A Fun Fold With Snowflakes

Aloha, all!

Today is the last Wednesday of the month, so it’s time for a little Island Hopping with Cheryl Hamilton from the Island of Maui. I live on the Big Island of Hawai’i, which is just across a channel in the Pacific from Maui. So near and yet so far as right now there’s a quarantine requirement if we travel between islands. Soon, though, I hope to visit Maui!

CASE-ing Each Other

Earlier in the month I commented on a post of Cheryl’s saying that I felt a CASE coming on. (Copy And Share Every thing is the currently popular translation for the acronym CASE.) Cheryl immediately said that that should be the theme for our blog hop this month. And so it is!

One of Cheryl’s Class Projects

Last week Cheryl was actively promoting her monthly color class and one of her card projects was going to be a fun fold. You know how much I love Fun Folds, and especially folds that are quick and easy to make AND can stand up on a table or shelf once they’re opened and read. This project met all those criteria.

So there was my CASE, handed to me on a golden (well, Bumble Bee) platter.

And My Take on It

Before I finished this particular card I tried it with several different papers and center images. I’ll share another one or two with you towards the end of this post. But I found in making those cards that I wanted to change a few things. First the card, and then the changes.

Lots of Snowflakes

My theme for the card came from the Snowflake Splendor Suite, including the Snowflake Splendor Designer Series Paper, the  Snowflake Wishes Stamp Set and the So Many Snowflakes dies.

The card base is made from Whisper White Thick Cardstock. I also made the snowflakes from the same cardstock as they are cut in a way that makes them very delicate. The accent cardstock is all Night of Navy.

The sentiment is also from the Snowflake Wishes Stamp Set (this sentiment is the title of the set!). I embossed it in white on Night of Navy, then cut it and the white mat using the Banners Pick a Punch.

Changing the Front Flap Directions

I think you can see right away the first of the two changes that I made to this design to make it my own.

When I showed my first card to my husband, he had trouble figuring out where to open the card. Once he got it opened and playing with it a bit, he was fine with it. But that made me rethink the directions of the two parts of the split front.

Usually when I get a card, my first instinct is to reach for the bottom right corner of the card to open it. Whether it opens to the left side or to the top, this approach to opening a card works. So I switched the two sides so that the bottom opens at the right and the top opens at the left. In fact, what happens when you open the right side is that the left side is forced to open all on its own.

Decorating the Covered Corners

This is what the card looks like when it’s folded closed. At this point, everything that you see is nicely decorated, either with printed papers or die-cuts. But when you open it, there are two corner sections that have nothing on them at all. Since I envision this card sitting on a table partially opened, I wanted those two blank corners to have some decorations.

I could have die-cut some Night of Navy snowflakes. But recall that they’re a bit on the delicate side and I’d have to glue the heck out of them. So I ran those corners through the Stampin’ Cut & Emboss machine with snowflake dies in both corners. Then I added a piece of Night of Navy Cardstock behind the die-cut snowflakes so they’d show up.

My First Card

This is the first card – the one that convinced me to change the direction of my card’s front flaps. I used products from the Most Wonderful Time Product Medley. I love the papers in this set, and actually have bought TWO refills of the kit! The tree is from the stamp set in the product medley and the sentiment is from the Gift Wrapped Stamp Set. And on the right is the card when opened.

The Original of the Snowflake Card

This was the original of the Snowflake Card that I made, with no snowflake die-cuts in the corner. At this point with all the work I’d been doing on this design, I didn’t feel like starting over, but there was no way I was getting this entire card front through a die-cutting machine. So, yes, the front flaps and the center section are, indeed, the pieces that are also on the final card. I have learned well how to rip things apart without doing too much damage. It was the card base that took the brunt of the “ripping” and it is new.

The Bottom Line

I love CASE-ing anyone. But it’s a particularly wonderful thing to CASE Cheryl Hamilton’s beautiful works. I can hardly wait to see what of mine inspired her to CASE. You and I will both find out by going to Cheryl’s blog to see what she’s done with this theme. Now is a good time!

Happy Stamping, original work or CASE-ing!