Today I have used the Butterflies Fae 18 digital stamp set from
Morgan's Art World, one of our generous sponsors this week.
This stamp set comes with four beautiful butterflies to I decided to be adventurous, try my hand at making a twist & pop card and showcase all four images in one card.
closed front view
open view
The challenge this week is asking for 2+ patterned papers and I have used three,
one "digital" and two "real paper" patterned papers.
To get myself started, I found a tutorial to make a Twist & Pop card.
HERE is the one I used.
Once I had the dimensions, I made a custom sized template in Adobe Photoshop and added a digital patterned paper to it. Next I used the magic wand tool to trace each image, selected the inverse then pasted them on to the patterned panel (saving as a different file each time). To ensure that the images would print the exact size, I placed them all together on an A5 mat in Silhouette Studio and printed them on A5 X-Press It cardstock, making sure to heat set them before I started colouring.
After spending ever-such-a-long time looking at butterflies online, I decided that these magical creatures come in all the colours of the rainbow and an infinite variety of patterns, so I decided to go with shades of pink and orange, matching the flowers of the patterned paper used on the front of the card. I coloured the butterflies using Copic markers.
See the butterfly on the far right? Well I have to confess that I made an "oops" when I traced the image. There was a small white area between the bottom delicate "decorative" wing and the real "flying" wing. Luckily my Copic markers came to the rescue, with a mottled blend of G43 and G46 matching the background perfectly ... whew!
Next came the exciting folds.
I decided on a dark green base and sparkling black matting as they complemented the patterned papers (
digital & real) perfectly and it is always nice to have a touch of sparkle, especially with butterflies and bling.
Here are the dimensions that I used:
base - 6" x 12" - scored at 6" to make a top fold
image (accordion) panel strip - 3
1/2" x 10" - scored at 3
1/2", 5" and 7
1/2"
the side score lines are valley folds, the central score line a mountain
twist & pop mechanism - 3
1/2" x 8", first score lengthways at 1
3/4", make a make 2 1/4 and 5 3/4" along each side and make the next two score lines diagonally across, crossing centrally with the original horizontal score line.
FOLD and BURNISH each of the folds so that they will move smoothly when the card is opened and closed. The horizontal score makes a mountain fold, the diagonal ones are all valley folds.
Mat the inside panels of the card base (
I layered patterned paper over glitter cardstock), adhere the triangle of the fully folded mechanism to the inside base of the matted card base, aligning the point to just under the middle of the centre fold, apply adhesive to the top triangle of the folded mechanism then fold the card down on to it.
Fully open the card and apply the accordion panel, making sure the centre of the accordion panel aligns with the centre of the mechanism, fold the left & right accordion panels towards the centre, place adhesive on the top RHS and bottom LHS of the mechanism (above / below the score line), then fold the flaps down on to the mechanism.
GENTLY open the card the first time, making sure that the folds work properly, they may need a little assistance the first time and should operate smoothly after that. Adhere the matted images to each of the accordion panels then have another go at opening and closing the card ... there is no special reason to it at this stage, it is just so much fun seeing everything unfold before your eyes.
I made two sentiment panels to decorate inside my card. I used the same digital patterned paper so that they matched the butterflies and the Swirl Dance digital font by Samantha Walker, printing them from Silhouette Studio then matting them with the same glitter cardstock used on all all the panels.
For the front of the card I used another panel of patterned paper, matted it with black glitter cardstock and embellished with a black glitter cardstock die cut butterfly and a bling flourish.
Here are some pics showing the fold in action:
Do you see the green mechanism in the pic above?
Since making this card, I have since found THIS tutorial and will be giving it a try next time, as I really like how the mechanism panel is the size of the card and how the matting covers the mechanism too. One thing to note in the tutorial is that the accordion panel should be 3" x 10 3/4", not 11" as listed.
