Making fancy fold or interactive cards

Happy hump day crafty friends! I hope you are all doing well. We have gone from warm sunny weather on Monday to snow falling and the heating back on today! It’s still good crafting weather at least! I’m sharing some fancy fold cards today I made for a YouTube card challenge. The challenge is to make three interactive or shaped cards (one on camera) and tag 2 other crafters. I will link my video at the end of this post but I thought a blog would be helpful to share my process for the 2 cards I made off camera.

I’m definitely no expert when it comes to fancy fold cards and these are at the basic end of the scale but if you are new to these cards then hopefully this post will help you to create your own version. The first card I made is a Joy Fold card (no idea where the name came from!). This is the card

These are the measurements I used.

I started with navy card cut and scored as per the above measurements.

I cut my patterned papers (see above measurements) and glued onto my two navy pieces.

Then I glued the back of the sunflower piece onto the larger base card as follows.

The only thing left to do was add the decoration and a space to write a message.

The second card I made was a twisted easel card, this one was definitely much easier. I took a 12.5 x 12.5 cm card base and score a diagonal from corner to corner on one side of the card base. This creates your twised easel. Then I decorated it with some patterned papers and fussy cut elements.

My final card which I made on video was a double easel card.

These are the pieces you need to cut.

Then you need to score the first two pieces as follows.

To see how I decorated the double easel card and find out more about the challenge watch my latest video.

I hope you enjoyed my fun fold cards today, do you have a favourite fancy folded or interactive card to make? Please let me know in the comments and if you have a video or blog post let me know so I can check it out and have a go! Thanks so much for watching and I hope to see you again very soon!

Crafty hugs

Jenny (AKA Ginger Ninja Crafts!) xx

The Early Bird Catches the Worm – I Dare You!

Happy Friday crafty friends! How are you all doing this week? It’s been a lovely sunny week and my husband was using up the last of his annual leave so we have been enjoying the weather with a little trip to the beach, our first braai of the year and getting a few jobs done in the garden. I can’t believe it’s Friday again already but it is and so it’s time for our new Daring Cardmakers Challenge. Miri is hosting us the week and she has set our theme as “The Early Bird Catches the Worm”, “

Miri says she is not an early bird, but is looking forward to waking up to glorious morning sunshine. So this week you can use a sunrise, birds or worms 😉 on your cards or anything related to the saying.

I have recently been obsessed with watching Lavinia Stamps tutorials and I thought I could try to recreate a sunrise for this week’s challenge. I started with painting the background with watercolours on watercolour paper. I used a circle stencil and some moonlight white ink to create a sun. Then I added the corresponding circle mask and brushed some ink (mustard seed) out from the edges to give a subtle effect of sun rays. I then added some splatters of white paint.

Once the background was dry I stamped some foliage at the bottom using memento dew drop inks in rich cocoa, cottage ivy and tuxedo black. I stamped the fairy wuith versafine Clair ink in nocturne. Once the inks were all completely dry I went in with a white gel pen to add a few highlights and a sparkle gel pen to add some sparkle to her wings and to create some sparkles around her in the sky.

So my version is the early fairy catches the sun sparkles!

I added a black matt behind the scene and then popped it on a square card base with a few nuvo drops. I couldn’t decide what sentiment to add so I left a space that I can add one at a future date.

It’s nothing compared to some of the Lavinia works of art I’ve seen but I quite like it and I’ll definitely play with more backgrounds. I hope you will hop on over and see what the other design team members have been making, they are a very talented group of crafters.

Crafty hugs

Jenny (AKA Ginger Ninja Crafts!) xx

Snarky Artist Trading Coins

Hi crafty friends, I hope you are all doing well. I’ve recently made a batch of Artist Trading Coins for swaps with crafty friends and I thought I would share as they have all been sent out and they really made me chuckle! I started by punching out the card circles and colouring them with various distress spray stains. Once they were completely dry I used a script embossing folder to give them some texture. I stamped and coloured a few characters from two Aall and Create stamp sets (the Gentlemen and Housewives sets). I fussy cut them out and then added some snarky statements from the Tim Holtz sticker book. I went round the edge with a black marker to finish them off! I had way to much fun matching the right phrase to each face….. I think my favourite is “She was tempted to cause a scene”! I hope they make you smile too 🙂

What’s your favourite thing to make for crafty swaps? Thanks for visiting Ginger Ninja Crafts, you’ve made my day!

Crafty hugs

Jenny (AKA Ginger Ninja Crafts!) xx

Hello Spring – I dare you!

Hi crafty friends, I’m later than usual with my Daring Cardmakers weekly post but better late than never! This week we are hosted by Shabneez who has dared us to celebrate the arrival of spring with cards featuring anything related to the season be it lambs, rabbits, daffodils, tulips etc. 

I love seeing the spring flowers popping up and I think tulips are my favourites if I had to pick! I used a little tulip die set from Crafter’s Companion. The paper I used was some scrap which I had brayered off the spare ink while I was playing with my gel plate. I added a little die cut tartan bow and layered them on a scripty stamped panel. The finishing touches were a sentiment and a few nuvo drops in complementary colours.

I can’t wait to see your lovely spring themed cards and I hope you will check out my design team colleagues makes over on the Daring Cardmakers Challenge blog, they are a talented bunch of crafters! Thanks so much for visiting the Ginger Ninja Crafts blog, hope to see you again soon!

Crafty hugs

Jenny (AKA Ginger Ninja Crafts!) xx

Daring Cardmakers Challenge – For Ukraine

Happy Friday crafty friends, I hope you are all safe and well in these worrying times. This week at the Daring Cardmakers Challenge we wanted to acknowledge the awful situation in Ukraine. To show our support we are making cards using blue and yellow colours, sunflowers and hope.

I used some distress spray sprays to create a background (Mermaid Lagoon and Mustard Seed). The sunflower stamp is from the lovely Julie Hickey designs. I added a little embossed panel for the sunflower to sit and a sentiment.

I got a little carried away with my backgrounds and decided to make some ATC coins to pop into happy mail. The backgrounds were made with brusho powders (cobalt blue and yellow) and various stencils. The edge is heat embossed in a copper embossing powder. I added a Crafters Companion sunflower and a printed hashtag.

I can’t wait to see all your lovely makes. Thanks so much for visiting the Ginger Ninja Crafts blog, I hope to see you again soon.

Crafty hugs

Jenny (AKA Ginger Ninja Crafts!) xx