a paper from the Beautiful Ordinary Life paper pack. 

I'm also showing a third card using papers from the Perennial Lavender DSP.  In class, I’ll give my students some of this paper and cardstock and encourage them to use 1/2” paper strips to do their own thing.   

My third card is not one the class will duplicate, so is not included in the video below.  Instead, it is a card that showcases a couple of possibilities – which I then put together in a single card rather than making two samples.   This also shows a variation on the basic gate fold card that can be a lot of fun.  Check out card #3 below.

Some of what I did in creating these cards was challenging to describe in a blog post, so feel free to watch the video:

Gate Fold with Pop Out Center

 

This Gatefold with Pop Out Center card is REALLY easy to make!  Just start with a standard Gate Fold card base & score a couple of line in the center of the inside panel, folding both as mountain folds.  Decorate the front as normal (you can see what I did in the picture below).  The inside is what makes the difference.  Here you will glue some sort of Pop Out element to JUST the space between your two score lines.  You can see I chose to leave the center panel white and just added decorative panels to the sides.  

The card base was made from Basic White, and I used Pretty in Pink cardstock to mat everything.  I again used the discontinued Wildflower Birthday DSP and both the inside pop out and the focal element on the front were punch outs from that paper pack. Again, any paper you choose will work fine for this, and your focal and pop out elements could be stamped and die cut images or images cut from patterned paper.  

 Here's what the card looks like when closed.

I matted the cake punch out on Basic White cardstock and stamped the sentiment (from Notes of Spring stamp set - a past product of the month) with Blueberry Bushel ink.  I then matted the whole on Pretty in Pink and glued it to just the left side of the card.

Scrapbooking Without Pictures & More

Usually my scrapbook pages are inspired by photos I have that I want to create pages for, but today's pages were inspired cutting dies!  From the moment I first saw the Made with Sweetness cutting dies, I knew I wanted to create these pages.  I LOVE these cutting dies!  They make such realistic paper fruit!  And since we are still enjoying the jams we made from an abundant crop of peaches from our tree, the memories of making peach jam are still fresh in my mind.  I'm also using the coordinating Homemade Sweetness designer series papers.  

I made two stand alone pages - and a video showing how they were made:

Triple Easel with Sides

 

This card, that I call a Triple Easel with Sides, can look quite dramatic but is really very easy to make.  Simply make a standard easel card (instructions here - see card #4).  After you've scored the card front in half horizontally, slice it crosswise twice, forming two side panels and a center one.  In this case, I sliced it one inch from each side.  Then, set your easel stops such that the two sides stop at a different place than the center one.  

 

I created this card from Blueberry Bushel cardstock and decorated it using papers from the discontinued Wildflower Birthday papers.  You can use any paper from your stash, or find some beautiful new ones here.  

The pink plaid is the reverse of the flowered paper, so it was really quite easy to decorate the front.  I simply cut my pieces the right size and chose the side I wished before gluing them in place.  The focal was a punch out from the paper set, which I added carefully so it was attached only to the bottom half of the center panel. The sentiment was created from Gold Foil Sheets using the Thoughtful Moments Hybrid Embossing folder.  That creates a variety of sentiments that work SO well for foiled papers like these. 

On the inside of the card I have a 4" x 5 1/4" piece of Basic White cardstock with two narrow strips of patterned paper on either side.  The strip of Blueberry Bushel cardstock is raised on Mini Stampin' Dimensionals, as are the two additional punch out flowers near the middle.

And here's what the card looks like with the three parts held by their stoppers for display.

Center Step Gift Card

Here I have a quick and easy adaptation to a standard Center Step card that creates a space for holding a gift card.  You can check here for how to create a basic center step card.  I created this center step card as usual, using Blueberry Bushel cardstock.   I used one inch spacing for the sides and steps measurements.  

 

Then I decorated the card front using Balmy Blue cardstock, Basic White cardstock that was lightly inked with Balmy Blue ink, and punch outs from the discontinued Wildflower Birthday DSP.  The sentiment was created using the Thoughtful Moments Hybrid Embossing Folder which is on last chance sale as I write this.  I LOVE this set.  I emboss/die cut a bunch of sentiments using it and inking the embossing folder with Basic Black Hybrid ink.  This gives me a bunch of black and white sentiments to which I can add any color I want for a quick coordinating sentiment.  In this case, I used both Blueberry Bushel and Balmy Blue Stampin' Blends to color the sentiment.  I wanted this card to be a bit understated so it could work for a man or a woman so I didn't add more embellishments - but I DO wish I had embossed the Balmy Blue panels on the sides.  

 

Inside is where the gift card lives: 

 

I simply took a piece of Basic White cardstock that was 4" x 5 1/4" and scored it at 1" (score line parallel to the longest side).  Simply fold up along the score line, glue closed on both sides creating a pocket for your gift card.   Glue to the inside of the card and decorate as you choose.  Easy Peasy!

Focus on Backgrounds

This class is a focus on different ways of creating a card background, and features 3 or 4 cards (depending on how you count)! LOL!  All cards were made using older Stampin' Up! papers that are no longer available, but you can use the techniques to create something from your stash, or find something new that will work well.  Any supplies that ARE still available have links to them.  Here's a video showing how I made these cards - along with a couple of tricks.

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.  

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.

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:

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: