Forest Friends on my craft desk

The Details

Where did it come from

papercraft Inspirations issue 174

When did I get it

Recently… there is a small hole in my record keeping!

When did I try it

22nd January 2018

First quick impression

These are very sweet and would be an excellent project for a relatively new crafter because all you really need are a few basics like glue. Equally, a more experienced crafter can use the kit as a starting point and embellish away. I specifically chose this set from my new arrivals basket because it is my first papercraft project for about a month and I wanted to ease myself back in with something I didn’t have to think about too much!

Is it just me or does anyone else briefly falter when returning to doing something after a month or more? I am sure I haven’t lost any of my abilities, and I have all the craft stash I had. In fact, I have some more stash.  Since my last papercrafting project, I have purchased the CutterpillarGlow from Create and Craft. I bought the one that needs to be plugged in all the time which was so popular it sold out, but they do still have available the Premium Rechargeable One.  As I was so impressed by the CutterpillarPro Paper Trimmer, I was confident that the light tablet would be of equal quality and I am not disappointed. I literally needed to unpack it and put it on my craft desk to see the value of having the backlight.  However, I am going to stick to the plan for this post and keep things simple.

The basic construction

I decided to start with one of the spring designs because let’s face it after all the wintery Christmas Crafting it is nice to have a change. I began by doing the basics: I attached the vellum feature image to the outer frame using Tattered Lace Parchment Vellum Glue.  Although I did this carefully, I had a tiny slither of vellum sticking out beyond the frame in two directions so with the help of the light pad and the self-healing craft mat I used my craft knife, and I carefully trimmed these off. I then reinforced the fold in the card blank and attached the frame to the bottom half of this to create the easel design. Remember to not cross the fold with the glue it is quite easy to get into a rhythm and slightly overshot if the worst happens just ensure you have wiped the glue off so it won’t stick where it shouldn’t. This part of the card blank will be entirely out of sight, so all is not lost. The next step is to add a “step” to hold the easel in place. I used the Happy Birthday sentiment for this and fastened it down with self-adhesive foam pads; the lift is essential so the glue will not work at this point. If you are a brand new crafter, you can get these sticky foam pads at places like pound shops. I will say though that you get what you pay for and they do the job, but they are worlds apart from quality pads like the Hunkydory one. For this project, though I used my cheaper ones because I wasn’t using Hunkydory quality card stock. The final primary step was to cut out the two little butterflies and add them to the front of the card. This is how the card looked at this point.

Completing the Card

The final stage was to cut out the decoupage layers for the deer’s body and face. I could have done this with the ScanNCut the only things stopping me were, firstly I wanted to try doing it using the light pad and self-healing cutting mat with a craft knife and secondly, I’m not sure if I have cut vellum with it yet. Although I know it can do this perfectly well, I didn’t want to try it for a project like this because I wanted to keep the project suitable for a new crafter who wouldn’t have resources like that. Once I had cut the images out I fastened them to the card front with Collall Coll Kit 3D Decoupage Gel, you can buy a tool to apply this with but personally I have always used a cocktail stick because it is a fraction of the cost and easily purchased from the grocery store. Here is the completed card:

The Verdict of the Forest Friends Card Kit

The first thing I have to comment on is the card front bows, this could be due to using wet glue instead of something lighter like a tape runner, but I think it has more to do with it being lightweight cardstock.  Understandably when gifts are being created budgets need to be kept to a minimum. My recommendation after making the first card would be to back the frame and the card blank onto a higher GSM cardstock which will help improve the rigidity of the card. When light is shining from behind the card, you can see the Collall but it is still wet at the time of writing, but this may improve as it dries. Having said that when it is displayed in natural light coming from in front of the card, it is not visible at all. For anyone who has been with me for some time, you will know that the whole purpose of trying out all the items that came with magazines was to decide whether they would keep a place in my craft stash which I am trying to organise and where appropriate reduce. By nature of the fact this is a paper-based kit, there is no decision to make because once I have used it, it will all be gone unlike products like embossing folders and dies. If you are new here, you may want to look back at the post about shopping your craft stash which began this whole process or maybe the Midweek Minimise Craftroom series where the theory is put into practice.