Simplified flowerpot cards

Here are my samples for the card class I'm teaching at the library next week. I simplified the design so that the kids can do it, and I'll teach it in small groups while the rest of them play with my scraps and basic supplies. Decorating the pots should take them a little while. I punched the outsides of the flowers with a large punch, the rest is all done with the Cricut and Make the Cut software.

S&S Sketch Challenge #52

Last Sunday, the OWH Stars and Stamps blog celebrated one year of sketch challenges with Sketch Challenge #52. It really doesn't seem like a whole year... but then I've hardly done any of the sketches! I just had to do this one in honour of the anniversary, so here are two cards I made today.
First, the sketch...nice and simple and good for the 'clean and simple' cards I prefer. I'm trying to work on making my cards as 'clean' as I can - since I don't like complicated designs, everything on the card needs to be perfect. Any little imperfection stands out like a sore thumb. 'Simple' is easy - perfect is something I'm still working on!

I bought this stamp a few weeks ago. The set has three different circles, and a dozen different sentiments all nicely sized to fit in them, which makes it perfect for OWH. The paper is various scraps that went together nicely. I carefully placed the strip so that 'family' was showing. It needed a little something more, so I added the yellow butterfly even though it's not part of the sketch.

I cut these flowers last night when I was fiddling around trying to make my flowerpot card. They were way too big for that, but the two largest ones were perfect for a card of their own, with a couple of others from my collection to finish them off.

A Flower-pot card

I CASEd this card from a lady on the Christian PaperCrafts board... and it turns out that she got the idea from Split Coast Stampers and there's a tutorial right there! I didn't use the tutorial, I figured out how to make it from her photo, but the basic design of mine came out pretty much the same as the original except I glued the sides of my flowerpot pocket, and I left the back of the pot sticking up to give the tag and flowers more support, because they seemed a bit heavy. You can see the tutorial HERE. I can't link to Anita's version because the board is members-only so nobody can see it, but hers looks pretty much the same as mine only with a tag on it.

I cut the flowerpot by hand. Fold a sheet of cardstock lengthways instead of the way you fold a regular card, and then cut it in half. Fold the top inch or so down to make the flap, and use a border punch on the top edge. Unfold it again, and trim a very small edge to make the flowerpot pot-shaped. Slide a card-front into the card and measure the edges, then trim it off so that it will fit into the pocket.

Wrap a ribbon around the flap and tie it off in a bow or a knot. Use a gluedot in the center of the flap so that the ribbon can't slide off the card. If you want to add a charm or a punched tag, make sure that you put it on BEFORE you knot the ribbon! Glue the top edges of the pocket to hold the card together.
Alternatively, wrap the ribbon around the entire card and tie it off. People will 'open' the card by sliding the ribbon off.

Punch or cut your flowers and leaves and glue them so that they fit into the pot without the backing card showing through. (Put glue on the bottom half of the top flower/s, and the top half of the bottom ones! Leave the other half unglued so that the bottoms of the flowers hang over the edge of the pot like a real plant.)

I cut my flowers with the Cricut and the 'Make The Cut' software - the flowers came from their free online gallery... but you could use any large hand punch, or any flower shape. The Don Juan cartridge that came with my Cricut has a flower that would work just as well. They're cut from plain cream cardstock and chalked for a more delicate colouring than ink or markers...

Cards I made this week

I usually make two or three cards at a time using the same basic materials... that way I can play with my idea and not waste cardstock/paper. Here's some I made this week.

Olive green pre-folded cards, heart corner punch, Martha Stewart leafy border punch. Punch each corner of a 2-inch square and fold them in to make a medallion.

Pink embossing done with my Fiskars Scrapboss. The pink is not this lurid btw - the scanner made it much brighter! Red was scraps of Christmas paper.

The idea for these cards came from the Stars and Stripes blog, but I adapted it to my own use with ribbon.Sentiments are stickers and so is the flag (it's metallic silver...)

Scrap bookmarks

When you cut a sheet of 8-1/2 wide cardstock down to six inches wide so it will fit in the Cricut, you're left with a two-and-a-half inch wide strip... after using the Cricut for awhile, you've got a LOT of them! lol I'm making some of them into bookmarkers for the Friends of Gilda. They're very quick and easy to make - you just find some scraps that look nice together and add a few stickers or vertical stamps, and sandwich some pretty ribbon in between them. No lumpy embellishments because they're made to go in a book and they need to be flat! If you're wondering what size they are, they're 7 to 7-1/2 inches long and 2-2/12 inches wide depending on the scraps. The one with punched edges are a little smaller because the border punches trim 1/8 inch off the paper.