Here are pics of the said 18 cards -

This is an easel card where I made the flower more 3-dimensional was first to be shown.

Dean, the other C&C presenter had a bit of a play with this gatefold box card.

This side stepper card was also shown.

Then we had my slider card.

This is a rocker card I made from my own template.

This card is actually a lot smaller than it looks and was made from one piece of A4 card.

This is a tri-flap card I designed.

A 6″x4″ twist easel card.

This is a criss-cross card with a belly band.

This card is a side springer card.

This was actually the first one I made, a long easel card.

Another twist easel card but a square one.

I loved making this 4-drawer easel box card.

This one is also a favourite. Showing a closed version looking more like a book and an open version.

This is an interlocking card.

Here are several more cards I made….

1.  First of all measure and cut a piece of card at 10″ x 5″

2.  Next score the card at  5″, then diagonally across the 5″ square you have just created.  The diagonal score should be from the top left hand corner to the bottom right hand corner of the 5″ square.  The lower half of the square will then be folded in-over.

3.  Measure and cut a piece of 5″x5″ card.  After folding the scored 5″x5″ square over on the first piece of card, apply adhesive to the lower half of the scored square.  The newly cut 5″x5″ piece of card which will become the front of the over all card should then be adhered to the folded back piece of the card.

4.  Once adhered, the card can be folded into the appropriate twisted easel card position so that a ‘stay’ can be adhered to the bottom part of the card with a foam pad (this ‘stay’ can be anything – see previous examples).  The light through the card in the picture below shows exactly how the card front is adhered to the back of the card.

1.  First of all measure and cut a piece of card at 10″ x 4″

2.  Next score the card at  4″, then diagonally across the 4″ square you have just created.  The diagonal score should be from the top left hand corner to the bottom right hand corner of the 4″ square.  The lower half of the square will then be folded in over.

3.  Fold the card as shown.

4.  Measure and cut a piece of 6″x4″ card.  Fold the 4″x4″ square over and apply adhesive to the lower half of the scored square.  The 6″x4″ piece of card which will become the front of the over all card should then be adhered to the folded back of the card.

5.  Once adhered, the card can be folded into the appropriate twisted easel card position so that a ‘stay’ can be adhered to the bottom part of the card with a foam pad (this ‘stay’ can be anything – see examples).  The light through the card in the picture below shows exactly how the card front is adhered to the back of the card.

In the first example you can see that at first glance the card looks like a normal 6×4 card which would probably be hinged at the top or even at the left hand side.  But the surprise comes on opening the card with the added ‘twist’.  The ‘stay’ for this card is just a balloon cut from the backing paper and applied with a foam pad to hold the easel card in place.

This card was a bespoke one-off card made for my daughter as she is a cheese lover with hand-drawn mouse as the ‘stay’.

This card was made using the PCJ Digital ‘Meet the Rustins’ range available from Papercuts, Whitley Bay.  As the robot dog is called ‘Hammer’, a hammer has been used as the ‘stay’.

The following three cards have used the ‘Mimi’ and ‘Cookies Birthday’ 3D Decoupage and Paper Pads from Papercuts, Whitley Bay

This example is from the ‘Tulip Range’, also available at Papercuts, Whitley Bay. The ‘grass’ on the bottom of the card has been faux stitched using a dress makers wheel and different coloured fine liner pens.

For ease of explanation, each card tutorial uses white cardstock, however, this is not essential for crafters to follow.

1.  First of all you will need a piece of 10″ x 5″ cardstock.

2.  Next score the card at the 5″ mark in half as a ‘valley’ fold and then at the 2.5″ mark as a ‘mountain’ fold, as shown.

3.  Apply some adhesive – here I have used double-sided tape – to the upper side of the first 2.5″ section of the card on the left hand side, as shown.  Then measure a square piece of 5″x5″ cardstock which will be adhered directly over the top of the folded section above, as shown below.

4.  Once adhered, the easel card will then start to take shape.

5.  The easel card will then be ready to be decorated as necessary.  Here I have added a couple of small circles with foam pads  to ensure the card will stand upright.  However, anything else can be used in line with the theme of your card.

Here are some examples of easel cards, I have made to give a bit more inspiration.

Grandpa card, with a special hand drawn one-off Bluebeary Hill Bear by PCJdigital.

65th male birthday card using ‘Henry’ from PCJdigital’s ‘Meet the Rustins’ range

This 65th card for Mum & Grandma also had a one-off hand drawn Bluebeary Hill Bear by PCJdigital

This card with the flower with had a Tim Holtz Suzzix ‘Flights of Fancy’ butterfly

Here is another example of an easel card made with the PCJDigital ‘Meet the Rustins’ DVD available from Papercuts, Whitley Bay

Step 1

Sketch, copy or trace your picture in pencil.  This image was drawn onto an A4 landscape piece of watercolour paper.

Step 2

Draw your text over the top of the sketched picture in pencil.  Here we have overlapped the text which will give a 3D effect when finished.  Then when you are happy with it, go over in permanent pen.

Step 3

Draw over the initial picture in permanent pen, ensuring that you only draw within the lines of the text only.  Erase the rest of the pencil picture which is outside of the text.

Step 4

Colour in the picture within the text with watercolour pencils.

Step 5

Apply water to the watercolour pencilled picture using either a brush or water brush.  Once dry, add shading as shown with grey and black watercolour pencils, ensuring graded blending to give a 3D effect.  Finish by applying waterbrush to shading.

This text was then cut out and placed on a dark piece of card to highlight the shading for the 3D effect.  This effect can be used for lots of different applications including on the front of birthday cards (adhere to card to make it stronger), bedroom door nameplate and so on.

This same technique can be used for other effects on text such as flourishes or swirls,

or flowers.

Another effect is to stack your text.  Here the picture within the ‘SCOTT’ text is a robot and can be seen blank and coloured.

This ‘ZOE’ text has a cute cat within the text and we can also see blank and coloured examples.

We would love to see your interpretations of this doodling post, so if you would like your doodles featured on our blog, email your work to:  submissions@papercraftjunkies.com

First of all draw your letters in pencil which means you can erase and amend should you need to.  When you are happy with your designs draw over the pencil lines with a permanent fine liner pen and erase the pencil lines.

Next draw different patterns on your letters.  Here we have gone for spots, plaid and stripes.

Here’s a coloured example.

These letters have doodled pictures on them relating to the actual letter on which they appear, i.e. ‘A’ has an apple tree and apples, ‘B’ has a waving bear and bear paw prints and ‘C’ has cats and cat paw prints.

And the coloured example.

These letters have a ‘Triptych’ theme to them, in that over the three letters there is a continuing floral theme.

Another coloured example.

These lower case letters have had varying doodled designs on them.

And a coloured example.

These lower case letters take on a more italic look and have a similar retro pattern on them.

Here’s a coloured example.

Taking on a ‘real writing’ italics theme to the text, these letters have been decorated from underneath the text with doodled flowers, hearts and stars, as featured in the previous ‘Doodling Made Easy’ series of posts which can be found HERE.

Here’s the final coloured example.

If you have been inspired by this feature, don’t miss the next post which will be coming soon.

We would love to see your interpretations of this doodling post, so if you would like your doodles featured on our blog, email your work to:  submissions@papercraftjunkies.com

In keeping with our Clearly Perfect theme, Fiona Haigh-Gannon has created this gorgeous 'clear' birthday card using acetate.

Fiona has also produced this 'clear' birthday card for inspiration.

We hope these can inspire you to have a go with acetate, acrylic or just plain plastic and hope you can email us with your creations to be featured on PCJ at: 
submissions@papercraftjunkies.com

Fiona wanted to break away from tradition with her Easter cards this year so she used rabbit and hedgehog stamps from the wonderful Penny Black range.

For the first card:
Take a square card blank and adhere a slightly smaller square of patterned paper to the front.
Stamp the rabbit image out twice and colour them both (I used Twinkling H2Os.)
Cut out the pots and rabbits from one of the finished images and decoupage them over the base image using silicon glue.
Matt and layer the rabbit image onto co-ordinating paper.
Cut a piece of co-ordination paper the same width as your card blank but about a third of the height and punch out a decorative edge along the bottom.
Adhere this to your card with the matted and layered rabbit image on top.
Using Nestabilities make a layered scalloped circle and stamp your sentiment around the outside edge.
Paper punch two flowers from scraps of your co-ordinating papers and adhere to the centre of your scalloped circle.
Add a gem to the centre of the flower for a bit of bling
Adhere to the bottom right-hand side of you card.

Easter Card 2:
Cut a piece of plain paper slightly smaller than your card blank and emboss the right-hand edge with the flower image using a Cuttlebug embossing border and adhere this to the card blank.
Add adhesive pearls to the centre of each embossed flower.
Cut a piece of patterned paper to fit the left-hand space and adhere into place.
Stamp the rabbit image out twice and colour them both (I used Twinkling H2Os.)
Cut out the pots and rabbits from one of the finished images and decoupage them over the base image using silicon glue.
Matt and layer the rabbit image onto co-ordinating paper and adhere to the top of the patterned paper.
Make a circle tag using Nestabilites and a hole punch and stamp on the sentiment.
Tie a ribbon around the bottom of the card and attach the tag.

Easter Card 3:
Cut a piece of patterned paper slightly smaller than your card blank.
Stamp out the Hedgehog image and colour it in.
Matt and layer the image onto co-ordinating paper.
Cut another piece of plain paper slightly larger than the matted and layered image and adhere to the patterned paper on an angle.
Adhere the matted and layered hedgehog image to the plain paper but also on an angle.
Adhere co-ordinating buttons to the four corners of the plain paper.
Make a circle tag using Nestabilites and a hole punch and stamp on the sentiment.
Tie a ribbon through the tag, wrap the ribbon around the pattered paper and attach at the back.
Adhere the pattered paper to the card blank

If you would like to share your easter creations with us, please email your photographs to: submissions@papercraftjunkies.com

These ‘Interlocking Cards’ are so easy to make and are different from the normal run-of-the-mill cards.

You will need:

• Patterned paper/card
• Plain paper/card
• Metal ruler
• Scissors
• Pencil
• Bone Folder
• Craft Knife
• Interlocking A6 Card Template

1.  Fold your A5 sheet of patterned card to make an A6 card.

2.  Turn your A6 card over to show the inside and draw around the half circle part of the template on the left hand side.

The template is shown as yellow in this picture for clarity.

3.  By using the straight edge of the template, draw a line on the right hand side of the half circle and cut out this shape with your craft knife.

4.  This is how the front of the card should look.

5.  Repeat step 2 on the A5 sheet of plain card but only cut around the curved line, do not cut this section out completely.

6.  Fold this A5 sheet of plain card in half to create an A6 card, then fold the right hand side of the card back over and crease with the bone folder.  The left hand side of the card should also be folded back over but ensure that the cut out section is not folded or creased, as shown.

7.  Take the plain paper/card and apply double-sided tape to back of the far right hand section and the far left hand section including the back of the half circle.  Then adhere this plain card/paper to the patterned card, as shown.

8.  Here is a side view of how your card should now look.

9.  Here you can see that by interlocking these pieces you create a circle on the front of the card.

10.  The size of the circle you create on the front of the card is actually the same size as a 3″ circle punch.  Punch or cut some contrasting paper/card and adhere to the card front.

11.  To create the flower in the centre of the circle on the front of the card front, the free template from a previous post was used.  Please go HERE.

12.  The text on this card was hand written, as shown.

Your finished creation should look like this.

If you repeat these steps but use the rectangular template, your creation should look something like this card.

TIP: to create the wings of the butterfly, the same template was used which made the flower petals.

Here we have some more examples using the Interlocking Card A6 Templates.

Create a gorgeous girly girl card like this one.

Here we have a great card for a boy with a skull and crossbones theme.

This cute card for the birth of a baby boy is lovely as an interlocked card.

We would love to hear from you and see your Interlocked Card creations, so send your photo’s to: submissions@papercraftjunkies.com