Slide to Side Interactive Card (Tutorial)

Here are the instructions to my interactive whale card.  The whale and spout were Silhouette freebies so you can make this card just like I did, or you can use this template to create any kind of moving card you want!  (Think cars, birthday cakes, airplanes, etc.)

Supplies:
White letter-size cardstock (1 ½ pages)
Pattern paper or cardstock for the cutout elements on the page
Mini brad
Adhesive (1/4” foam dots or other dimensional adhesive, plus your favorite paper adhesive or glue)

Instructions (included with the free download):
1. Download my print & cut file for Silhouette Studio here.
2. Cut a standard card base of 5.5” x 8.5” (half of a letter-size paper), then fold in half.
3. Use the print & cut file to design your card for both printable elements and to determine the size of the moving shape (i.e. the whale) . The shape you want to slide back and forth should fit reasonably in the area of the card face (piece A).
    • I’ve included a wavy line if you want to use it for your sentiment by using the text-to-path function. (It will not print once you drag text to it. Only color-filled text and shapes will print on this page.) If you don’t want to use the wavy line, move it off the cutting area.
    • If you don’t want this to be a print & cut file, just use pieces A, B, and C with colored or pattern papers of your choosing and turn off the Registration Marks. You will need to draw your own arrow on the pull tab, if desired.
4. As a print & cut, you will need to print and cut this file on white cardstock after you’ve included any background elements (i.e. text and a water spout for the whale). Be sure to check your Cut Style Window before printing and turn off the cut lines of any interior elements like text and printable shapes. Selecting all of the pieces on piece A and choosing “Cut Edge” is the simplest way to do this.
5. Cut (and assemble, if necessary) the shape(s) of your choosing for the moving focal feature (i.e. the whale). If you use a cutout background element like the waves, you will need to trim off any portion that covers the slot on piece A. Glue those pieces down to piece A.
6. Piece B will go behind piece A, and piece C will go in front of piece A. Use a mini brad to secure those 3 layers through the slot (don’t make it too tight or it will be hard to slide the pull tab).
7. Use dimensional foam adhesive (optional—you can glue it flat) to secure your moving focal element onto piece C.
8. Add glue to the back of piece C, avoiding the pull tab (piece B) so it has room to slide. Glue the entire decorated card front to the card base.

And for you visual learners, I've even made a video tutorial for you:

Shapes used on my card:
My template (download here)
Whale with waves (design ID# 42518)
Flourish (design ID# 41916)

Font: Amanda’s Hand

You may also like this template with instructions for another interactive card (click on the image to go to my blog post):

Interactive Whale Card

I thought this Silhouette free shape of the week was so cute that I had to turn it into a moving pull-tab card for my niece.  I also used Silhouette Studio's text-to-path function for a wavy sentiment.  I used one more recent freebie for the spout and added a little sparkle with Stickles glitter glue.

Here you can see a little of the action with the pull tab:

The whale gives a little wiggle as it slides back and forth, although that part was just an unintentional bonus with the way I designed the slider. 

And here you can see how I added a little dimension to the waves and the whale, plus you can see the glitter on its water spout.

You can download this sliding card template for the Silhouette along with instructions on how to assemble it by visiting my blog post for Slide to Side Interactive Card Tutorial.

Teacher Appreciation Bulletin Board

I volunteered to decorate the bulletin board for my daughter's elementary-school teacher for Teacher Appreciation Week. The school asked for a 50's theme, so this is what I came up with after some helpful tips from my peeps on the Silhouette Plus forum. (Thanks, ladies!)

Of course I wanted to use my Silhouette Cameo, but those bulletin boards are huge!  It was about 78" tall and 48" wide.  The big rolls of school butcher paper available to me were 36" wide.  Yes, I did cut all but the words and the blue layer of the jukebox from butcher paper using my Cameo and a 12" mat.  I plugged in the page dimensions for the full space I needed to cover and based the size of my designs on that.  See?  (The little red square in the upper left corner is the 12"x12" space I could cut on my mat.)

You can see in the end I was able to replicate my planned design pretty well.

The hardest part was the jukebox.  I couldn't find one I liked available to purchase, so I looked online for images and ended up finding this as a black & white coloring page some artist had drawn.  I used the Trace function in Silhouette Studio, then separated all the pieces into layers by releasing the compound path.  Then I was able to color the pieces individually with this perky color scheme.

The design was the easy part.  On the pieces larger than I could fit on a 12" mat, I cut the pieces in two parts and glued them back together.  (I sure could have used a 12x24" Cameo mat in this case!)  I actually cut the jukebox in 6 pieces from spare 12" cardstock, then glued those pieces together and used the whole thing to trace on one large piece of blue butcher paper as the solid background so it wouldn't have seams.  Yes, folks, I traced with a pencil and cut with scissors!  (Shhh! Don't tell my Cameo.)

I was able to cut it in 6 pieces by positioning the background jukebox layer on my mat, cutting as much as it would cut edge-to-edge, then repositioning it to cut the next section.  I started with the upper left section, then moved down and then over until all 6 major areas were cut.  I used the overlap/duplicate areas to match it up and tape it.  The blade just picks up where it meets the red boundary (I keep my Preferences on cut to edge of page) so it was cutting to the edge of my 12x12" paper every time.

Most of the rest I cut in batches after cutting the 36" wide butcher paper into 12x12" squares.  I cut the butcher paper using my tried-and-true "printer paper" settings (speed 10, thickness 15, blade 1). Unfortunately, not all butcher papers are created equal and the pink did not cooperate very well.  It just wanted to tear.  In the end, I cut the words from some hot pink cardstock.  Several of the words had to be spliced together, as well. (The word "Greatest" is 21" wide.)

I used spray adhesive to glue all the pieces together like the yellow labels on the black records and nearly all of the individual pieces of the jukebox.  I hadn't used spray adhesive before, but it was perfect for this project.  I still think it's too messy to be one of my go-to glues.

I added a little glitter glue to some of the yellow accent pieces, wrote all of the students' names on the records with a white chalkboard marker, and spent way too much time putting it up at the school.  (Thanks for the help, Mom!)

Once again, my Cameo did everything I needed for this school-related project.  Even on a big scale.  Gotta love that Cameo!

Wedding Card

 

Wedding season is coming upon us now that the weather is getting nicer. I've wanted to do a more formal 3D cake card from Crafting Creatures ever since this birthday card turned out so nicely.

This time I used Silhouette double-sided adhesive with their silver glitter and really put a lot of sparkle on this card.  The background design, the cake, the cake icing, and the stand are all included in the cut file.  You can read my tips on cutting the Silhouette double-sided adhesive sheets in this post.

Here is how the glittered adhesive looked before I added the cake. The "Congratulations" sentiment is cut from silver vinyl in the font Lavanderia Sturdy.  I added it to the card after I laid the adhesive sheet down with its white backing still on, before sprinkling on the glitter.  It still collected some of the microfine glitter around the edges, but I think there's just no way to avoid getting glitter everywhere.

I had to use a hot glue gun to get the cake to stick to the card front with all that glitter. I used hot glue to put the flowers (Prima) on, as well.  The tiny rhinestones are from the Recollections brand at Michael's.  The cake stand is cut from a scrap of shiny metallic cardstock I've saved for who-knows-how-long.

 

My next project is to make the wedding gift itself, which will probably take less time than this card. :) Hopefully both will be appreciated by the bride and groom (or at least the bride).

You can purchase this beautiful cake file in SVG and DXF format here from Crafting Creatures.

Sweet 16 Card

I can't believe I'm old enough to have a 16-year-old niece! Time flies when you're having fun, I guess. I cut out the "16" from yellow paper sized slightly smaller than my card front, placed the grey striped paper onto the yellow card base, and used pop dots to make the top yellow section stand off the card front. (I used my Silhouette Cameo to cut this out, of course.)

Font: Adobe Myungjo Std M (with an offset to make it thicker) 
Paper: Yellow and grey pattern = Teresa Collins Carolina Breeze; Dark grey adhesive cardstock = Core'dinations 
Flowers: Prima Baker's Twine 
"Sweet" stamp: Stampin' Up! Good Times 
Black ink pad

Easter Lilies

 

My daughter read a poem in church on Easter Sunday that involved Easter lilies, so I made these pretty paper lilies the day before as a visual aid. You can find these Easter lilies in the Silhouette store (design ID #26771), designed by the very talented Patricia Zapata of A Little Hut.

Patricia's tutorial can be found on her blog here. The only thing I really did differently was to color the petals a little with some light green and yellow Spectrum Noir markers ( CG2 and CT1) before assembling them. And I hot glued some long green leaves and fuzzy sticks to the lilies to make a bouquet my daughter could hold.

Life Captured

 

My scrapbook pages have been few and far between the past couple of years, so I'm happy to have completed a layout this week, thanks to the Silhouette blog and free shape of the week. I didn't follow their layout exactly, but I did use most of the pieces in some way.  You can find the Silhouette blog post with this layout design and freebie here.  (The price will go up to 99 cents on Tuesday the 16th of April, but there are so many fun shapes on there I'd pay that price if I had to.)