Movers & Shakers

Happy Valentine's Day, all!

I'm going to try to keep this short... I've got milk to dye pink, bagels to cut into hearts & top with strawberry spread (breakfast), heart shaped pancakes to make (dinner) and toast to cut out with cookie cutters... more hearts.  Apparently for Valentine's Day my family is getting a carb-orama. 

And they better like it :)



You don't have to like what I have for you today, but I'm hoping you do :)

Today is a super fun day... each Papertrey Ink design team member is bringing you something totally new and fun... and moving.

That's right, we're talking cards with major interactive elements.
Sa-weeeeeet.



My cards today feature the Movers & Shakers: Spinners dies. There are 2 options in this die set... your spinner can move along a straight line or a wavy line; I used the wavy line on my projects today.


I started off with this floating butterfly card. See? The little butterfly floats right on down the wavy line... super fun.

I stamped the background first. I knew that I wanted the butterfly to really pop color-wise so I wanted to keep the rest of the card in black and white.

I totally had to use the beautiful new Simply You set... holy cow, that set is a new favorite!  I chose one of the large "you" images from that set to work with.  In order to get the placement on the black sentiment *just right* I went ahead and stamped that one first, embossed it with clear ink, then stamped and embossed the other "you's".   That way I knew I wouldn't end up with the focal "you" in a wonky spot :)


I die cut the wavy line, then got to work coloring that butterfly...

I borrowed him from Maile's new Beautiful Butterfly set.  How much I love that set is a topic for another post.  How much I love this butterfly with these dies is a topic for this post :) 

I knew I wanted to add just a bit of detail to Mr.Butterfly, so I started by stamping him in deep yellow {color is Summer Sun by SU} then spritzing the stamp with water before stamping it down on the die cut.  That gave Mr.Butterfly a bit of a mottled look.  Then I went in with my super cheap watercolor set and added some faint orange highlights.  Mr.Butterfly's body got a bit of black watercoloring as well...



One of the dies in the spinner collection is a set of 4 circles... 2 large and 2 small.  I adhered 1 large circle behind Mr.Butterfly, then adhered a small on top of that.  I adhered the other large and small circle, too, and laid them underneath the panel I just completed; showing through the wavy die cut line.  Then it was just a matter of adhering the small die-cuts together behind Mr. Butterfly.

I finished out the inside with the matching sentiment from Simply You that says "make me happy when skies are gray."  {Somehow I forgot to take a pic of that part so I'll be back with it in a bit.}

At that point, Mr.Butterfly floated on down the card for me... so, so sweet :)


He was soon to be joined by Mr.Whale...

The idea is the same, I just used the track horizontally on this card.  Now Mr.Whale really seems to bring that Whale Wishes sentiment to life :) 

When thinking through the layout for this card I made sure that the waves {same method to make those as right here} were positioned just over the edge of the wavy die cut hole.  That way when you pull Mr.Whale across the card he moves up and down in the waves... sometimes popping his face out of the water and sometimes staying beneath...

The waves are adhered to the card front with a bit of foam tape on both layers.  That lifts it up and away from the whale die cut and track and leave plenty of room for the movement to happen "behind" the waves.

One neat trick... I "darkened" the waves that are further away just by using a very pale aqua Copic marker over the entire panel.  It darkened it just enough to make the effect totally worthwhile. 

See ya, Mr.Whale...

Man, oh,  man... I've got 3 kiddos that would LOVE to get an interactive card like this :)  I can tell you that from the reaction in this house, this concept is a totally winner.  The kids were totally into seeing how the effect works.  It was pretty satisfying to make something so easy but that packs a huge punch in terms of impact... love that.

Speaking of packing a huge punch... check out what the rest of the design team has come up with using the new Movers & Shakers dies stamps.  I know you're gonna love it all...
Nichole Heady

Betsy Veldman

Erin Lincoln

Maile Belles

Lisa Johnson

Dawn McVey

Heather Nichols

Melissa Phillilps

Michelle Wooderson

Danielle Flanders

Let me know what you guys think!  I always love hearing your thoughts on the new products and projects :) 

{Floating Butterfly} card

Supplies not available now but available 2/15: 

Stamps - Simply You, Beautiful Butterflies

Dies - Movers & Shakers: Spinners; Beautiful Butterflies
Supplies available now:

{For You} card

Supplies not available now but available 2/15: 

Dies - Movers & Shakers: Spinners
Supplies available now: