Norwegian Stepper Card

Hello, Crafters.

Today’s fancy fold card is based on a card I saw on a Norwegian blog. I have no idea what this kind of card is called, so I’m calling it a Norwegian Stepper. Also, I’m not totally sure how the Norwegian card was made, because I’ve only seen photographs of it. I think where I have added a single centre panel, the original may have been a single fold card, with the back panel adhered to the back panel of the stepper card. If you’d like to check out the blog where I found the card that inspired me, the address is http://www.papirdesign.blogspot.com.

As there isn’t another side to the last panel, I had to devise a way to make the card self-supporting. On the inspiration card there was a circular sentiment in the centre at the top. My alternative is the bird and the small flower. I also adhered a small cardstock “strap” inside the small tent at the front. This ensures that the top of the front panel doesn’t slip out from under the bird and the small flower. The little heart that I’ve adhered to the sentiment was punched out with the Dog Builder Punch. To make the heart shiny, I covered it with our Fine Tip Glue. I prepared it about one and a half hours before recording the video to allow it time to dry. I don’t know if it really takes that long to dry!

I’ve designed this card so it fits into our regular-size envelope, and recommend you leave the central panel tucked under the bird and the small flowers for posting. There are two options where you can write your greeting. The obvious choice is the back of the card, especially if you do leave the panel tucked in. An alternative is to write on the back of the central panel which has the large flower image and the sentiment. If you write on that area, there is a chance the recipient may not see it!

I have enclosed a couple of photographs of my first card, which is the Lemon Lime Twist card. You can see that the top of the front panel doesn’t sit comfortably against the back panel because I’ve only used one anchor i.e. the butterfly. My first mistake with the butterfly was that I allowed the wing to come too far off the card. To get it to go into the envelope, I’d need to give the butterfly an extra push to get it in! It was also a mistake to stamp the antenna on the card, because it means the front panel has to be in an exact position for the antenna to be viewed correctly. I show what I mean about this on the video. In this instance, I should have made some antenna with Basic Black Cardstock, and attached to the butterfly. This way it wouldn’t matter how far in the panel goes.