Hi, There, Stampers!
I hadn’t planned to share another Christmas card with the Celebrate Everything Designer Series Paper set. But then I had scraps. And when I have as many scraps as I had after my original cards, I try to find something to make with them. That’s why you’re seeing my latest attempt at a Chevron Pieced card.
All You Need Is Some 1″ Squares
To make the Chevron Design, all you need is 12 one-inch squares of two contrasting colors of printed papers. Then cut each square in half diagonally, resulting in 24 triangles of each color. At the bottom of this article is a sketch showing how to layout the squares on a 6″ by 4″ cardstock rectangle.
And Some MATCHING Cardstock
My original tutorials for this card suggested using Basic White or Very Vanilla Cardstock for this piece of cardstock. But when I was beginning to lay this set of triangles out it occurred to me that having one of the colors in the papers would help keep any imperfectly aligned triangles from showing as much as a light color would. I’m so glad I get smarter as I get older!
Once you have all of your triangles and the matching 6″ x 4″ piece of cardstock, then begin assembling the triangles on to the cardstock. My personal preference is to create each square before moving on to the next square. This is the best way to make sure that all the squares are aligned vertically and horizontally as you go along. And, yes, there will be the gap or two as you go along. Even if you happen to have a 1″ punch in your stash, there will likely be gaps, unless you’re more of a perfectionist than I can ever hope to be.
The only way to really make sure you get these triangles as close as possible to where they’re supposed to be is to use Multipurpose Liquid Glue.
Creating the Card
Once you have your Chevron Design completed and all your glue is dry (give it a little more time than you might usually do), it’s time to put a card together. If you’re going to create a 5-1/4″ x 4″ rectangle for the card front, then just trim 3/8″ from each 4″ end and you’ll have that size of a layer. This will allow you to add a 5-3/8″ x 4-1/8″ mat behind the Chevron layer. If you’d like a larger mat, or even a double mat then, once you’ve trimmed the Chevron down to 5-1/4″ x 4″, just trim it the same amount around all four side as you’d usually do.
For this card, I trimmed the card to 5″ x 3-3/4″ and created a mat using Poppy Parade Cardstock as my 5-3/8″ x 4-1/8″ mat, all adhered to a Basic White Thick Cardstock card base.
Decorating the Card Front
When I’m making something that has a “busy” card front, as the Chevron design makes this card, I prefer something simple to decorate my card. For this card I simple cut two wreaths and a bow, using the Country Wreaths Dies from the Stampin’ Up! July – December Mini Catalog. Then I cut a simple strip for the Happy Holidays sentiment from the Brightest Glow Stamp Set.
I adhered the wreaths directly to the card front, then used glue to add the bow to the wreaths. Finally I added the sentiment across the wreath using Mini Stampin Dimensionals. I added another sentiment in side the card (I like to do that with Christmas Cards especially). And I was done!
The Sketch
Here is the sketch for the card front. I hope you enjoy using scraps that you have left from projects any time, not just for Christmas!
Happy Stamping!
