Give It a Whirl! An interactive card creation featuring Nothing's Better Than... stamp set.

May 08, 2022

Hello & welcome to my blog!

Thanks for stopping by. I'm so glad you could visit my blog & I hope you find something to inspire you from my creation this week. My focus is on the amazing Give It A Whirl dies. I have always loved the idea of the cards that allow you to spin a little wheel & choose what number birthday it is or what sentiment you want to use. Stampin' Up® have created just that with their Give It A Whirl dies! There are endless varieties that can be created using this die & I'll be having a play around with different stamp sets & the orientation of the card but for today I have my very first attempt at creating using these dies. I hope you like it!

For those of you who know me or know a little bit about me then you know that I love coffee & chocolate. Cocktails rate up there too. 😆 So when I was designing this card I looked for inspiration from Pinterest & other Stampin' Up® demonstrators for tips on how to use the dies but the stamp set was totally mine as some of my favourite things are in this set.

I got lots of tips from Pinterest but the best tip comes from Lisa Curcio of Lisa's Stamp Studio. I watched a tutorial she made featuring the Give It a Whirl dies & she shared that she had made a template of the different shapes that you can use for your peek-a-boo window. The idea is that you place it over any of the images in a Stampin' Up® catalogue or the stamps themselves & you can automatically see whether the image or sentiment will fit inside the window. Genius! So, of course, I made one. 😁 I highly recommend you try this yourself if you use this die set as it saves a lot of guesswork or mistakes. It also helps you to choose which shape would work best with your images & sentiments.

So now to show you all the different options this card has when you turn that little dial....

Chocolate

Cocktails

and of course....

Coffee!

To create an interactive card you need a card base, a matte for the base, cardstock for the front of the mechanism, a matte for that front & some cardstock for the mechanism itself. I chose Pale Papaya & Basic White cardstock & a beautiful new DSP from the May '22 - Apr '23 Annual catalogue called Pretty Prints. They are just gorgeous. But I'll talk about them & show you more in a later post.

Here's a pic of the dies to show you just how easy it is to create the front & mechanism.

I chose the part circle as I wanted to use words in my window but for flowers & shorter sentiments you could you could use the heart, circle or rectangle. The window dies are recognisable by the little circle at the top or bottom of them. The large cog with 3 openings is the spinning mechanism & you can either stamp directly onto the spaces or use the part circle die with Basic White Cardstock & attach them to a darker mechanism.

To decorate the front of the card in keeping with the sentiments, I stamped & diecut images using Nothing's Better Than stamp set & the co-ordinating Love You More Than dies plus some retired products - Coffee Cafe stamps & Coffee Cups dies. The inks I used are Cajun Craze, Cinnamon Cider, Crumb Cake, Daffodil Delight, Pale Papaya, Gray Granite, Night Of Navy, Early Espresso & Parakeet Party.

When you have adhered the DSP to the card front (with the mechanism) flip it over & pierce the hole that is already made by the die then flip it back to do the same with the front facing. This will make it easy to push a brad through later. The interactive card front is then mounted on dimensionals & adhered to the card base. I used a small circle behind the spinning mechanism so that I could use dimensionals in the centre without the mechanism being affected.

My intention is to gift this card with a hamper that includes Chocolates, Coffee & Cocktail ingredients. 😁

I also added some chocolates on the inside of the card.

I'm looking forward to creating more lovely cards with this die set. This card is a landscape design but portrait works just as well. I've seen many made with the stars & clouds featured & a co-ordinating stamp set called Stellar Birthday from the 2021-22 Annual catalogue but there are so many options for this die set - birthdays, baby cards, anniversaries, male cards...... I'll show you more as I create them.

Well, that's it for another week. I hope you've had a little fun learning how to create an interactive card. If you would like to purchase any of the products I used in this card or other products, I've put some links below that will take you to my online shop. I also sell many of my cards on my FaceBook page at Crafted by Alison if you would like any of them.

If you would like me to send you a catalogue then please message me via my FaceBook page, Crafted by Alison or send me an email at craftedbyalison@gmail.com.

Thanks so much for stopping by. I hope you can come back for this week's Mid Week blog on Wednesday as I'm showing you one of our lovely kits & how you can 'make it your own' or create following the instructions. In next week's blog I'll be showing you a very versatile stamp set, All Squared Away. I hope you can join me for both of them.

Til next time, take care & keep creating! XX Alison

Shop with me

Give it a Whirl dies

Nothing's Better Than stamp set

Love You More Than dies

Basic White cardstock

Pale Papaya cardstock

Early Espresso cardstock

Cinnamon Cider cardstock

Pretty Prints DSP

Calypso Coral Classic Stampin' pad

Pale Papaya Classic Stampin' pad