Purses Swap Card

I went to a Stampin' Up Retreat today that was sponsored by my next 2 uplines and my 3rd upline came up from Atlanta too. I wanted to join the card swap because there are always so many great ideas shared. When we got the swap information, we found out we needed to make 54 cards! This is my card above.

If you ever doubted my sanity you will be assured that I am completely crazy when you see the card I decided to make. A normal person would make one that was relatively simple and wouldn't take too long to make when they are making so many. Nope, not me! I love this card, I found it on someone's blog and cut and pasted into a file I call "Caseable Cards". There are about a dozen pages in that file now of great cards I want to copy when I have time. Unfortunately, the information for the blog I got it from is too small for me to read and when I enlarged the card it got too blurry to read so if this looks like a copy of your card, LMK so I can give credit where credit is due.
I used 4 punches to make the purses. The picture on the left shows where I cut each punch. The Round Tab punch that I used for the bottom of the purses was simply cut in half right in the middle. The Scalloped Square punch was used for 2 types of purse flaps. First I cut off the top and bottom (green) 3 scallops. Then I cut the remaining long piece into 2 other cute flaps and threw away the rectangle piece from the middle.

The handles and pink flap were made with the Large Oval punch and the Scalloped Oval punch. There was also a rectangular piece left over from this one.

I double punched these oval punches. First punch the Large Oval punch but leave enough space around it to punch the next punch.

Center the Scalloped Oval punch around the Large Oval punch carefully to punch out the handle. Since I was making so many punch pieces, I ran the paper through my Xyron machine before punching it so I could just peal and stick the purse parts onto the card and not have to keep applying adhesive. This is especially

helpful on this skinny little handle!

These are the 3 pieces for the purse on the left. The other 2 are done the same way but with a different flap. After assembling the purses, add the brads to act as closures and then add the layers of the card together. There are 2 reasons to add the brads before putting the card together. First, there will be fewer layers to punch the brad through and second, the prongs of the brad will be hidden between the layers instead of on the inside of the card where they will be seen when the card is opened. But you knew that, right??

I got some great cards in return for the swap. I'll post some more later but I think I need to post the projects we made at the retreat first. There were some great ones, I have a Mother's Day class ready to go, I just have to figure out a date for it. Mother's Day is less than a month away!

I'll post the first set of projects Monday.

Dry Embossing Technique

Here is a card I'm making for a swap. The only thing I did at the crop Saturday was make 3 of these cards. Very productive, huh? Hey remember, I also taught a totally goofed up class!



Have you ever done dry embossing? Some dry embossing uses a brass template. The straight lines on the pink cardstock at the bottom of this card is done using my trimmer, hey cool, something we already have! You could use the scoring blade with your trimmer but I always push too hard and tear my paper so I use the bone folder and just push my blade all the way to the top out of the way. Actually, sometimes I take the blade all the way off so if I get distracted I won't accidentally grab it and cut the paper instead of score it!

The picture looks amazingly normal even though I had to hold my camera upside down to take it with my left hand. Oh, the things we do for our blogs! I had to flip the picture when I edited it.


I am making 15 of these cards for a swap so I embossed some whole sheets of cardstock and cut it into 8 strips measuring 5 1/2 X 4 1/8. I attached a strip to the bottom of a white card front and inked it. Be sure the ridges are up when you adhere it. When you ink the embossed strips it looks like bead board, I really like it. I found it easier to ink the strips after I adhered them to the larger piece.


I think I showed in a previous post how to punch using a border punch. It is so easy when you can line it up and match the design with the printed design on the punch.









I also found it easier to ink the punched eyelet border piece after I had attached it to the inked patterned paper.















When you use a stamp set with a punch you just stamp the image and then insert it into the punch holding the punch upside down. Then you can see the image and line it up so you can punch it where you want it.

An easy way to get a knot on your card is to attach the ribbon around the back and take a small strip and just tie it around the attached ribbon. I used green on this card but I also used the black gingham on some of them which you can see in the picture at the top. I can't decide which color I like best, what do you think? I wonder how pink would look - overkill or perfect??? Maybe I'll do that tomorrow when I will hopefully have time to finish the swaps.

Gotta run! I hope you enjoy this card, even with the terrible photography! I'll have to retake several of the pictures tomorrow.