Wild Africa Cards – Using Chippies On Your Cards

Our latest collection is great for card makers too! Marla expertly proves this with 4 unique Wild Africa cards, using her Brother Scan n Cut as well as chipboard elements, inks, embossing powders and more… Scroll down for instructions and why not try replicating this card yourself!

Card Instructions

• The finished card measures 11.5 x 15.5 cm and heavyweight white cardstock was used as the base.
• As soon as I saw the oval frame (from the fussy cut sheet) in this Wild Africa collection I knew I wanted to foil a sentiment inside. I used special equipment/tolls to achieve this, but I’ll give alternative options if these are not available to you.
• I used the Brother Scan n Cut (SnC) machine to cut the oval design. Because the scanner is so sensitive it cut certain places with a very jaggedly edge which I liked as it added to the “wild” look (normally I would be tearing my hair out because I like a clean and perfect cut 😊). It is a really easy design to fussy cut as well, especially since the patterns come with a printed outline that can be used to guide the cutting, but I wanted to see how my machine handled printed designs.
• For the foiling. I used the WRML Foil Quill (medium tip) together with the SnC to apply the “Love Your Life” sentiment (from the Heide Swapp Foil Quill collection). I placed the cut oval frame on the mat, scanned the image, and aligned the sentiment exactly where I wanted it on the frame (see image). I love the scan feature on the Brother machines because it makes this kind of application so easy. I used the WRMK gold finch foil and let the machine do all the work. The foiling wasn’t perfect, you can see some lines in the sentiments that weren’t foiled, but I actually liked it imperfect, I felt it fitted with the wild theme. I’m also trying to adopt more of Tim Holtz’s mantra “You get what you get and you don’t throw a fit” 😊. I think this can be hard for many crafters because we have such a vivid idea in our mind of how we want our projects to look and end up holding ourselves to an imaginary ideal whereas the actual outcome is perfectly fine and sometimes even better!!

• If the foil quill and an electronic machine is not available to you, a stamped and embossed sentiment or a diecut sentiment would also look beautiful.

• For the background panel, I cut the African Deco sheet to size (does anyone else cringe at the thought of cutting up the beautiful designs on the back of the page?) to fit the card front. To give a bit of sparkle so that it tied in with the frame, I inked the edges with Versamark clear ink and heat embossed with gold embossing powder. It was then glued to the card front.

• The oval frame was glued to the background panel using fun foam to give it dimension.
• I diecut some leaves from gold metallic kraft and arranged them around the frame.
• The 2 hearts from the African Continent Chipboard pack (LPP0040) were painted with Tarnished Brass distress paint and a small foam blending tool (image below).

• Once dry (this paint dries quickly) I adhered the hearts to the frame. I still felt like I wanted some more sparkle so I added fine glitter into the hearts and set it with Anita’s 3D Clear Gloss (or Glossy Accents). To finish it off and give a bit of balance I added 2 green sequins.

• I have never worked with chippies before, but I so enjoyed the painting and using them as accents that I made 2 additional cards that feature some of the other designs.

• I hope you enjoy these cards and a 4th bonus cactus card that demonstrates how versatile these background paper patterns and double-layer tribal stencil can be.

Do you use chippies on your handmade cards? Let us know in the comments below and please do share your tips and tricks with us :)