Tail Feathers

Hi folks.  It's Kim from Katydid Cards here with you today, helping Sunsational Stamps celebrate their grand opening.  The official opening is April 5, 2017, but the design team members are sharing their inspirational projects the entire week.

Today I made a card using one of the digital images from the Spring is Ducky collection, part of the April release.

This time of year, ducks are normally associated with Easter, but I always try to make cards for other occasions to show the versatility of the images.  In this case, I guess you could call it thinking outside the...Easter basket.

To make this gatefold card, I brought the image into my Silhouette design screen and traced around the outside edge.  From this trace, I created a 1/4" offset which became the opening for my card.  Using the cutting tool, I cut vertically down the center.  I placed the two halves in the center of a standard gatefold card.  Then, using the replicate option, I mirrored the left half to the left and the right half to the right.  Finally, I used the align tool to move the halves to the each side.  This gives you the perfect opening in your gatefold.

The mats were made by creating internal offsets at 1/8" and 1/4"  The top mat was filled with a digital plaid pattern.  I used Old Olive card stock for the larger mat and Tempting Turquoise for the card base, both by Stampin' Up.  I printed the adorable duck as well as the greeting on Neenah Solar White card stock.

When you open the card you see the sentiment inside, matched to the turquoise base.

Here's a closer look at the duck.  I colored him using Copic markers.

What you can't see from look at the card straight on is that I print and cut his adorable little tail feathers a second time and attached it to the image with a homemade wobble spring.

It’s easy to make a homemade spring.   Just take 26 gauge wire (which can be found in the jewelry section of any craft store) and wrap it around a pencil about 7 times and cut at the end of that spiral.  Next punch four 1/2” circles.  Using strong adhesive coat one circle and place on the end of the wire then take a second circle and place it directly over top to make a sandwich around the end of the wire.  The spring I made here is a smaller version.

One final idea I wanted to share about the tail, I added little "motion" lines to accentuate the feathers as they move on their spring.

So happy you stopped by.  I'll be sharing another Sunsational card in two weeks...looking forward to it.  In the meantime, don't forget to check out all the other photo-polymer and digi stamps in the store.