Portfolio Holding Six Best Wishes Cards

A little while ago I saw this YouTube video by Kelly Acheson where she made a card portfolio/wallet that held eight cards.  Kelly also shows  photos of the project on her blog post here.  It seemed easy to put together so I thought I'd have a go at making one myself.  As Kelly uses US sized CS I had to adapt some measurements for UK sized CS but I made it work, yay!  

I followed Kelly's instructions for putting the portfolio together but I did change the cutting and scoring measurements.  I trimmed an A4 piece of CS to 11", scored the long side at 5" and 6" and scored  the short side at 6 3/4" and 7 1/4".  I cut slits to make the fold up tabs and as they only measured 1" and I wanted them to be deeper I cut two 4 1/2" x 2" pieces of CS, rounded the top corners and glued them to the smaller tabs.

One of the Stampin' Up! Sale-A-Bration offerings (free with a qualifying £45 purchase) is a pack of 12" x 12" 'Paper Blooms' DSP.  It's really pretty paper and I chose to use that for my project.  Here's the portfolio all finished, filled up with cards and tied closed.  

Here's a side back view.  Kelly said the portfolio could hold eight cards.  I used Dimensionals on my six A6 sized cards and they fitted really nicely.  If no 3D foam tape was used you could definitely fit eight cards inside.

Here's a view from the front where you can see the angled flaps.  

Here's the portfolio open with the cards and envelopes inside.

Here's the empty portfolio, it's like a folder basically, a couple of score lines and some flaps turned up at the bottom to keep the contents in place.  You can see I added hole reinforcers to the ribbon holes.  Pretty but practical too!

On this photo I've pulled the flap down to show what small sized flaps I had originally. With the size of our UK card blanks and CS you do end up with flaps just 1" deep and I was concerned they weren't deep enough.  So I cut two separate pieces of 4 1/2" x 2" Night of Navy CS, rounded the top corners and glued them to the front of both  flaps - issue sorted!  

Here are all six cards and envelopes.  I've used a very simple layout which is easy to replicate when making multiples.  I used a 'Stitched Rectangles' die to cut the patterned paper strips, glued them to a Seaside Spray CS panel, added some Seaside Spray metallic ribbon and the sentiment label was popped up over the top. Stamped and punched small flowers were added to the label to finish.

Here are the three Rococo Rose cards.

Here are the three Night of Navy cards.

Here's a closer look at just one of the Rococo Rose cards.  I used the beautiful 'Best Wishes' stamp from the 'A Touch of Ink' set and each sentiment label is popped up on Dimensionals.  I used flower stamps from the 'Sweet Strawberry' set and cut them out with the 'Strawberry' builder punch.  On the Rococo Rose cards I stamped the sentiment in Rococo Rose ink and added two blue flowers to the label.

Here's a closer look at just one of the Night of Navy cards.  On the Night of Navy cards I stamped the sentiments in Night of Navy ink and added two Rococo Rose flowers to the label.

Strips of pretty patterned paper were used to decorate each card on the inside and to decorate each envelope.  After gluing the paper strips in place I drew a line with a navy blue Sharpie marker to add some defining detail.

Supplies:

Stamps: SU! 'A Touch of Ink' & 'Sweet Strawberry' sets

CS: SU! Night of Navy, Rococo Rose, Seaside Spray & Whisper White

Ink: SU! Night of Navy, Rococo Rose & Seaside Spray, navy blue Sharpie marker

Tools: SU! 'Stitched Rectangles' die set, SU! 'Strawberry' builder punch, SU! trimmer with scoring blade, MFT 'Tag Builder Blueprints 2' die set, Crop-A-Dile

Embellishments & Accessories: SU! Seaside Spray metallic ribbon, Dimensionals

Ruth