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.

A5 Central Step Card Template

A5 Side Step Card Template

A5 Double Side Step Card Template

Krafty Hands Online Step Card Assembly Video

Split Coast Stampers- to view a gazillion tutorials in addition to step cards.

Side  Step Card

Center Step Card

Assembly video

Practical Publishing Australia - An article on 47 stepper card templates!

Centre step templates
Holly Trees template
Side Fold and Front Step template
Side Stepper template

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!