Craft with what you have; step-by-step Card Walkthrough

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Hello folks, and welcome to this step-by-step Card Demo. I'm hoping that this post will inspire you to find some of your own long lost embossing folder, dies and seasonal stamp sets, place them on your table and just start crafting. This demo will give you a basic walkthrough of a clean and simple card that puts colour-popping to great use whilst using all those hidden gems you've had in your stash for years and breathe some life back into them. 

The aim of my card was to use the Mama Elephant - Little Boo Agenda stamp and die set as an 'everyday' card rather than just sat around waiting for it to be acceptable to use again at Halloween. There's nothing like making use of what you have and pushing it to your limits.


I try to pick my card size first so that I know what space I have to work with. On the odd occassion this may change as my project developes. This time I'm going with my regular, 6x6" white card. I'm going to use a spare piece of 'Alcohol friendly' Cardstock to stamp the Mama Elephant Little Boo Agenda stamps with Memento Ink (Good for any Alcohol Markers), and I'm going to stamp several out as I'm often cautious about my colouring and I can be indecisive. 

To push away from the stereotypes of ghost on cards I wanted to incorporate a card crafting favourite and have each ghost represent a colour of the rainbow. I coloured them by using Copic Marker (Alcohol-based). I often make little marker swatches on the cardstock so that I can see the true colours before using them.


Using a low tack masking tape I stuck the coordinating Little Boo Agenda Die set down and ran it through my die cutting machine (Sizzix Bigshot Foldaway). Carefully peel off the low tack tape to free those cute ghosties.


Collect those forgotten embossing folders, and give a light spritz of water to some white card stock and run small pieces through. The spritz of water stops your cardstock cracking as it makes the embossing. Variety is what you want for this piece.


Using some of those dies you haven't seen in a while, also run them through your cutting machine using the same white card stock. In my case, I used the Tim Holtz/Sizzix Wildflowers thinlits and Tim Holtz/Sizzix Garden Greens thinlits.

For this card I chose to use the Tim Holtz/Sizzix stacked tiles - hexagons thinlits as the tiles for the background but I also wanted to use the Tim Holtz/Sizzix Mixed Media Thinlits Dies for texture too. I cut out various sizes of the Hexagons in white cardstock and then with those hexagons I used the Mixed Media Dies to cut into them. Don't worry about them being a bit flimsy at this point, we're about to sort that bit out.


In this image you'll see all my hexagon pieces I've cut out. I haven't counted for how many I'll need, I've just given it a guess. What I've done is, cut hexagons out of those embossed pieces of card that we did at the beginning  stuck down my flowers and greens to cut out hexagon's and trimmed around them and finally with the 'flimsy' texture die pieces, I've just added another whole white hexagon cut out behind them. I use my trusty Cosmic Shimmer Acrylic glue to stick them to the hexagonal bases.


Here's a close up





I then bring in my 6x6" card base and do a rough placement of where I would like the hexagons to go, glue them in place and after a minute of drying, turn my card over and trim away any excess cardstock.


With my Sizzix Circle Framelits, I've chosen the second largest circle die as It will have a good amount of coverage over my card when I then cut out a circle of Vellum.


All I needed next was my sentiment and I used the Avery Elle Load of Thanks Stamp and die set as it has some beautiful sentiments but also a large fabulous 'thanks' die.


I cut out a large 'thanks' from the Avery Elle die set, a white card outer and a black card inner, and also stamp out 'many' and 'from all of us' in black Memento Ink. 

Now I show in this picture me having used Distress oxides the tint the sentiment in with a rainbow effect but I don't end up using this as I prefer the classy black and white version.


After sticking the black inner thanks to the white outer thanks, It's important that you then stick the 'thanks' to the Vellum first rather than the Vellum down to your card, as once its stuck to the Vellum you'll know exactly where you can apply glue/foampads to the back of the Vellum without any glue/foampads showing through the Vellum.


Here's a quick view of me hiding those 3D sticky foampads by staying within the 'thanks' sentiment.


All there is left to do, is place your 3D sentiment in the centre of your card (my was purposefully placed at an angle), glue the remaining sentiment pieces and finally I chose to also 3D foampad the ghosts all the way around the edge.

Here are some more images of the card. I hope you found this walkthrough simple enough to follow using your own long lost embossing and die cutting stash, and I hope this shows how simple and beautiful some heavily seasonal ghost friends can be used throughout the year.

Please feel free to show me your own makes, I would love to see you own take on this walkthrough. You can find me on Instagram @bluebrumby




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