And now for something completely different... Triple Stepper Card

It's been a glorious, sunny, beautiful weekend here in Northern Ireland, and it is really starting to feel like Spring. I'm in the mood to make something colourful so here's a birthday card for one of my teenage nieces.

"Happy Birthday Lisa"

A few weeks ago, some bargain packs of A6 blank cards just fell into my basket while I was walking around Dunelm Mill (those slippery shelves, they really need to do something about them!). They're a bit thin for normal card blanks, but are great for gluing together to make these stepper cards.

" 3 x A6 cards with folds"

These particular cards are exactly 8 inches (8") along the longest side (4" when folded), which makes the measuring nice and easy. The first card is folded in half as normal. The second has extra folds 1" in and parallel to each of the shorter sides, and the third has extra folds 1" in from one short edge, and 2" in from the opposite edge, as shown in the picture.

"Glued Blank"

The three cards are folded and glued together to make a single card with three peaks: 4", 3" and 2" high. The blank is now ready to be decorated.

"Edge Diecuts"

The opposite short edges of a piece of white A5 card were diecut with "On the Edge" dies, before cutting the card to fit the front and middle sections. I used the "Iron Gate" die on the front, and the "Townscape" die on the middle, cutting and gluing the card in such a way that the die-cut edges stuck out over the top of the mountain folds. Each piece of card is decorated with distress inks and a Hero Arts stamp from Joanna Sheen's website.

"Front panel"

The bird is diecut from white card using the "Caged Bird" die (thanks Lee!) and decorated with distress inks. I love watching the blue tits flying about choosing their nest boxes this time of year, so just had to make him into a blue tit. The butterflies are punched in two sizes and decorated with inks & tiny self-adhesive gems.

"Middle Panel"

The flowers are punched using a tiny six-petal punch and coloured with distress inks. A slit is made between two of the petals into the centre, and a tiny blob of glossy accents used to glue the two petals either side of the slit on top of each other. This makes a tiny five-petal flower with a bit of dimension. A tiny self-adhesive gem is added to the centre of each flower. Notice that the butterflies, flowers & houses are all decorated with the same colour distress inks so that whilst the card looks colourful, there is still some colour matching going on!

"Back Panel"

The final panel uses a piece of white card with a "wiggle" cut into one edge to simulate rolling hills. A couple of die-cut trees are added, and a length of lace along the bottom, all coloured with matching green distress inks. A few gems are added to the pine tree for a bit of sparkle, and the other tree has "word fruit" in the form of "Tiny Tabs and Tags" diecut from white card, decorated with distress inks, then stamped with words in black archival and heat-embossed in clear. When heat embossing over an inked background, remember to dry the background before the final stamping or you will end up with embossing powder stuck to everything :-) The tabs have jump rings attached to hang them from the branches of the tree. The diecut letters are from a magazing freebie.
I spent the morning sewing the zip back on my husbands veil (he keeps bees in case you were wondering :-)), and am really looking forward to our afternoon walk with the in-laws' dog. Let's hope the Sun stays shining. Have a great day everyone!

Ingredients:

3 x A6 card blanks

Cardstock: white, for diecutting & stamping

Hero Arts stamp: Meadow

Kaisercraft stamp set: Life Sentiments

Sizzix On The Edge Dies: Iron Gate, Townscape

Sizzix Bigz Dies: Caged Bird, Pine Tree, Tiny Tabs and Tags

Sizzix Bigz XL die: Tree pop-up

Punches: small butterfly, medium butterfly, tiny flower

Distress inks

Self-adhesive gems

Jump Rings

Entered for the following challenge:
Joanna Sheen - Spring / Easter
Fashionable Stamping Challenge 16 - make it for a child