Skinny Cards

This card was made for a swap group.  The theme was "skinny cards" and we each had to choose a particular color combination.  I chose blue and green.  We needed to make a card 3 1/2 x 8 or 9 inches and use the colors we chose with the optional addition of black and white.


I immediately thought of Stretch Your Imagination  - one of my very first cartridges (it actually came with my machine when I bought it as a bundle at ACMoore).  The entire shift function is full of images that have been "stretched" and I was sure one of them would be a perfect fit.

This is the stylized flower that I chose to decorate the front of my card.  I decided to make a card that was 9 inches by 3 1/2 inches.

I was not planning to cut the card bases with the Cricut, however, I set up a rectangle in the correct size to represent the card front on the mat.  I always use guideline shapes like this to plan cards.  It makes it very easy to size all of the decorative cuts so you won't waste paper.  I set up a layer sized a 3 1/4 x 8 3/4 to use for previewing the design and to make sure that the cuts would fit.

 This preview show the card base (represented by the pink background) and the layer (dark green) with the flower and a sentiment added.

 I chose the "happy birthday" sentiment from the A Child's Year cartridge.  There is a layer for the word " happy" on the shift key.

I set up a mat with six sets of words placing green cardstock on the full phrase area and metallic blue cardstock on the "happy" layers.

After adding the layer the cut looked too plain, so I pulled out some lime green Stickles and glittered the word "birthday" on each cut.

 

I set up another page in the file to cut the flowers.  I could cut four at a time by nestling the shapes together.

 The flowers were cut in a dark navy blue and needed a bit of white pen stitching to brighten them up.  This is a simple way to add interest to the card.  I use a Signo White Gel Pen for pen stitching - it is very smooth and lasts a long time.

 The words did not contrast enough with the green and blue background paper layer I had chosen (from a big K & Company paper box) so I added a scalloped oval to help set them off.  The oval was cut with the second to the largest standard large scalloped oval Nestabilities die and embossed with the Swiss Dots Cuttlebug folder.  For the final card, I added a second layer to the card front to give a nice bright line of white around the edges.

 Here are all of the components for a single card.

I needed to create a dozen cards so there was quite a bit of pen stitching and stickling to do!  This photo shows all of the components ready to assemble the cards.

I enjoyed the challenge of making a different size and shape of card - I sometimes get stuck in an A2 card rut!

I did not post a file because I don't imagine that anyone else needs to cut twelve sets of these card elements.  If you need any help with setting up a file and cutting just the items that you need for one card, let me know and I can try to help.




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