'Congrats' shaker card

After more years than I care to remember, finally bit the bullet and had another try at making a shaker card. My one and only try previously was a disaster but I was driven by all the lovely shaker cards on so many blogs right now - as well as a free gift with Simply Cards & Papercraft magazine, issue 145 :)

If you want the die, back copies of the magazine can be found on line if you just Google the name and issue number of the magazine.

Followed the magazine instructions pretty closely, added in a couple of tips along the way - and this was the end result. It's pretty simple and will be fine for either a Wedding or Wedding Anniversary I should think. It's an optical illusion if you think the champagne flutes are standing on top of the background paper - they're die cut into it - amazing what a bit of shadow can do:

I used:

- 5.75" x 5.75" square white card blank

- a piece of white card, topped with a sheet of patterned paper from the Wild Rose Studio 'Wedding Bells' paper pack. The swirly patterned paper just had a few darker swirls and a couple of doves in one corner - perfect for what I wanted!

- then used a full covering of standard grade double sided self-adhesive sheet to fix the paper to the card before doing a small amount of trimming to just slightly smaller than the card front

- next die cut the two champagne flutes into the patterned paper/card - using the free die (it's a single flute BTW) from issue 145 of Simply Cards & Papercraft

- flipped the die cut sheet over,  added a piece of acetate across the die cut area using strong red line tape and swiped it over with an anti-static embossing pad 

- added a couple of little silver sparkly snippets of card behind the acetate on the stems/bases of the champagne flutes

- then it was time to face my nemesis - the dreaded foam tape. My one and only previous attempt all those years ago had ended up with the sequins sticking round the edges of the shaker aperture - such a disappointment :( But this time I had a plan!

- I crept up on a new roll of Stick-It 10mm wide foam tape (1mm thick) when it wasn't looking and patted just a little bit of talcum powder on either side of the roll to take away the stickiness along the edges yet still leave the 'body' of the tape nice and sticky

- snipped a length of the sticky foam tape and then cut it down the centre. In truth, the foam tape is fairly narrow to begin with but I knew that I would be working quite close to the top edge of the card and wanted to be sure to leave space for more tape later on in the process

 - then for each glass I removed the backing strip which meant I had two sticky sides to the foam tape and then added it right around the bowl and across the top of the champagne flute making sure that the lightly but now non-sticky talc coated edge faced into the die cut aperture where the sequins would be going

- sprinkled a few iridescent sequins into the flutes and then covered each of them with a snippet of white card

- added the whole panel to the card front using more foam tape and this time I left the backing strip in place as I added the foam tape to the edges of the 'shaker panel'

- die cut the word 'Congrats' (using a die from the Penny Black 'Hooray' set) from a snippet of the silver sparkly card which had been backed with Stick-It adhesive sheet and popped it in place on the bottom right hand side corner

- final touch was to add a little scattering of iridescent sequins around and between the champagne flutes, using Glossy Accents and a cocktail stick

One very happy bunny here - it worked!

Here are the little hints and tips I'd picked up about making shaker cards:

- swiping an anti-static bag across the inside of the acetate layer (which will have the sequins up against it) helps to ensure that your shaker 'bits' move more freely

- a few places offered the tip of using a little touch of talc on a cotton bud around the edge of foam tape once it's been fixed in place to stop the sequins from sticking to the sides. I went one step further and gently rubbed a very fine whisper of talc right across both sides of a new roll of foam tape. I'm sure it's quicker in the long run with less chance of talc smears on the acetate. I then popped the roll of tape into a card packaging cellophane bag before storing it in with my other tapes and glues etc. - I used baby powder so it smells of bath time in the nursery!

- and my final tip is one I stumbled across when looking at on line videos on the subject of making shaker cards. I wonder how many folk struggle with curves, circles etc. when fixing foam tape in place? And it's all down to the rigidity of that backing strip which protects the foam tape! If you remove it before sticking the foam tape down you can shape the tape so easily - what a simple tip! Of course you have to work quite carefully with it as you will get sticky fingers - but, as the seasoned crafter who was singing the praises of this tip said, 'why didn't I think of that one before now?!'.

BTW, I only just got away with using the 1mm thickness foam tape and the slightly cupped sequins. Would need thicker tape or two layers if adding seed beads into the mix :)

Di
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