Under the Sea Joy Fold Card

Last week I saw a card which was a variation of the Joy Fold card.  Instead of a horizontal opening, it had a vertical opening.  I haven't made a Joy Fold card in a while, so I decided to make one for today, using this vertical opening technique.  I used a bunch of "under the sea" dies from CottageCutz, along with one of the new Expressions Plus dies -- "imagine."

To start my card, I cut two pieces of teal cardstock, one piece 8 1/2" x 5 1/2", scored at 5 1/2"; the other one 4" x 8", scored at 4".  I also cut three pieces of swirly blue-green paper:  5 1/4" x 5 1/4", 5 1/4" x 2 3/4", and 4" x 4"; and three pieces of "sand" paper 5 1/4" x 2 3/4", 5 1/4" x 2 1/4", 3 3/4" x 1 1/2".  I also cut one 3 3/4" x 3 3/4" white cardstock.

I tore across the top of the three pieces of "sand" paper and adhered them to the three pieces of blue-green paper.

Next I cut my die-cut images.  You will see that I cut two pieces each of the mermaid, the sentiment, and the waves.  You will understand this duplication as the card is constructed.

I adhered the patterned paper and one of the "imagine" die-cuts to my card pieces.

Next, I lined up the sand on the 4" x 4" card with the sand on the bottom panel of the card base and glued it down.  I did put some Scor-Tape on the back of the 4" x 4" card at the top to make sure of a good adhesion over the sentiment.

Here is where you discover why I cut two "imagine" sentiments.  Lining up the word with the one already on the card, I adhered it onto the smaller card and cut off the excess.  I will admit that this looked better in my head than what actually occurred.

Then, using Copic markers,  I colored the mermaids, the shells and the seaweed . . .

. . . and adhered them to the front of the card.   As you can see, I poked out the pieces of the mermaid tail and hair and inserted the lighter blue and darker hair pieces into the other one.

The wave die-cut was not quite long enough to span the full 5 1/2", so I had cut another shorter piece of that wave to make up the difference.  After getting the size correct by overlapping and trimming the smaller piece, I adhered the wave across the fold-up panel on the front.

I had run two of the shells through my Xyron X sticker maker so they would adhere well.  The third one (the scallop shell) was adhered with a medium glue dot.  This one is used as the "closure" on the left side of the 4" x 4" panel.

I then adhered the white panel inside the 4" x 4" section and stamped a sentiment and shell border.

And that completed my card.

CottageCutz dies used on this card are:

I hope you liked my card today.