Friday Focus: Flourishes Favorites

Honestly, when I said, "Let's do a Friday Focus on our Flourishes favorites" I didn't realize how difficult it would be. Sounded easy enough, as I have so many favorites... but how do I choose which favorite for my focus? Or... how many favorites can I fit on one card? As I started working, things became clear -- I rarely make any card without using at least a few of my Flourishes favorites.

Hi, stampers! It's me, Leslie, playing favorites today. Here's my card:

And these are the favorites I used to put it all together:

Florals -- A Year in Flowers, any one of the three sets, is a recent favorite. These Cyclamen are from Set 3. Flourishes offers a bountiful garden of amazing botanicals... and it's okay to pick these flowers!

Designer paper -- BasicGrey, Memory Box, Cosmo Cricket, 7 Gypsies... The scaled down patterns of the 6x6 pads are well suited to cards and smaller projects, and they're easy to store on a shelf. One pad guarantees perfect color matches and coordinating patterns.

Spellbinders -- I want them all, really. Nestabilities, Frameabilities, Shapeabilities, Borderabilities, Pierceabilities... Oh, my goodness! However did I manage without them?

Silk ribbon -- Let me just sink into a bed of these decadent silks and wrap myself up in their luscious folds!

Pearls -- Got pearls? Got elegance! These days I love anything self adhesive for those easy finishing touches.

I also used watercolor paper and Palette Burnt Umber so I could paint my image with dye-based inks. Did you know Palette inks are waterproof? I even slipped a little of Flourishes Classic White cardstock in there so I'd have a nice surface for stamping the script. That's quite a few favorites on one card!

A few of the Flourishes girls are sharing their favorites today, too. Why not pay them a visit?

Christine

Julie

Laura

Thanks for your time today! Happy stamping!

-- Leslie

Friday Focus - Fancy Folds

Hello Flourishes Friends! It's Christine here today with another Friday Focus. Do you ever have those times when you'd like a really special, or really fun and different card for an Occasion? Today I'm going to show you a couple of Fancily Folded cards that would fit the bill wonderfully.

I call this first card the"Christine Tri-Fold Book". I was playing around with an idea one day and this is what I came up with, I first did this card HERE if you'd like to see another example. Essentially it is a graduated height Tri-Fold that you can do open like an accordian or closed and sealed like a book.

Here is what the finished card looks like...then I'll show you how to get there!

Closed (excuse my finger holding it together :)

And slightly open:

Alright to start with you'll need the following paper sizes cut:

5 1/2" x 12" panel for your base (here in Soft Sky)

a 4 1/4" x 2 3/4" panel to add to this (also in Soft Sky)

Then you'll need smaller panels for each section after you've assembled it as accent pieces to decorate.

I scored the 5 1/2 x 12 panel at 4 1/4, 7 3/4 and 11 1/4. Then I added the extra 4.25 x 2.75 inch panel to that little leftover fold. Adhere with something like Sticky Tape or Scor Tape to hold it firmly together. Below are the pieces adhered together.

Then you want to create your graduated heights. First begin by trimming of the tiny piece above the lowest level. I trim right in the crease right past the fold line, so it will lie flush with the seam and not show any of the scored edge.

Then you want to take that middle layer, the one next to the lowest panel and trim it down about 3/4 of an inch, this way you've created your graduated layers.

Next I did all my "pretty-ing", I created layers for each panel in 1/8" smaller sized pieces, rounded the corners with my corner rounder, and added all my stamped accents. On this card I used the new set Drummer Boy and colored all the instruments and Holly and bows with Copic Markers accenting with a white gel pen.

You have 2 options with this style of card, one you can leave it openable like an accordian as below:

Or you can seal the middle panel shut to be more like a book. Which I did here:

Here are some closeups of the panels:

See how the ribbon disguises the front panel attachement?

And the last panel:

And just for good measure, how about another style of Fancy Fold? This is a Z-Fold done vertically rather than how many of you may have done it in the past - horizontally. This idea is from the very talented Valerie Stangle . She did a tutorial for this style on World Card Making Day link is HERE. (see the first post).

These doves from the beautiful new Dove and Holly set are watercolored and sponged, I just followed all of Val's steps to create a real show-stopper style of card. (I'll have more pics of this one on my blog if you're interested).

Alright...the very talented Design Team girls have also jumped into this challenge of creating Fancy Folds today, so be sure to give them a visit!

Christine Okken (that's me :) !)

Cindy Lawrence has done an Easel Fold Card

Julie Koerber made a fun card in a box with some fancy folds

Latisha Yoast has made a Criss-Cross Fold Card

Leslie Miller has an Accordian Gate Fold
Stacy Morgan has a Wallet Tri-fold to show you.