Before & After Card Making Tutorial

Hello card making friends!

I have a tutorial of sorts to share with you today, I'm going to show the process of making a card I saw on Pinterest putting my own spin on it, this would be considered a Copy And Share Everything post too.  

You'll see what I mean when you get to the end.

Let's get started!

This is Laurie's card that I saw on Pinterest, her blog is Soapbox Creations.  

Isn't this a gorgeous and inspiring  clean and simple card?!

I thought Laurie's design would make a really nice card to mass produce for Operation Write Home.  I went to her blog and read about how she'd made her card.  I'm inspired and I'd like to do this in a digital format so I can have any words and font I can create.  Her butterfly is so beautiful and delicate, I was worried about a butterfly like this holding up through all the mailing an Operation Write Home card would require so I made a slight change on my card. 

I went to work in my Microsoft Publisher program to make my text panel.

I also wanted to use my Double Ended Banner die made by Papertrey Ink.  Using the Publisher program I set up a "love you" sentiment so I could easily cut it out with my dies.  The half sheets of card stock you see in the photo are the card bases. 

I next cut the sheet with the text panel into four A2 sized pieces, then trimmed them to layer onto the card bases.  I also cut my sentiment sheet so it would fit through my die cutting machine.

Here they are cut apart ready to be part of  my assembly line.

I also die cut Spellbinders Hearts & Scalloped Hearts for my assembly line.

In the picture above this one you can see the Double Ended banner dies with the sentiment on them.  I thought I'd share with you how I cut them out using a digital sentiment because you can't just stamp them in the center!  I've made myself a template using a piece of clear acrylic report cover.  The die doesn't cut all the way through the report cover but it leaves enough of an impression for what I need.  

You might notice that I've lined the white sheet of paper up with the sentiment on it with the lines on the grid paper, I've also lined up the template with those grid lines.  After I think I have it straight I mark the left edge and bottom with a pencil.

The pencil lines will help me know where to place the die.

I use blue painters tape to hold my dies in place and have had good results.

I'm not using the whole banner so it was ok to cut one of the ends off.

After all the preparation it didn't take very long to make sixteen Love You cards for Operation Write Home.

Here's my version of Laurie's card.

Here's where the before and after come in.  I wondered what the card would look like if I made just one little change, I added some black paper...  

I also wondered what it would look like with an embossed texture.  The additions are:  Sizzix Hearts embossing folder, cutting and matting the text panel in black and using the entire Double Ended Banner die.

The Cuttlebug Swiss Dots embossing folder is one of my favorites so I had to see how that would look too.

I'm not sure which one I like the most, the best part is I have eighteen more cards ready for my Operation Write Home box!  One of my friends is getting married and when she saw the cards I was working on the design became her wedding invitations so I have 50 more to make now.

I'm posting my digital files here for you to use if you'd like to use them:

Click on the picture to make it full size, then right click your mouse and "save image" to your computer.

 

Above is the sentiment sheet, you'll save it the same way as the first one.

I'd love to know what you think so leave me a comment!

Thanks for visiting my blog today -

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