Card Making 2: Getting Started

1. Course outline: in this course will look at the different weights or GSM of paper and card stock. Then we'll start making the base for our card. Then we go on to adding the background. Then we add the decorations and finally will end with some finishing touches. 2. Paper and card stock weights: when you start card making, you can purchase pre made cards, which are already sized and folded for years. Or you can make your own paper and card. Stock comes in a variety off weights, so it is always listed on the packet as a certain G S M G s M stands for grams per square meter. So if you had one square meter off that particular piece of paper or card stock, the weight would be the figure given. So, for instance, this is just ordinary photocopy paper or printer paper. It's an 80 g S m. So this is very light weight and is useful core letter writing or what I like to do is to put that inside my cards as a surface to write on. It's very lightweight, and it's not really suitable from making with basis off call. So that's 80 GSM here. I've got a sheet off 100 G S M, which is just slightly thicker than the 80 a little bit more sturdy, but it's still really more like a paper than a card stock. This is useful for you can still put it through your printer and print quite well. Now I've got a sheet off 160 card stuck. You can see it's a little bit more stiff, and I used this for mounting elements or using. I often use this through my die cutting machine to got to cut elements. It's bit more stiff. It holds its designed or cut design very well, but it's still a little bit flimsy for making the basis off card. So here we've got a sheet off 200 GSM and this is my preferred card. So I'd say for card making for making you card you're looking at about 200 to 300 G s. M See, it's it's quite rigid. It holds its shape like, Well, I'm just out of interest over here. I've got a piece off paper or card if you'd like, which is 2200 GS in so you can see quite how so You so you can see just how different 2200 is opposed to 80 gs him 3. Making the base: So I have a sheet off a three card stock here, and I'm now going to cut it down to size. I could use a guillotine if I wanted to, but for the purposes off this, I'm going to show you how I cut using a craft knife and a ruler. As you see, I've got a self healing met underneath. And I've also added in my own marks for weird. My different sizes are So this is a three on. I want to cut it now in half. Andi, that's going to give me the half lying over there. So I'm just going much that against that line there fun matched it along this age here. And I'm gonna take my metal ruler. Metal ruler is better to use than a plastic. Really? Because when you actually cut, you won't take a part of your ruler with you pressing down firmly. I'm going to come. Have you called it very thick. You may have to court cut that line more than once we go. All right, So now I've got two pieces off a four card, okay? And the whole for my a five. And these my a This is now my a five line over here, So I'm gonna place pieces I took you don't. Matching that line was that line Now that once moved quite rough, But I might have to just cut that one, right. And no, I've got four sheets off a five, and it's the A five that I fold in half to make my a six, cause this is the piece of card that I'm going to use to make my card. I could just fold it like this but you Then you'll find your tend to come with rather an ugly fold in the middle. So I'm gonna get place it on my guidelines and yeah, I might find there are little bits of ear is recon was tidy that up glacier on the middle line. Now forget for that. So I found the Hoff the middle. I just now spray sing down, but not hard and not it hard enough to go straight through the paper, but just enough to score it. I have now scored a line on there. You can see there's a line there now. When I fold, you find it so much easier to get that perfect line in the middle. I'm not gonna fault that Our bow and so on that line and using my bone, my paper fold up. Just gonna push that down the age thing and outside just to make it three SMEs on There's my card easy enough and cost me a lot less than buying pre made carts. I he isn't the card that I've just completed. As you can see, there is a little bit where it's not exactly matching up, and that's not a big deal. I can just tidy that up. So I'm just gonna do this. No. So I'm gonna put that put my ruler right into the into the fold over the matching that fold up until the point where it could almost disappears. Now that up. Excellent. I used that as a guideline against this line here than I've always got a right ankle, and that helps to make it really tidies. I'm gonna do that again. God, And just a night when cutting. Always be careful of your thumb. Try and keep your thumb within the bounds of your rula so that you don't slice your thumb off. So what I do on days when I feel like doing some card making. But I don't feel overly and imaginative is I cut my card and I pre score it and then I keep these in a box, and then when I'm ready to go, I just pull out the color that I want and rolled and go. 4. Adding the background: we've made the base of our very first card, and now I'm going to show you some basic techniques for sitting up a very easy card you'll see on the table. I've got some elements already for use. I've got a pretty background paper die, cut Rose and some ribbon. And we're gonna put these together. And at the same time, I'll show you different techniques off using the different kinds of blue using the group in a liquid glues foam squares and take now with my Scots to really make your elements pop is to add another layer on top. I mean, I could just put that on there on put my thank you note on there, but it would make for a rather boring card, so you'll find that most cars is always an element of something extra. So this is a rather pretty paper slightly thicker than on ordinary paper. Andi, I could now put that straight on top of my card, matching it right up to the age that's I'd lose the pro polling. So what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna make the back page background paper just slightly smaller , then the paper that I've got some. Now I'm going to mark with a pencil where I want to put my cutting lines. But I don't want to leave a mark on my paper, so I'm gonna actually turn it back to front and on the back off paper. I'm just going to make a little quick mark off whereabouts. I want my cutting blinds excited. Okay, four got a smaller Matt now, and I'm going to excuse that todo using that mark lining up my ruler with the each so that I get a 92 degrees minding my fingers free you during the same one in doing the same on this and matching the top into the corner on because there we go. Always make sure where your folders. So my cards opening that way. So that is going to be the front of my cart. No, I can glue that with this. This is an ordinary PV a white blue. But I do find with using white glue with this kind of thing, it takes a while to dry, and it will also tend to sometimes leave a kind of a translucent mark on your paper. This glue is not strong enough for this. So the best way, the quickest way and easiest way is to use this is to use double sided tape. Just put you don't You don't need to use the Met. I'm just using the Met food now, just to show you what I'm doing. So I'm going to This is Ah, six more double sided type on. I'm just going to Teoh piece. Always tend to make my peace is just a little bit bigger. And then I understand I tend to make my my pieces just a little bit bigger. Then what? I'm doing a little bit smaller lining it up with the age off the type backside. Okay, Smooth. Do you that all the way around? All right, now just tremble. The exists now my base card again. And now peel away backing. Do that with fingernails. Or if you're like me, you find it just using your all too. Find the age we go like so much easier to do it that way. All right. And then carefully position and blue place. You go. Yeah, it's in place. It's glued and it's dry so I can carry on working and not have to wait for this to dry 5. Adding the decorations: Now we'll add some embellishments here. I've got a die cut, Rose, and I'm going to place it somewhere around here. I'm gonna place it actually sprayed onto the card for this one. I'm going to glue it with my blue paint, mince I'm gonna put that side just for the moment. And when you use any kind of glue, I always suggest that you have a small piece of scrap paper and then you glued. You apply the glue using a piece of scrap paper rather than applying the glue in situ because that mess up your background So I'm gonna put that on my scrap paper and like these , come in easier either a roll, a ball point or a chisel point. I think I'm going to use the chisel point today, give it a shake, and then our troops prime it on the on the paper associates come up really fast to start off with wipe away the exists. And now I'll just come in and shocked a little bit on the do. So I'm just really dabbing it on rather than really drawing it on all over. You don't have to cover every single space just doing? Really? Because it it will spread Excited. I'm gonna take that off a little bit about this. Glue works best when it's just slightly starting to dry. Journal editor, Dry slightly. Then I'm gonna place a home code. So and with another piece of scrap paper, I'm gonna put that on top and just priest down. All right? Now I'm going to add a little bit of ribbon, I think just across the top here. So just meet you around a little bit on, then I'm gonna cut a little bit too. You sure? Okay. Just put that aside for a moment. Now, before I go ahead and glue this down, I'm just going to show you why I like this stuff. So here's piece of cod with a piece of the ribbon on. I'm going to try. Just apply, but of blue onto the ribbon and it took over and apply it onto the card first go. It looks really good. Looks like it's set in place and brilliant. Now move on. Teoh, Put that slide now. So for this one, I want to use the ribbon and about this position there across there. But instead of the blue. I'm gonna use my double sided tape again. I will just cut, but measured. Ouch! About May here. Police get about there now making. I've got a little bit of extra over here. I'm going to keep that. And I'm just gonna wrap it into the card like so. And then I'm gonna remove backing, not placing it too hard on my back because I don't want it to stick to that. I'm now going to place my ribbon on top off the type. Now take this great back and reposition it slightly. Smell you that down smooth. And I felt that Don't worry about that. I'll show you have to cover that up in a bit. Okay. It's not mine. Ribbon is in place, it's glued down, it's secure and it's dry. If I go back to this one, which was gluing, you'll see it still not secure. It does depend, of course, on your environments. If it's humid and cool, it will take longer. But this is why I don't like to use glue on ribbon. It takes too long to dry and depending on the type of ribbon that you use if it's an acrylic type, of ribbon. Sometimes it's just won't stick. So I just find it so much easier to use the double sided tape, right? We've added our like up rose and our ribbon and now going to add a center month. These thank you notes I have printed out from my printer. So this is just an ordinary font that I've used from the computer and typed up onto a piece of paper and printed out. It's on 80 GSM paper, so it's quite fun, and I can just to stick it straight onto the card, but you can see that there it would the background would show through. So that's one reason why I'm gonna mounted on to something else. Plus, if I use card, it gives it an extra background as well. So I'm going to cut this out with a matching piece off card. I can always cut it with my sis. Is nothing stopping you doing that? But of course, with scissors cutting, it's always difficult to get an accurate straight line, no matter how hard you try to cut. So I don't recommend cutting with scissors. So put those aside for now, and I'm going to get my met. So using that as my reference age, I'm gonna look for where it looks. Give it a little bit of space between the top of the tea and then my rula Andi just match that up their line that up. So that way, uh, what now? Using this line as my reference life, I'm going to give a bit of space between the U and the age of my ruler free. We're not gonna put it on the purple. So I'm gonna play onto the purple background before I cut. So again is before I've got my piece of paper that I use for gluing. I'm not going to use my glue pains for this one. My reason being as you can see, when it dries, it makes the papers slightly translucent. So I don't really want that effect to happen on this piece of paper and the because this paper is so thin, the double sided tape will do the same thing. So I felt this one. I'm going to use good old glue stick again. My I'm using my peace, my scrap paper as backing. And no, unlike the your kindergarten teachers who tell you to glue on the inside of the paper. I say Go right over the age. It's a blue strike over the age. Give it a good gluing over the age, so that way you know, every side and piece of paper. Piece of the paper has bean glued. It's like that away. I'm gonna match this up with a corner. Maybe that corner they into the corner. And as before, I'm taking another sheet of paper, placing that on top and rub it down firmly. This makes sure that the glue dries evenly, and any glue that maybe a little bit excess will get squeezed up and will stick to your covering. Paper rubbed down nicely, smoothly and slowly peeled back. And now I'm going to trim the pages of that one. Thanks. I using that line of more edge and lining it up. So gin running with that one. I've now made my sentiment block, and I'm going to mount this onto my card. I could just do it straight onto the corner like that, but this time I'm going to use a foam squares to mount it, so that's slightly raised to give it a raised. If it put that aside for a moment. I'm gonna turn that upside down and then using my all I'm going to take me Greece, peel off from the backing with my whole place it in the corner and just tech down, take another one, place it in the corner. But and then I'm just gonna put two in the centre as well, just to give a little extra support. And so it doesn't cave in. Now, I will remove the backing off each of the eyes again, using my old okay? Just tapped in safely, being removed, good in bringing my call back. And now I'm going to place it excited and you'll see that gives it a little bit of a a three d raised effect. 6. Finishing touches: your heart is complete, except for one last finishing touch. So if we open our card now, you've got a very dark background to be writing on. Plus, you've got some little bits that are left over the little butt ugly. So we want to cover those up for this. I just use ordinary printer paper 80 gs in photocopy paper. I'm going to come piece that fits inside the car. I'm going to make it slightly smaller than the cod. Sorry that it has a little bit of aging. So I've proved out my large cutting meta game. I'm gonna look for my half mark. So I'm looking for my A five or half of a four mark, but which is over there, but as I want to make it slightly smaller than the card, I'm gonna bring this in a bit. Teoh, that would be about half offer Centimeter Andi again, I'm going to just remove a little bit off this side again just to make sure that it fits on the inside. And because this paper is really since there's not really any need to score it, I'm just going to fold it over. Always match the corners first and in the age, Chris down towards fold and smooth it out. And that's my insert. Now, taking my card, I'm going to apply the insert into the card like Sorry, this is up to you Which method you want to use? If you want to use double sided tape, you can glue. It's up to you. I tend to find at this stage. I just want this kind of glue is fine because you're finishing up. You don't really mind that it might take a little bit longer to dry something. Just apply a little bit there a little bit here just to secure the paper in place. And this way, it'll cover up one of these ages along here. Not too much glue. I'm just good. Push that into the center, so pushing it into the center, positioning it. Then I'll actually close the card smooth it'll down and then I'll let that dry for a few hours before I use the card. But when you open it, you've got a lovely inside, which is easy, which is lovely for writing on, and it hides or you're working on the inside and there you go. Your very first card is might