Elephant Spinner Thank You Card
A simple spinner card with a wonderful blended background and a bit of sparkle to help the main spinning elephant element shine. Motivated by using up items in my crafty stash and Kristina Werner’s 2020 mail call I created this card to meet her December theme of ‘Thank You Cards’ for that year. Furthermore, Kristina decided to feature this card in her mail call video for November/December, which I was naturally stoked with! I fully enjoyed the warm fuzzy feelings of being complimented by a card making professional. Here’s a link to that video where she featured this card:
For the process video on how I made this card click on the link below:
How I made this card
There were a few crafty supplies I wanted to use up, a red to yellow blended background I made using my blending brushes I bought off Aliexpress and the following inks: Distress Ink in Scattered Straw, Distress Ink in Ripe Persimmon and Ranger archival ink in Vermillion.
I took this blended background and a matching sized white piece of card stock and diecut a circle from both at the same time, making sure that the two pieces of card were taped together so that the circles lined up. This made the window for where the spinner element spins inside. Unfortunately, the washi tape I used grabbed and ripped the front of the card when I went to remove the diecut from the card stock. I was disappointed with this, but I will explain later how I chose to disguise this mistake.
To make the ‘Thanks’ sentiment standout I decided to diecut it out using black and white card stock. In the end I stacked together two black and one white of each letter together by gluing them to each other using my glue pen. This gave the front of the card a bit of dimension. I made sure to keep the negative space which resulted from die cutting, which I will explain later how I reuse it.
Using double sided tape, I adhered two pieces of red string vertically over the circle spinner window on the white card stock. I used two pieces of string for added strength and I placed double sided tape both under and on top of the string to make sure it was well stuck down to the card. I also taped down the tails for added strength.
I wanted to used a set of elephant die cuts I found in my crafty stash. They were already coloured and the matching set had both the front and back of an elephant – perfect for a spinner card! As an alternative, you can use any other die cut that is symmetrical as a spinner element too. To give the die cut a more finished look, I grabbed a black marker pen and coloured the outside edge of the diecuts.
To use these, I took one half and added double sided tape to its back side. Then I placed it under the spinner string and pressed the string gently onto the tape. I also put double sided tape on the other half of the diecut set but before placing it, I decided to use my glue pen to add a bit of extra stickiness to where the double sided tape could not easily be placed. Again, this was just for extra strength to the spinner element. I then placed the second half on top of the half stuck to the spinner string, sandwiching the string between them. Of course I made sure to match the correct edges of the elephant images.
Next, I used double sided tape to adhere the note card with the orange-yellow blended background (with the matching circle cutout) to the card with the spinner element now attached. I made sure the circle spinner windows lined up before pressing them together firmly. Then I used my guillotine to trim off any edges that overhung or did not quite line up.
Using the negative space from die cutting out the ‘Thanks’ letters, I positioned it where I would like the letters to be placed on the front of the card. Then I glued each stacked letter into the matching negative space before carefully lifting the negative space template to leave the letters glued in place. By using the negative space of the die cut to place the letters, it ensures the spacing between the letter is even and straight.
To complete the sentiment I used a sentiment stamp that said ‘for everything’ from a stamp set which contained a collection of various thanks and thank you sentiments. Together with the die cut Thanks, the full sentiment would read ‘Thanks for everything.’ I initially thought I’d use my stamping platform which is a We R Memory Keepers precision press but I decided against it as I thought it would be easier to just use an acrylic block. this was because of the added dimension and raised level of the Stacked Thanks diecuts, which I thought might interfere with the stamping of the sentiment. I used Ranger Archival ink in Jet black to stamp the ‘for everything’ sentiment strip directly onto the front of the notecard under the Thanks diecuts.
To make it into a card I took a white card base and cut another circle window out, but only out of the front half of the card base. I used the card front to make sure the position of the window would work and is in the correct place. Unfortunately, I did not line it up perfectly so I again needed to use my guillotine to trim off the overhangs.
Time to fix the tears I made when I pulled off the washi tape. Trying to use up items in my craft stash, I played around with using existing die cuts I had but it did not look or feel right. I decided to use some sparkly washi tape instead so it was like washi tape fixing washi tape mistakes!!! I taped two strips each of black and gold sparkly washi tape to cover up the rips and tears in the front notecard. To make sure this washi tape was stuck down well I used a little craft glue underneath each piece of washi tape as well. To cut off the excess or overhangs I used my scissors and a craft knife where it overhung inside the spinner window.
And that is how I made this elephant spinner thanks card with a blended background. To get the spinner element to spin just open the card, twist the element a few times and close the card. When your recipient opens the card the element will spin inside the spinner window.
Happy Crafting!
Mel Crafting.