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Wednesday, March 17, 2010

Tutorial: Non-Standard Shaped Cards

Tired of the same old square or rectangle shaped cards? I was too and so I came up with this idea using MTC to make my cards shaped just a little different.

Today's tutorial came about because of Sally. She asked:


The idea really is quite simple: Take a shadow layer, weld it with a square or rectangle to form the card front. Then, weld the whole thing with a mirror of itself or with another square (for a square card) or rectangle to make the card base. I used MTC for the following examples but you can easily use CDS if the cartridge already includes the shadow layer.

Example 1: Shamrock Card



I cut/import the shamrock at 4 1/2 " and made a shadow layer with MTC. Then I welded this shadow with a rounded rectangle to make the black layer. After that, I made a shadow of that black layer. The card base is made by welding 2 copies of that shadow of the black layer AFTER flipping the left-hand side image.



(please click on image to enlarge it)

To avoid any copyright conflicts with ProvoCraft, I have removed the shamrock image from the file. If you have the Paper Doll Dress Up cartridge, you can find the image there. Just cut it at 4 1/2 " to fit the card base.


Example 2: Frog and Toadstools card



The card base of this card is just a variation of that of the shamrock card. Instead of welding 2 shadows together, I welded one side with a rectangle that is twice the width of the card front.

(please click on image to enlarge it)



For cartridges that contain the image and its shadow layer, I use Design Studio to make the card base. However, most images do not come with the shadow layer and I would have to depend on MTC to make that.

This is a versatile method to get away from the usual rectangle-shaped card. I used the same method for my jumbo princess cards and the Easter lambies. Even if you do not have MTC or SCAL, you can still make these "sculpted" cards in CDS provided that the cartridge already contains the shadow layers of the images.



8 comments :

  1. Thanks so much, Jin. You have been so helpful! I have your site bookmarked and check it every day for another dose of creativity!

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  2. What a neat idea. I'll have to try this. Thanks for the tutorial!

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  3. hey there is a dingbat font called

    "wmstpaddys"

    there is some cool shamrocks so you still can use this idea for a shamrock card base.

    I love MTC for this very reason as well, I want to be more creative change a little things around, I don't see anything wrong if you own the cartridge can't wait to play with this feature.

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  4. Thanks Bugeyes. I just googled and added that font to my collection. :)

    Jin

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  5. Thank you for your tutorial. I made a frog card doing exactly what you said. I'm so pleased to have the new technique!
    Karen

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  6. That's awesome, Karen! You've just made my day! Thanks for posting and letting me know that my tutorial helped. It's a really fun way to spruce up the cards. No more 4-corner shaped cards for me! :D :D

    Jin :)

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  7. Thank you for the tutorial and the designs. We'll never have to buy another card with MTC.
    Peggy

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  8. I'm checking your tutorials... awesome job, thanks for sharing...


    Gina Lindsey
    agsainz at gmail dot com

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