Tri-Fold Shutter Card: Happy Mother's Day

Today, I'll be adding one of my favorite cards to the Tutorial Section of my blog (see sidebar, links). 

It's this simple but stand-out card called a Tri-Fold Shutter card.  The base for the card is cut from a little less than half of a sheet of 12" x 12" cardstock, and then decorated as you wish.  

Here, I've made a Mother's Day card for my beautiful mother, using "Gimme Some Sugar" and the softness of Pixie and Blush pink papers. 

My Mom ... If ever there was a woman for whom Mother's Day was meant, it's my Mom. She is the kindest, most patient, gracious, loving and caring person who was ever. Truly. She is creative, talented and so smart, made even more so because she makes everyone else around her feel smarter just for being in her company. 

Mom met Dad while she was in nursing school and Dad was a fraternity boy at University. They met on a blind date, and the rest, is history. They were married 65-1/2 years when Dad left for Heaven. Mom's love and dedication to my Dad, even when Alzheimer's robbed my Dad of his gentle spirit, was so very tender. 

She loved Dad endlessly, though toward his end, the disease made Dad more difficult to love. His passing in this horrid way robbed Mom of her "happily ever after," and honestly, it hurt in ways none of us could fathom. Rest in peace, Dad; we'll take good care of Mom for all the rest of her days, which we pray will be many. 

This is my favorite picture of Mom, taken at the wedding reception when my daughter, Emily was married in 2008.  Isn't she simply gorgeous??!  The jewelry she wore, she made, and she likely had a hand in modifying the gown she wore, too. That's my Dad photobombing in the background, such a handsome guy. 

I love making cards for my Mom ... she is definitely "cardworthy", as she appreciates each of my creations, much as she always aided and abetted my creativity throughout my life.  

Thank you, Mom, for your love and role modeling.

Here are directions on how to make your own Tri-Fold Shutter Cards:

Cut your background paper to suit your desire, or to match whatever paper you're using to decorate your card. In my sample, above, I have used Daisy White cardstock from Close To My Heart.

The base of the card is 5.5" high x 12" wide, with folds as shown on the red dashed lines. Cut in between the folds. Note which folds are "mountain" versus "valley" folds -- self-explanatory, I hope. 

Then, cut your decorative papers to these dimensions:

Decorate your card as you wish. For the right hand panel, I "fussy-cut" a Be-YOU-tiful Picture My Life (PML) Card from CTMH, which matches the Gimme Some Sugar paper line.  For this card, I stamped a plain white panel in the center, and stamped the sentiment and flowers, to match.

On the front panel, I elongated a Floral Wreath design from the Cricut Design Space, making it go from round to flat oval. I cut it twice, once in Pixie and once in Tangerine, and just trimmed off the extra Tangerine flowers that I wanted to use to highlight the wreath. I backed it with an oval I also cut in Design Space, as the custom size is larger than the Thin Cuts I have for ovals, from CTMH.

For those who use Cricut Design Space, here is a file to make the front floral wreath:  https://design.cricut.com/#/design/91249168

If you'd like to replicate my card, you'll need to HURRY and buy yourself some "Gimme Some Sugar" paper from my Close To My Heart shopping site.  The paper retires on April 30!

Mother's Day Wreath and loving mother!

Last weekend, I had the pleasure and privilege of spending the day crafting with my pride and joy, my daughter, Emily.  (That's her, far left ... and me, far right).  You've likely "met" Emily many times through my blogging ... she's my mini-me, and the reason I got into papercrafting.

Emily had Saturday off; she typically works weekends as a pediatric nurse at the internationally-renowned Children's Hospital of Philadelphia. She asked if we could spend the day together in an early celebration of Mothers' Day, since she works next weekend. 

Peace Valley Lavendar Farm, near Doylestown, PA


She suggested that we paint pottery. Instead, and because we got a late start and the day was too dreary to go to the Lavendar Farm here in Bucks County (that's for another day, though!), I suggested that we stop at Joann's for some crafting supplies, and spend the day papercrafting and sewing.

Emily worked on a large poster she was asked to make for work, showing some stats on handwashing, infection control, etc.  We bounced ideas off one another ... she wound up using titles cut using Cricut's Simply Sweet cartridge, and a nurse cut "fill to page" from Cricut's Every Day Paper Dolls, and a fussy cut kite with ribbon "tails" on the twine string to show "Soaring to Success!!".  If Em sends me a pic of it, I'll add it to this post. It turned out really darling, Emily!!

I worked on this paper flower wreath I made for my Mom.

To make most of the flowers shown here, I used Cricut's Art Philosophy cartridge, shown here, and four individual Silhouette Cameo files I purchased at Silhouette America, online. 

I hot-glued them to a foam wreath, stacking more than 150 flowers in mostly pastel colors.  It's amazingly sturdy, this wreath, and is going out in today's mail to Mom for Mother's Day.  I love it and hope I get the time to make one for myself, one day.

My mom is inspirational!  (That's my mom, front and center, in the photo above.) Isn't she beautiful and remarkable for 82-years young this year, and a survivor of a massive brain stem stroke?  She is incredible.  As I grew up, Mom worked as a nurse in the critical care unit of our local hospital, and in cardiac care. She earned her R.N. at King's County School of Nursing (Brooklyn, NY) more than 60 years ago.

Mom's handmade bikinis kind of looked like this one I found
on Etsy. The ones we made had more of a halter top than
bandeau, but you get the idea. Mom purchased worn jeans
from prisons, and boiled them to sterilize for her bikinis!

Later, when mothering became a full-time job, Mom continued to work in crafty areas. She designed and exported/sold denim string bikinis in the early 1970's, and collected and appliqued vintage fabrics onto denim skirts, shirts, jackets and pants.  She later designed and sewed bridal gowns, eventually turning to a team of Amish seamstresses to contract sew for her work that was sold in some of the area's finest bridal studios.

By the time we were entering college, Mom re-entered nursing, though in case management. She founded her own company when she was 50, and turned it into a multi-million dollar enterprise with 20+ employees.  Surprisingly, I never thought of Mom as one with an entrepreneurial spirit ... I saw her as more of a survivalist, doing what she enjoyed doing and earning a reputation and money to support our family as Dad (a lawyer) was nearing retirement.

This weekend while with Emily, I also stitched together 9 burpie cloths for Charlotte, to make a burpie blankie for my precious granddaughter. (That's her up top, too, in the center -- rounding out the four generations of crafty women!!)

While I was stitching the blankie, Charlotte came upstairs to the PaperJungle (a dangerous proposition!) and stood dancing to the rhythm of the sewing machine doing its top-stitch. She loves her burpie blanket, sleeping with it now instead of one or two loose burpies, snuggling.

Do you too enjoy crafting time with your family? I have warm, wonderful memories of crafting with my grandmother when I was a child; with her, I specifically remember upcycling an empty white plastic Clorox bleach bottle, turning it on its side, adding thread spools for legs, and felt for eyes, and making it into a piggy bank.

And I remember cutting Betsy McCall paper dolls, and making clothes for my Troll doll out of scrap fabric. I made ceramics with my Mom and Grandmom, and watercolored with my Mom and Dad.

So I'm just wondering ... Is there a crafting gene?   Did you get yours from your Mom, and have you shared it with a child and/or grandchildren?  What are you doing to impart the love you have for crafting onto your family?  I'd really like to know!

Creatively yours,

Card for Mother's Day - Silhouette file

Mothers' Day is coming in just 2 weeks. Have you started your card yet?

Here is one that I made and will be sending to my beautiful mother.
To make it, I used my Silhouette Cameo. I purchased the card file, ($0.99) which included the beautiful floral image, sentiment and card -- everything.
 

That's Mom in the center, me on the right. My daughter
Emily on the left, and Charlotte in the center.

I then modified the file slightly to re-cut just the flowers in ice pink, the stamens in yellow, and the card background in blue.

First I cut the main card in sage green Core'dinations card stock. The background is pale blue, also Core'dinations. I adhered the cut file front to the front of the blue paper. Then I added the re-cut flowers to the card.

Prior to assembling, I inked the edges of the flowers in Versamark light pink ink, and used a new-for-2012 color "Tuscan Orange" (E27) Copic marker to mark the petals' notches, giving them a more realistic look. For the stamens, I also colored the centers with the E27, as well as Maize (Y35), and dotted with a fine line Sharpie in the true center. I then burnished the flowers and stamens using my Paper Bunch flower kit, to soften and give dimension to them. A circle of glue (I like Martha Stewart's fine line glue applicator) at the petals' center edges and stamen root, and I'm done!

Cameo Update: In case you're wondering, I haven't had a whole lot of time to play with my Cameo yet, but my early assessment is that it's wonderful!!!!  I love how smooth and detailed the tiniest cuts are, and the files are plentiful and easy to search and use.  The mat has just the right amount of sticky -- holds the paper snuggly yet allows for safe and easy removal of those small cuts.  Two thumbs up!!!

Still lovin' after all these years!

Happy 60th Anniversary to my parents, Dot and Ed Sager!

Mom, Part II

On this last day of June, let me show you the Mother's Day card I made for the Greatest Mother in the World.

The card shown at right here featured an intricate floral design cut with my Cricut Expressions on tan stock, using a Dover Publications .svg file that I converted to a cut file on Sure Cuts A Lot.

I repeated my cut using dark green cardstock, and cut a white paper backing to layer underneath the tan paper. I put the tan paper over the white, marking with a pencil the center point for each flower. Then, using the gamosol technique with colored pencils, I smudged a complimenting color pattern of peach, tan and pink for the flower petals onto the white layer. When that was dry, I glued the tan onto the white backing, then pulled the leafy layer from the green and inserted it into the tan cut, gluing down the dark green leaves.

Next, I used the gadribbles -- the green paper that had been cut for the leaves -- and trimmed it to mat the white layer. I glued the whole picture onto a 5x7" card onto which I printed my sentiment crafted especially for Mom.

Have a flower-filled, sunny day, blessed by love, grace and patience.

Tata, June!

The month of June is almost history -- it was a busy one in which I celebrated the best parents in the world! On June 9, my mom Dorothy celebrated her 80th birthday -- a special day that in 2009, none of us ever thought she'd live to see. And less than 2 weeks later, we toasted Dad on Father's Day ... honoring him for the role he played in raising us 4 kids to the people we are today.

There's Mom, upper left here, looking gorgeous at Emily's October 2008 wedding ... and just four months later, Mom suffered a near-fatal brain stem stroke. Most people don't survive an occlusion in the basilar artery; Mom not only survived, but she's come all the way back to her vibrant, beautiful, able self. In September, she and Dad will celebrate 59 years together!

Mom taught me over the years to "bloom where you are planted." And she's instilled an eye for art and has placed value on creativity. So for "BIG-O" birthday, I wanted to give Mom a garden. Mr. Smiley and I flew to Florida for a five-day weekend with Mom and Dad, and bought Mom a large ceramic planter for her patio, crammed full with flowers. And here is the card I made for her:

The card is an "Explosion Box" that I've seen done on several of the inspirational blogs I've followed over the past few months. The base (royal blue, here) is cut from a 12"x12" piece of cardstock. I made a "party favor" box from brick-colored paper to serve as the flower box. I hot-glued it into the center of the base, then cut dozens of assorted flowers to glue into the box. The leftover paper from which I cut the flowers (I call them "gadribbles") were so pretty that I stacked them together to use to decorate the inside of the box. I found a nice card print/clip-art picture online that applied ("Bloom Where You Are Planted"), so I used it for the center rear of the box. Happy Birthday text was cut from Cricut's Calligraphy cartridge.

I kind of guessed at a box lid (didn't follow any templates), and decorated its edges by cutting it with one of my go-to Martha Stewart Around-the-Corner punches, this one in double loops. Folded up the edges, capped it with the lid, tied it with some ribbon and VOILA!

I hope you like it as much as I had fun remembering how Mom's helped me blossom throughout the years.