Aloha, all!
I’ve been spending most of the past week working on projects for two classes that I held over the past weekend. Not only did I have two classes, I had more people in both classes than I usually have in three times that many classes. Hooray for having new people attending. Yikes for having to work with all kinds of levels of experience – and so many people!
Today’s project is one that I made for the members of a club to which I belong that is definitely not craft related. Oh, they depend on crafts to get some of their work done. But it’s mostly my crafts. This time, though, I told them I thought that they might be interested in knowing how to make a card from start to finish.
I titled this project, “A Quick and Simple Greeting Card.”
For the materials for the card, I used the papers and punch from the Delightful Daisy Suite of products in the Stampin’ Up! 2017-2018 Annual Catalog. This included the Daisy Punch and the Delightful Daisy Designer Series Paper. I also added in a doily from some past Stampin’ Up! catalog as it was just the right size for this simple project. I also wanted some leaves, but I wanted this group to stick with punches and not get into anything like die-cutting. So out came the Leaf Punch, which is a carryover from the Stampin’ Up! 2017 Holiday Catalog.
For the daisy, I had them punch two daisy flowers from Daffodil Delight Cardstock. We adhered the two of them together, offsetting the petals, using some Mini Glue Dots. After setting that aside, we adhered a layer of the Night of Navy Pattern from the Designer Series Paper onto a standard A2 cardbase of Whisper White Thick Cardstock. Then we added a strip of the “other side” of the same Designer Series Paper sheet to the middle of the card.
To assemble the card front, we first adhered the Doily using some glue dots, then some leaves punched with the Leaf Punch using Old Olive Cardstock, then the punched double daisy. Finally I had them add a piece of Gold Glimmer Paper, punched with the 1/2″ Circle Punch, as the daisy’s center. I originally designed the card with a Gold Faceted Gem. But them I remembered that I don’t like to use those on cards to be sent through the mail as they don’t play nicely with envelopes (and, no, I’m not teaching them how to package cards in envelopes in this basic class).
The final touch was a sentiment. I brought out my old wood-mounted Teeny Tiny Wishes Stamp Set, and let them choose their own preferred sentiment. Then I had them punch their sentiment out using the Classic Label Punch, and adhere it to the card front using glue dots.
Everyone was so pleased with the result! Yes, one or two people managed to adhere the layers to the card front with the card opening in the wrong direction, despite my pleas that they double-check where their card opened before using that glue! But this is a design that can go in every different direction, so everyone ended up with a great card. Just imagine this design turned 90 or 180 degrees – it works! It was the perfect card for beginners.
Here’s a copy of the instructions that I gave the people who were in this class for real beginners. One page is a basic set of instructions and the other page shows some layout measurements. If you are a teacher, feel free to use this in your classes for beginners. If you’re a beginner, have fun with it! While the instructions don’t specify Stampin’ Up! products, here are the Stampin’ Up! products I used for my project.
