Double Challenge – Around the World on Wednesday April 2023

Countryside Corners Bundle is a new bundle coming out in the 2023-2024 Stampin’ Up!® Annual Catalogue. I have used it today to create a window for my “spinner” feature for this Double Challenge card for Around the World on Wednesday blog hop.

Welcome once again to Around the World on Wednesday Blog Hop, travelling around the world through every time zone. You may be starting here or you may have come from the blog of amazing artist Rochelle Laird-Smith … slightly intimidate following Rochelle! 🙂

Around the World on Wednesday Blog Hop is the brainchild of Angie McKenzie, a wonderful friend and amazing paper artist. My name is Cheryll Miller, and I am so delighted to be a part of this varied and talented group of Stampin’ Up! Demonstrators.

This month, we are creating with the theme of “April Showers Brings May Flowers”, celebrating all things spring. Of course it is Autumn in the southern hemisphere, so I am celebrating the differences between the seasons in this amazing world of ours. The “double” part of the challenge is to include a technique. Most of my cards include a technique of some sort, but today I am stepping outside my comfort zone and creating a non-standard card. This is a “Spinner Card”, spinning between Spring and Autumn.

Countryside Corners Bundle ….

This bundle of nesting dies and the single stamp to decorate the die cut shapes will be available on 2nd May … as a demonstrator, I was able to pre-order it and have a little play. I don’t know what this shape is commonly called, an “irregular octagon” or an “irregular polygon” … sounds a bit like a description of me?? Not very attractive names for this very cute crafting shape. Let’s call it a “cornered rectangle”.

Spinner card …

Wheeeeeeeee! Wind it up before putting it in the envelope and then when the recipient opens it, the spinner element twirls around. I wanted a way to showcase both Autumn (April in the southern hemisphere) and Spring (April in the northern hemisphere) in the one card, and I think this works well. The Countryside Corners dies have been used to cut the aperture, the frame and the spinner feature pieces for the flowers to sit on.

Dainty Delight dies …

The floral elements are all from the Dainty Delight dies … this die set is carrying over into the new Annual Catalogue. Yay!!! I have also used the Timber 3D embossing folder for the frame (also carrying over … double yay!). The Designer Series Paper is retiring as of 1st May … Textured Chic … one of my favourites, and I have used a number of retiring ink colours, Soft Suede, Soft Succulent and (breaking down and shedding more than a few tears), Rich Razzleberry. RICH RAZZLEBERRY is retiring … how can this be so????? Rich Razzleberry is the most delicious colour and I am so very sad that it won’t be my regular go to colour now.

Right, pulling myself together, I did take some step by step pics as I created this card, so here goes.

Firstly I chose my die shape/size for the aperture … this is the third from the largest of the dies in the Countryside Corners set. I cut the Designer Series Paper first, and then placed it over the card front in position, laid the die over the top and taped the die in place onto the card front. Then I could carefully remove the DSP and cut the aperture on the card front.
The “frame” is cut from Crumb Cake card stock, using the same die plus the next size up. Then I ran the frame through the Timber 3D embossing folder and added Soft Suede ink with a sponge dauber to highlight the timber pattern.

Next up I chose a die from the Countryside Corners bundle that would not only fit in the aperture, but would allow enough space for spinning without any impediment. That was the second from smallest of the “cornered rectangle” shapes. I cut one from Soft Succulent card and one from Crumb Cake card.

I die cut just about every floral and leaf element from the Dainty Delight dies, using Watercolour paper. I put ink onto acrylic blocks as palettes and coloured every die cut piece, some in Spring colours (Granny Apple Green, Soft Succulent, Rich Razzleberry, Balmy Blue, Petal Pink, Mango Melody), and some in Autumn tones (Soft Succulent, Crumb Cake, Soft Suede, Pumpkin Pie and Rich Razzleberry). There was quite a bit of “mixing” of colours to get the right shades to suit the seasons.

Once I coloured one side, I then flipped all the die cuts over and coloured the other side, just in case some show from behind when they extend past the spinning panel.

Spring florals and Autumn florals … which is your favourite?

Next up, I adhered the die cuts to each side of the panel, Soft Succulent for Spring and Crumb Cake for Autumn. I used a combination of Liquid Glue and Mini Glue Dots. I was careful to not let the elements extend too far past the edges of the panels as any extending bits will show from behind.

I am using Linen Thread for my spinner … it is a little more “non stretchy” than baker’s twine. To hold it securely in place I am using Tear & Tape Adhesive. It is a strong adhesive and will help the twine stay taught. I placed Tear & Tape on the back side of both panels, laid the Linen Thread down the centre of one panel and then applied some more Tear & Tape over the top. I burnished it down well and then adhered both panels together. Note that I placed Tear & Tape over the entire back side of one panel so that the edges would adhere well and not pop open.

To hold the spinner nice and tight on the card front, I applied a couple of strips of Tear & Tape above and below the aperture on the card front. I held the thread very so it was very tight and adhered it to the exposed tape. Then I applied some more tape over the top before folding the ends back on themselves and applying some more tape over the top of that. This will (hopefully) ensure that the thread doesn’t pull free with repeated spinning use.

Then adhere the Designer Series Paper panel with frame over the top (I used Liquid Glue so I could manipulate the edges of the frame to fit the aperture if needed, although you could use more Tear & Tape if you are a little more confident than I am. 🙂
I added some sentiment pieces … this is one sentiment stamp which reads “Sending love during this season of growth” and it comes from the Dainty Delight stamp set. I used masking paper to cover over the lines so that I was only stamping one at a time. “Sending Love” and “of growth” could be cut out with the very small flagged banner shape from Countryside Corners dies. “during this season” was a little bit long, so I cut that one with trimmer and paper snips. In the end I had to cut it in half anyway as it was so long that it showed from behind on the floral panel and looked weird from behind, so I cut it in half so it didn’t stick out.

I decorated the inside of the card appropriately, remembering that anything I stamped had to complement the front if it showed through the aperture, so I elected to just decorate the outside. For the same reason, I would write on the back of the card when sending so the handwriting didn’t show through as well.

So what do you think? You can tell that the Autumn tones are my favourite for this card as this is the side I elected to show when the card is “at rest”. Not that I don’t like Spring and all the exuberant colours that come along with that season … I love that some of the spring colours are just peaking out from behind the Autumn panel, a little promise of things to come when the seasons change later in the year.

Next up we are are going to take a trip all the way across world to Danielle Kassing’s blog in the Nederlands .. can’t wait to see what Danielle has created. In fact, I cannot wait to hop through all the links and check out how this theme has inspired all our talented creatives.

Here is the full list of blog hop participants this month.

Jan Clothier – NZ
Leonie Stuart – AU
Rochelle Laird-Smith – AU
Cheryll Miller – AU <<<<< YOU ARE HERE <<<
Danielle Kassing – NL
Aurélie Fabre – FR
Mikaela Titheridge – UK
Annette Ball – CA
Wendy Lee – US
Shel Anderson – CA
Chris Smith – US
Brenda Nelson – CA
Tricia Butts – US
Teri West – US
Cheryl Hamilton – US

xx Cheryll

This is my monthly rewards code … use it when checking out to receive a gift of a 12 video tutorial bundle. Click on the image to add link to your shopping cart automatically.