Floating Acetate Card - Step by Step Tutorial

Hi everyone. Hope you're all having a lovely Saturday! I love three day weekends as it gives me a lot more time to do some crafting. Normally I post my step-by-step tutorials on a Saturday but as it my birthday tomorrow I wanted to do two posts this weekend!

I saw this card on youtube and it immediately drew my attention. I had never seen anything like it before and I was sure I wanted to try it.

This is a Acetate Card. I decided to use idea and create a very simple yet very interesting card. I love how it looks as though the card is floating and it makes for such a unique piece on a bookshelf or fire place.

Now this step-by-step tutorial is slightly different than my usual one. When I first made the card (pictured above) I wasn't completely satisfied how it turned out. I love the colours and the stamps I had used but the actual card itself didn't look right.





After giving it some thought I figured out what was wrong with it. In my last post - click here - I did my top 10 tips for beginners and one of the tips I had mentioned was to never stick something down permanently. I had used a temporary glue so I could have't just taken my card apart to fix my mistake but for the purpose of this post I wanted to start from scratch to compare them side by side. Keep reading to end of this post and I will explain what was wrong and what I did to fix it.

What you will need:
- Acetate card cut to 9"x 4 1/2"
- Heart die set - I purchased this from Hobby Craft and it's the X Cut heart die set. I also used this here
- Big shot
- Stamps - I used the 'I Love Lace', 'You Brighten My Day', 'Label Love', 'Itty Bitty Banners' from Stampin Up! and a 'with love' stamp from Hobby Craft
- Clear embossing powder
- Heat tool for embossing
- Tape glider
- Ink - I used Stampin Up! 'Rich Razzleberry'
- Sponge for ink
- Framelits - Stampin Up 'Bitty Banners'
- Ribbon

Steps:

1) Cut your acetate card to 9" x 4 1/2" and score it, long side at the top, at 4 1/2"

2) Using the heart die set, take the second to largest heart and cut out four hearts from the cream card stock. Put it through two sandwich plates on tab 2.
(TIP: Using some washi tape to hold the die down so you get a nice crisp cut)

3) Using the 'I Love Lace' stamp and 'Rich Razzleberry' ink - both from Stampin Up! Stamp the pattern onto two of the hearts and emboss with clear embossing power. This ink dries fast so you have to be fairly quick with this, I would recommend doing a second coat of embossing powder after you've used the heat tool on the first time whilst it's still hot. If you make a mistake, as I did, then you can always use the other side of the heart as you won't see the back of it
(TIP: When stamping on the heart use a pieces of paper and stamp upside down to what you normally would and rub the whole stamp. This will help prevent you missing any ares of the hearts. I actually didn't rub mine all over as you can see from the picture below so I had to re-do it)

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4) Stamp the love stamp - I also decided to use a 'with love' stamp I purchased from Hobby Craft onto

one of the two remaining hearts. Then sponge lightly around the edges of the heart

                                     

5) Stamp the 'mr and mrs' stamp onto a scrap piece of cream card stock and emboss the same way as step three. Then you will need to punch this out using the artisan label punch from Stampin Up!

6) Stamp the congratulations and also two lots of the hearts stamp (from Stampin up!) onto a scrap piece of card stock then using the bitty banner framelits from Stampin up! cut out through big shot, again between two sandwich plates on tab 2

7)Sponge around the edges of the three pieces you have from steps 5 and 6

8) You will now want to stick down your two patterned hearts back to back on the front the card. Stick the one of the front first then open the card to line up the second - I found using a tape glider worked fine for this

9) Then close the card and line up the blank heart with the front two. You will then be able to open the card to line up the other heart on the inside - the stamped heart

10) Postion the mr and mrs stamp and the congratulations on the front of the card where you want them to be and stick down

11) Line up the row of hearts with the congratulations on the other side and stick down

12) Finally you need to tie your ribbon around the front of the card on the inside
(TIP: I personally feel a more sheer ribbon looks best for this but use whatever ribbon you feel looks nice)

There you have it! I absolutely love how my second come out. I think it looks so much better and I've still been able to keep my initial idea without having it completely change everything. 

Here is some pictures side by side comparing the two and I will explain my thought on why I believe the second one is much better.

Now as I've already mentioned I wasn't unhappy with what I had used on the card but I just felt it didn't come out right. I realised the composition was completely wrong. There was too much empty space and it unnecessary. As you can see from the third picture when the card was opened, on the inside, more than the top half of the card is completely empty. After giving it some thought I realised first of all the card way too big, it only needed to a couple of inches bigger than the heart. I also realised I could put my wording on top of the heart. I actually think this looks so good as the stamps stand out a lot more. 

As I said if I could've just removed my stamps, cut the card and re-stick everything down permanently. 

I also feel this is another reason as it why you should never let a 'failed' project get you down. Sometimes a minor change here or there can completely make something work. Before you completely dismiss something you should try different ways of putting it together. 

I really hope you enjoyed this tutorial!

Don't forget to check back tomorrow 8.30PM UK time for a another post.

Follow me on Twitter, Instagram, Tumblr, Facebook and Pinterest if you aren't already and if you re-make anything use the hashtag #sukilucrafts so I can see it!

Happy crafting and let me know if your birthday is also tomorrow!

Susan x