Squirrely Challenge

This week's Squirrely Challenge was a pop up card. It was a very easy pattern to follow from Splitcoaststampers.com. I used the stamps and card stocks from Blossom. I thought it would make for a cheery card.

This the card folded up, as if to fit into an envelope. Although it may not look it, it is a standard A2 card.

This photo is of the open card - or, I should say "popped up". Remember to visit the other "Squirrel Girl" blogs this week for other variations:
Nancy's blog; Jen's blog; Chrissie's blog; Julie's blog; and Diana's blog.  Enjoy!

Artist Trading Cards

Post was edited, corrected measurements are given (Thanks, Teresa!).

Artist Trading Cards (aka ATC's) have been around for quite a long time. They are baseball card sized works of art made for trading. (Originally, they were made for trading - I have found out that someone I was in a swap with actually sold a couple of my cards on e-bay...) I am currently in a fun little  (geek) swap of creating ATC's of the Periodic Table of Elements. I have Californium and Einsteinium....

I thought a little refresher on cutting an 8 1/2 x 11 sheet of card stock might prove helpful, if you have not participated in making ATC's.

In the above photo, you can see that you can get 9 cards from one sheet of cardstock. The dimensions are

 2 1/2 by 3 1/2 . The scribbled areas indicate non usable space (that can saved for punches)                       

This is the completed ATC for Californium. The lifeguard image was cut out and popped up with mounting tape. Card stocks are from Club Scrap and images are from Rubber Baby Buggy Bumpers.

If you have not made an ATC, use the simple cutting instructions and give it a try!

Tuesday's Tip

I was working on some ATC's for a swap, when I remembered this golden oldie tip. I like dimension in my art work, be it cards, ATC's, scrapbook pages. So I will stamp images and cut them out, and then mount them with dimensional adhesive/mounting tape. When an image is cut out, the cut edge is white and can be distracting and visible depending upon the background to which it is attached.

You can see some of the white edge on the image on the right. On the image on the left, I ran a gray marker along the cut edges, including the inner arms. It is a subtle difference, difficult to capture via a photograph.
However, it really makes a cleaner edge when added to the final piece of art (these images were added to ATC's). I strongly recommend a medium gray over black - black is often a little to dark and distracting. Next time you cut out an image to add dimension, give this tip a try!

Dimension

One of my most commonly used techniques for both cards and scrapbook pages is dimension. I rarely make a flat surface piece, Why? I think it adds interest! I also love to cut out smaller images to pop-up for the same reason.

The above card was made using Club Scrap's Greetings to Go for the Sonoma kit. I matted the sentiment and popped it up. I also stamped the wine glasses (part of a larger stamp), cut them out and popped them up. This card took about 5-10 minutes. Quick and simple with a little added interest with the dimension. Give it try for yourself!