March Madness at the Watercooler

It's March Madness at the Watercooler! If you are following the Hop in its traditional circular route, you have arrived here from Heidi's blog. Did she have your head spining with her creativity? I don't know how she always comes up with such great designs!

The Madness in this month's hop is that it is all about Fancy Folds. What is a Fancy Fold, you ask? I think it's anything other than a traditional card which is a piece of cardstock, typically folded in half, decorated on the front and has a greeting or message inside.

A very easy Fancy Fold is the Z-Fold. This simply means a piece of cardstock folded in a zig-zag fashion. I've combined the need for projects for this Blog Hop with a custom order for Easter Cards for young children. The challenge in this for me, is that I don't typically buy child-themed stamp sets. But, in this year's Occasions Catalogue is the adorable Easter Lamb stamp.

I pictured bright Easter-ish colours and lambs on grassy slopes. Like this:

To get the basic shape, start with an 8.5" x 11" piece of cardstock - mine is Watermelon Wonder. Trim 1/5" off the long edge to make your cardstock 8.5" x 10.5". Measure up to the 5.5" mark on one short edge and make a light pencil mark. On the opposite short edge, measure up to the 2.5" mark and make another light pencil mark.

Line each mark up on your paper cutter - your entire piece will be slanted - and cut from mark to mark. This gives you the slanted top. Then score at 3.5" and 7" marks and fold to give you the zig-zag. I cut each piece of Whisper White cardstock 1/4" smaller each way.

Using Archival Black Ink, stamp the lamb with the greeting onto the front piece of cardstock. I stamped the lamb three more times on another piece of cardstock, coloured them and fussy cut.

Colours used are: Watermelon Wonder, Daffodil Delight, Pool Party, Blackberry Bliss, Blushing Bride, Cucumber Crush and Tip Top Taupe. The grass is Cucumber Crush, cut with the Fringe Scissors and sponged on the ends.

I also used the little flower stamp from the Botanical Garden stamp set to add a bit more colour. Since this is for a very young child, I wanted to use bright colours and a fairly simple design.

Here is a shot of the last section, where a message can be written:

Next up is a Fancy Fold I just stumbled across on Pinterest. Patty Bennett did a really easy-to-follow video - but I don't know what this fold is called. My first shot shows it all folded up:

 It features the Have A Cuppa bundle which has lots of really fun tea-themed stamp images and co-ordinating Framelits. I just had to order this bundle when my sister recently became a Steeped Tea consultant and I offered to make her a selection of thank you cards for her to include when she delivers orders. What a great excuse for me to order new stuff!

Here's what it looks like as it's unfolded:

I used Tempting Turquoise and Whisper White cardstock. Ink colours are Tempting Turquoise and Hello Honey. The DSP is from Botanical Gardens and the cute little spoons are cut from Gold Foil. To finish off, I used both the clear and the gold Wink of Stella on the lemon slices and heart at the bottom.

 Next up is Libby - be prepared, she has some awesome designs for you! Just click on the 'Next' button below to go to her blog. Enjoy!