Dimensional Ruffles

A couple of weeks ago, as I hopped along through the OWH Memorial Day Weekend Blog Hop I viewed several cards people had posted where they used a technique that Sandy Allnock, President of Operation Write Home, had highlighted in a video tutorial. I missed the original posting of the video and the Dimensional Ruffled cards, but I really liked the way they looked and since I already had the Martha Stewart punch she used I knew that one day soon I would  give it a try.  


Well, today was that "one day soon". So off I go to the Craft Room - pull out the drawer of punches and my eyes immediately spy another edge punch that would work well also. So I decided to see how many edge punches I had that would work. Well, lets just say I didn't use EVERY punch that would work. But the punches that didn't get used today will definitely get used for this technique in the future. 


Having as many "acceptable" punches as I did led to a new inspiration. I decided to see how many I could make with nothing but scraps. I have a drawer labeled Small Scraps and another labeled Large Scraps. Small Scraps had to be the one to use so I opened the drawer and started creating stacks of scraps that would work both in size and in color relationship. Once I had my scraps all sorted I had five decent stacks so I picked the five edge punches that appealed to me based on the color stacks. Here are my punched stacks and the punches:

See the pretty confetti scraps at the bottom of each stack (kinda hated even throwing those out).

The cards are pretty easy to make and I see a lot of possibilities with this technique. And, as with all things, I expect to get better with this technique as I work with it more. But for now I'm pretty pleased with today's work. Here are my five finished cards. All of these go in my box of cards to be sent to OWH for our deployed troops.

All the Pretty colors!

This was the first one I made. I realized after it was too late that I should have stamped my sentiment first. The foam tape under the top ruffle prevented me placing the sentiment lower. I think it would have looked better lower, but, it is what it is. The punch is called Floral Lace. 

This blue one is my husbands favorite. I believe this punch is called Deco Shells. It is one of the "Around The page" punches that has a matching corner punch. And the string is a freebie - it came off of a package of Lawn Fawn stamps. Kelly Marie at Lawn Fawn always ties your order up nice and pretty.

Hubby also liked this one as his second favorite. He said it made him think of a Fiesta. No sentiment on this card at all, inside or out. This punch is called Doily Lace. The hardest part of this card was threading those tiny buttons. I don't know why I decided seven. Five probably would have been fine, but I didn't even think that until after I had them all threaded and stuck in place with glue dots.

Here is the one made with the Lace Heart punch. Again, no sentiment, inside or out. Whoever uses it can use it for whatever they need it to be. The top piece of paper has some glittery flowers, but it is NOT loose glitter. It is actually slick to the touch. Almost like glitter trapped under acrylic or something.. But I did test it to be sure it would not rub off at all since glitter is a no-no for OWH card.  This is also one of the only two pieces of designed paper I used. The second is on the next card.

And here is card five - my favorite. But then, it is pink, one of my two my favorite colors. Purple is the other favorite so that makes the fourth card (the purple card made with the Lace hearts punch) my second favorite. This punch is called Scallop Dot. This card is the other one with designed paper, although it is hard to see. Well, actually, there may technically be two designed papers on this card. There is a ruffle made with a very very pale white dotted paper (second ruffle from the top) and  there is also a ruffle made with a card-stock that kinda looks like pink & white clouds (the top ruffle). And, yeah, that top ruffle ended up being a bit short, but that is only because I didn't pay attention and forgot to trim the vellum ruffle down to the 1.75" height and then had to be sure I covered all of it with the dotted ruffle. And since my personal challenge was to use only scraps from my Small Scraps drawer I just went with that top ruffle being slightly too short. It's okay - it works - LOL.