Card Tutorial with Graphic 45's "Communique"

Hi everyone! Today I've got a special card tutorial for you. It's special because it's not only dimensional and interactive, it's for a very important and amazing person at Graphic 45. (Shhh...more at the end of this post on that.) It's a 5" x 7" shutter card using "Communique" which is available as a Deluxe Collector's Edition (DCE) from Graphic 45.

Shutter cards are fun, easy and quite impressive when opened and displayed. I've used an SVG from LoriWhitlock.com but you can find many versions and instructions for shutter cards all over the internet. I made some adaptations to Lori's cut file as you'll see in the tutorial. Here's how I made it...

A little birdie told me that this person's favorite color was red and one of her favorite collections was Communique, so I proceeded to cut the red cardstock base and the paper pieces on my Cricut machine. 

I chose to add another panel for my card front to make the open card even more impressive. I simply cut an additional piece of red cardstock 5 1/2" x 7" and scored down the left side. This will be an attachment point, as you'll see. I adjusted the cut file in my Design Space software to cut an additional red cardstock piece for added support to the card "back". This is optional, of course. I like to make good, sturdy cards. Nothing flimsy.

This is how it looks with the cover piece attached. The other piece is attached to the back on the far right end, like I said, for added support.

Attaching the paper pieces is super easy. They are designed to "nest" inside the cardstock areas with a 1/8" border of red showing. This frames it out nicely.

In the Communique DCE, you not only get the paper collection, but the chipboard and a 12 x 12 sticker sheet as well. I layered stickers and some cut-aparts inside the card. I always start with the inside of my cards so I can later work on the front where most of the bulk and dimension come into play. If I did the front first, I'd have to battle with the bulk while working on the inside. Not cool.

Next, I cut papers for my cover, and worked in some May Arts ribbon and a scalloped border sticker. I mailed this card away before jotting down the measurements, but hopefully you can figure them out by looking at the grid in the background. (Each square = 1/2")

I layered these elements as a unit before adhering them to the card front because the border strip (with ribbon) wraps around everything. Below the scalloped border sticker, you can see that I  scalloped the bottom of the black paper, too.

I selected chipboard pieces, then layered a die-cut lace doily behind the large chipboard and tied an antique key to the button chipboard with some red twine. The lace doily is from one of Graphic 45's new die sets. 

I've used the Square Tag & Clock die set on the right. These new dies are all so versatile to use with not only Graphic 45's various tags, but to add embellishment to your projects.

You can find them here.

With the card folded flat, I assemble the layers.

I decided the chipboard needed something more, so I die-cut the clock out of ivory cardstock, trimmed away the inner circle and layered it onto the chipboard piece. 

To dress up the inside a little more, I fussy cut the gramophone and layered the alphabet stickers to spell out my words.

I used thin strips of black cardstock to layer the letter stickers and keep them together until time to adhere them into place. I used scrap pieces of black chipboard rather than foam tape on the back of my gramophone.

I added them to the inside flap of the card like so.

And the card is finished.

And the inside looks impressive when opened up.

Communique is still available! It's one of those classic collections that represent Graphic 45 perfectly. You can find it here.

And you can find many more DCE's here.

So, whose birthday card is this? 

It's for Aimee Filimoehala, Graphic 45's Director of Operations. Her birthday is this Wednesday, the 18th of April, so be sure to hop over to the Graphic 45 blog or her social media this Wednesday and wish her a happy day. Aimee does an amazing job at keeping Graphic 45 current, developing new product ideas and designs, and has about a million other responsibilities for which we should all be eternally grateful.

Happy Birthday Aimee! And thanks for all you do!