Little Red Wagon No. 220 card and a FREE 3 Part Ruffle Cut File!

I rewarded all my drudgery housework chores took the opportunity to make a few cards yesterday and decided to seek out and try a new challenge.  I hopped around the internet and found the following challenge by Little Red Wagon.  Funnily enough, I had just posted to twitter a few days ago this exact thing - the 2014 Pantone Colour of the Year - Radiant Orchid! 

Little Red Wagon No. 220 sample pic:

We are to use varying shades of purple or orchid.

I will be the first to admit I don’t jump all around and get excited about purple, and I often quirk a brow when I see some in my paper bin.  Where did it morph from?  Did I willingly pick that paper sometime in the past?  What was I thinking?  What did I eat that day, I wonder?

Well, at any rate, I did find some lovely juicy fun bits and I just went for it before I could give my psyche a chance to scream in rebellion.  Here’s what I wound up creating:

 

SUPPLIES:

Designer Paper - sorry, no identity on this 6 x 6 pad it appears someone halved with me

Ruffle - this too somehow magically showed itself to me in my fun bin

Wire - (for the feelers)

Beads - (feeler tips)

Glitter Paper (layer in butterfly)

Cutting File - Ruffle by Barb Derksen

 

 

I was wowwed watching my hands just blast ahead with this card.  It just came together so fast.  I scoped my supplies and found this butterfly themed DP and then matched it up with the Ruffle stuff.  Ok, what is it, exactly?  I don’t know what its official name is, but it is the texture of a dryer sheet.  I have a big square of it. 

I designed and cut the ruffle.  I cut my DP to the standard 4.25 x 5.5 size.  I chose some mauve thread and loaded up my sewing machine and then I sewed the ruffle in gathers across the card, in three layers, each separate.  I think you get more volume by doing each seperate. 

I then taped and glued the DP to my card base.

Next, I “fussy-cut” (used good old fashioned really sharp little hand held Fiskars scissors) to extract a complete butterfly image out of the leftover DP.  I placed a layer of the ruffle material underneath the butterfly and cut it a bit wider than the butterfly.  Then I took some co-ordinating glitter paper and made yet another, slightly larger cut. 

I located some thin gold wire (dollar store) and two beads and fashioned a set of ‘feelers’, wrapping it around the entire middle between the two for stability.  I used a combo of double sided foam tape and glue to affix this sweet insect to the ruffle. 

 

 

Lastly, I used a Micron marker to write a teeny tiny ‘Hello to you’ sentiment in a small ivory butterfly. 

Today’s ‘1 small THING’ is my giving you the cutting file I designed for the ruffle.  My ruffle cut like a piece of cake on my Silhouette Cameo!  I used the light fabric setting.  I am thinking because it seems to be the same material as dryer sheets you might use a dryer sheet (used one - you don’t want a new one because of the softner in a new one)  You might iron it flat first.  You could even dye it.  I think if you PINterest you could find a tut using kool-aid for dye.  The possibilities are endless.

I created this file to make a ruffle across the card on the short side… you can scale it to make it longer if you want to use it for the long side of your card.  You want to make it longer than the 5.5 length if you do because it you need room to make tiny gathers in your material as you sew. 

I do the gathering by keeping a seam-ripper with me, and after I sew a 1/2 inch I then lift the foot on the sewing machine up and  use the sharp end of the seam-ripper to poke some of the material forward.  Repeat. 

I hope you enjoy this cutting file!  I’d love to see what you make too.

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