Monday, June 2, 2014

Graduation Step Card

I  have seen so many fabulous "Step Cards" (referring to the accordion fold feature that creates 'steps' for you to place your layers of embellishments) recently, but I have never made one. I took advantage of this week's challenge on the Fantabulous Cricut Challenge Blog to create one. FCCB's June 2nd challenge is "Replenish Your Card Stash" which means you can make a card for any occasion or sentiment. Since my little boy is about to graduate from the 5th grade, I decided to make him a graduation card.

But before I made Aidan's card, I practiced with the "Oak Manor Step Card" design that comes with the Edisto Island collection from SVGcuts.com.  It is such a beautiful project! It definitely took some extra time to figure out how the design works. When it was all said and done, I made 2 design changes to create the card you see above:
  • In order for the house and tree embellishments to stand erect, you need to use a heavy weight cardstock for your base card.  Unaware of this, I had used a standard weight cardstock so my step card did not hold its' form well.  I supplemented by making a second step card out of thin chipboard and adhering it underneath the cardstock which worked very well.  
  • I also added extra leaves to my trees so that the brown of the tree trunks was not so dominate.
I gave this card to a dear friend for her 40th birthday.

Once I had the hang of the design and a sense of its' structure, I started on Aidan's graduation card. I cut my step card using my Cricut since the Edisto Island already has the cut.  I was grateful because it was late and I didn't have the mental energy to do any measuring, scoring or manual cutting.

First, I enlarged the SVGCUTS step card template to 11.45" wide so that I was able to use the entire sheet of 12 x 12" paper. I wanted to direct you to a Cricut Template for the card, but I could not find a step card file on ANY of the Cricut cartridges. Have no fear because you can cut one by hand, easy peasy. It is not at all the headache I thought it would be! There are loads of websites that have templates and instructions.  Here are a few:

Krafty Hands Online -for fantastic templates and a video tutorial.

Split Coast Stampers- to view a gazillion tutorials in addition to step cards.
Side  Step Card
Practical Publishing Australia - An article on 47 stepper card templates!
Once you have your card, the next step is deciding on what embellishments you want to add.  I used 2 Cricut cartridges for mine-  Locker Talk and Recess.  I tinkered with the colors to better suit the design and added a thick strip of paper to fill in the negative space on the front panel.  We will write a sweet message on the back.

NOTE:  I adhered my layered cuts like the school and computer onto heavy cardstock "tabs" (for lack of a better descriptive word) and then glued those tabs directly onto the fold ridges so that I could stagger the heights of the die cuts and prevent them from falling forward or backward.

I think this is a viable solution for just about any embellishment you want to stand vertically rather than lay backwards or fall forwards. Of course there is a bit of a slant which part of dimensional impact but nothing is being tugged by gravity which was a problem with my first card.

I think Aidan will treasure this card as he is very sentimental and the embellishments are exactly what he is associating with middle school right now...especially the laptop!

5 comments:

  1. All your cards are adorable. Have a blessed day
    DIANA L.
    dianamlarson.blogspot.com

    ReplyDelete
  2. Two amazing cards! Your son will surely treasure this card as he moves ahead to another year :)

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