Dinosaur Card with Peel-Off Glow Sticker

Hello,  Janet here with a post about how to incorporate a fun peel-off sticker into your card design. As well as a great card, your recipient has a sticker that can be removed and stuck onto a smooth surface, a fun addition to a card for a child, or even a young-at-heart adult! For the sticker itself I've used the Silhouette Glow-in-the-Dark Sticker Paper and, almost as importantly, its backing paper!

I made this card with a dinosaur sticker, but you could substitute any favourite animal or character. I also understand that the material can be printed with an Inkjet printer, so an inspirational word, phrase, clip art, or even a photo could be incorporated instead.  The secret to allowing the sticker to be peeled off is to sandwich a piece of the backing paper into the design behind the sticker so that the sticker can be removed without damaging the card surface. I call this the RELEASE LAYER. The sticker can then be re-used to decorate the recipient's bedroom door, school folder, or any smooth surface.

SUPPLIES USED:
Silhouette Glow-in-the-Dark Sticker Paper
Your usual card making stash


1. PLAN YOUR CARD

The Silhouette Design software is great for planning card layouts without wasting any card. I quickly drew up this plan whilst deciding roughly how I wanted it to look.

2. SIZE CONSIDERATIONS

At this point I hadn't considered size, and had built everything around the leaves/tree file at the size it opened up.  However, I wanted the card to be small enough for the dinosaur sticker to be in proportion, whilst being big enough to have some impact by itself (the material, although quite thick, will cut small shapes successfully though). I ended up resizing the card to 6", with dinosaur being around 3" wide.


3. PREPARE THE CUTS

Basically the cut file needs to be designed so that an outline of the sticker shape (fractionally larger than the sticker) is cut from the design. Also backing paper with a larger margin than the sticker needs to be incorporated where the sticker will be mounted.

Once you've decided how big to make the sticker (mine is  about 3" wide), make a small offset to use to cutout from the card layers. Zoom in to your shape. Select shape, open Offset Window, ensure Offset is selected, change Distance (I chose 0.03"), select Round for a smoother outline and click Apply.

Now you need to use this offset to remove a matching section from both the tree layer and the layer directly behind the tree. The backing paper can then adhered between this layer and the layer behind it.

To do this, you need 2 copies of the offset, one for the tree and one for the top layer. Select, Edit > Copy > Paste in Front. Select one offset and holding down the Shift key, select the top layer. Then open the Modify window, select Subtract and move the layer away.  It should have the shape cutout from it. Then (a bit trickier), hold Shift, select the offset and select the tree, then Subtract again.You'll have a number of small pieces. The best way to deal with these is to move all the other design elements away, delete any teeny, tiny bits and group all the other pieces together (Object > Group). 

Now arrange the pieces to cut them out.

3. MAKE STICKER & RELEASE LAYER

Cut your shape from the the sticker paper. It should be a kiss cut, that is, it should cut through the top (sticker) layer, but not through the backing sheet. Start off with the recommended settings (the paper is one of the media listed in your software) but do a test cut to ensure that the settings are correct for your machine, mat, blade etc.  With scissors cut a rectangle around your shape making sure that it is a least 0.5" away from the closest point. Peel away the excess sticker layer, leaving your sticker on the backing paper.


4. ASSEMBLE THE CARD

Assemble your card in the normal way, but sandwich the release layer between the top layer and the layer below, applying glue to both sides of the release paper. If you are careful the sticker can remain in position while you do this, but try not to get any glue on the sticker surface. If you don't trust yourself, remove the sticker and place it gently on something like a silicone mat that you can lift it from easily.

N.B. A couple of tips which may help you match up the leave/tree pieces. 

1. I used the waste piece from around the tree as a guide to place all the pieces. You can use this as a mask for applying adhesive too. 
2. I also 'stored' the small pieces on a piece of used transfer tape (painter's tape would work). If you look carefully, you'll see the shadow of an earlier project!

I hope you'll make a card or two incorporating peel-off stickers. Silhouette Glow-in-the-Dark Sticker Sheets are easy to work with and the 'after-dark' effects are fabulous too!

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