Making Shaker Cards with the Silhouette - Part Two - The Cards

Hello Janet here again,
Welcome to the second part of my 2-part post on making shaker cards. My earlier post concentrated on the types of shaker card construction (Built Out and Hidden Behind) and the materials required. This post will guide you step-by-step through the construction of the two types of cards.


BUILT OUT SHAKER CARD

For this card the shaker window is built out from the card base. For a fuller explanation see the earlier post.

WHAT YOU'LL NEED:
Plain or Pattered Paper
White Smooth Cardstock (decorative top layer)
White Heavyweight Cardstock (for layers)
Acetate Sheet or Clear Packaging
Seed Beads
Coloured Marker
5" x 5" Heavyweight Cardbase (300gsm plus)
Extra Strong Double-Sided Adhesive Tape
Liquid Card Adhesive
Silhouette CAMEO®, Silhouette Portrait® or Silhouette Curio™
Baby Postage Stamp file by Tanya Batrak (#156136)


STEP 1: PREPARING THE FILE

a. Open the file, ungroup and delete the unwanted stamp design.

b. Copy the stamp and edit the copy to remove the central detail. There are several ways that this can be done. I drew a square fractionally larger than the central opening using the rectangle tool  (holding down to shift to ensure it was square). I manually positioned it on the stamp, released the compound path on the stamp (Object > Remove Compound Path), moved the inner parts away and then made a compound path with the outer and the new square (Modify icon > Make Compound Path). This piece is used to cut out both the shaker layers and the transparent layer.

c. I drew a square decorative base layer (outer) for card, and cut out a square from the centre to match the square in the modified shape. I also used the same smaller square to cut the inner decorative base layer.  These were all the shapes required.

STEP 2: CUTTING THE FILE

The cut pieces are shown below (minus a couple of extra layer pieces).

Time-saving Tip: Note the heart from the stork's bag - you could cut this separately from another piece of coloured card, but I just retained it from the white piece and coloured it with a marker - saved time and paper!

See part 1 for information on cutting acetate.


STEP 3:  ASSEMBLING THE CARD

I'll run through my assembly steps - there are numerous other ways to do it of course!

a. Attach the decorative backing pieces to your card base.

b. Assemble your stack of layers. I used liquid card adhesive as shown on the enhanced picture below. Check your shaker materials with the stack for depth and leave off any excess stacks to keep your card slimmer.

c. Adhere the stack to the background, again using liquid card adhesive.

d. Add a neat layer of double-sided adhesive (with no gaps big enough to let your shaker bits through). Burnish it well to ensure it is stuck down firmly.

e. Brush around the stacked sides with an anti-static pad or tool to remove any unwanted stickiness. Add your shaker materials, in this case seed beads.

f. Leaving the protective layer on the stack for now prepare the decorative top, Firstly, replace the now coloured tiny heart back in place on the stork's bag and attach it with a tiny piece of adhesive tape (single-sided) from behind (the tape doesn't show up on the photo, but it IS there!). Apply double-sided tape to the underside of the top card piece in a similar pattern to the stack shown above, burnish, then remove the protective layer from this tape and carefully align the acetate on top. Press it on firmly. Hopefully, you'll do a better alignment job than I did here - once it's on it's VERY tricky to remove!

g. Now remove the protective layer from the tape on the stack and careful align the top on the stack. Rub firmly to make sure those pesky beads don't get away!

There we are, the card is complete, although I do plan to adding the baby's name to a banner at the bottom.

HIDDEN BEHIND SHAKER CARD

For this card the shaker window is hidden behind a decorative card front. For a fuller explanation see Part 1. To make this card look a little different I incorporated four shaker windows, but the principle is the same as for one.


WHAT YOU'LL NEED:
Plain Textured Cardstock
White Smooth Cardstock (decorative top layer)
White Heavyweight Cardstock (for layers)
Acetate Sheet or Clear Packaging
Mini Sequins
6" x 6" Heavyweight Cardbase (300gsm plus)
Extra Strong Double-Sided Adhesive Tape
Liquid Card Adhesive
Repositional Adhesive
Silhouette Cameo®, Silhouette Portrait® or Silhouette Curio™
Baby Postage Stamp files by Tanya Batrak (#156139, #156133, #156136)


STEP 4: PREPARING THE FILE

a. Open all three files and copy them into one tab.  Ungroup and delete the unwanted stamp designs.

b. Align the four stamps and draw a box around them the same size as the front of the card base. Arange and align the stamps until the arrangement is to your liking. This is the beginning of the  decorative mid layer.

c. To finish the decorative mid layer as shown, draw a square the same size as the central opening of one of the stamps using the rectangle tool  (holding down shift to ensure it is square). Duplicate it until you have nine squares. Four of these will become the decorative base layer. Position four squares over the stamps, select these small squares and make a compound path with the large square (Modify icon > Make Compound Path) .

d. To make the shaker layer, draw a square slightly smaller than the decorative mid layer. Make a copy (this becomes the transparent layer). Take the spare small square and make an offset. Duplicate the offset until you have four. Position the spare large square and the four offsets over the decorative mid layer and make these into a compound path (not including the mid layer).

Here are all the pieces ready for cutting.

STEP 5: CUTTING THE FILE

The cut pieces are shown below (minus a couple of extra layer pieces). Ignore the white heart (I didn't use it).

STEP 6:  ASSEMBLING THE CARD

Here are my assembly steps.

a. Assemble your stack, adhering the shaker layer pieces together with liquid card adhesive.

b. Check the height of the stack with the shaker elements and leave aside to dry. Weight it down with something heavy if you think it's likely to warp.

c. Temporarily adhere the decorative mid layer to the card base with repositionable adhesive.

d. Use this as a guide to permanently attach the decorative base layer squares.

e. Carefully remove the mid layer.

f. Apply strong double-sided tape to the back side of the mid layer. Burnish with a flat edge.

g. Flip the mid layer over to the right side and adhere the decorative top shapes.

h. Flip it back. Remove the protective layer ...

... and adhere the acetate. Rub it to make sure it is stuck firmly.

i. Adhere the stack to the card base and add the double-sided tape.

j. Use an anti-static pad ot tool to desticky the apertures, remove the protective layer from the tape and carefully add the shaker elements.

k. Carefully align the decorative card front to the card base. It should align perfectly over the decorative squares on the base. Now the second style of shaker card is complete.

I hope you will enjoy making shaker cards as much as I do.

Bye for now!

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