Thursday, April 12, 2012

Lessons Learned

I saw a tutorial on She's a Sassy Lady last Saturday with a cut card.  (Click on the link to see the post).  She challenged people to  make this card and, liking a challenge (and the card) I accepted.  It proved to be more of a challenge than I thought and I learned a lot of lessons along the way.

Just so you don't get bored with my long post, I'll show you the finished card up front.  It is 5 1/2 by 5 1/2 and a little difficult to see in this picture because of the shadows but I couldn't help that.  It's the way the card is made.



When I learn something new, I like to follow directions initially.  I'm big on reading manuals, too.  (insert smirk).  I couldn't follow all the directions in the tutorial and hence the challenge.  First - it was a Gypsy tutorial and I don't have a Gypsy.  But I do have Design Studio and there's always Cricut Craft Room.  I started out in CCR but it drove me crazy and since I'm more familiar with DS, I ended up using it.

Second - I don't have Birthday Bash, which is what Sheila used.  Okay, there's plenty of other card cuts, right?  I needed something with a big window and couldn't find a full card cut like that.  I tried to make my own.  Lesson - you can't weld a square in a square with lettering on top and have it cut out part of the window and the lettering.  It showed the cut all around the square.   I ended up using a frame from  Stretch Your Imagination , page 33, and welding it to a square from George.

Third - I didn't have a "Get Well Soon" sentiment on any of my carts.  I didn't want to spend hours trying to make my own so I went with "With Sympathy" from Wild Card.  Lesson - don't make a cut out with an "I" in it.  There's no place to put the dot. : (    I hope this still qualifies for Sassy Lady's challenge. 

I used double sided paper so the inside would be pretty.  Lesson - be sure your paper is placed in the right way if there is a directional image on the reverse side.  Fortunately for me, the reverse was stripes and I like them going horizontally but if I didn't. . . .

Now that I've either taught you or bored you, here are pictures of the card from other angles.



I printed the sentiment on the computer on a cream color cardstock and cut it 5 1/4  by 10 3/4.  I taped down only the back edge.  I did this so the sentiment would not show through the cut on the front.   I wrapped a piece of ribboon around the middle and tied it in front.


You can see how it is loose.


I didn't have any glitter paper that matched so I heat embossed the sentiment with sparkle embossing powder. 

Now that I have learned all my lessons, I think I will try a similar card again.  I'm also entering this in My Craft Spot's Inside Out challenge #51 (a sentiment on the inside and outside)

3 comments:

Sheila aka SassyLady said...

This is wonderful! And I will be scraplifiting it as i am always looking for good Sympathy cards! Thanks for sharing and playing along at She's A Sassy Lady.

Kate said...

Bobby, your hard work paid off!! Your card is wonderful and looks just perfect to me. I wouldn't have even noticed the missing dot had you not said something.
The sentiment is absolutely fine without it. Great job, Bobby!
Thanks so much for playing along with us at My Craft Spot!

Kate
Small Bits of Paper

My 3 E Scrapbooking said...

I'm so happy I am not the only one that goes through this with my cards! This is beautiful and well worth the time that went into it!! Thanks for joining us at My Craft Spot!
Amber