Creative Cutting – Try This Method to Add a Floral Drape Border

Hi everyone! I'm back today and featuring one of my favorite (and simple) cutting techniques for arranging florals on my card panel into a floral drape – i.e., the arrangement hangs down from the top of the card like a curtain or drape.

Altenew has some amazing yet gigantic stamped floral images, often too big to fit exactly into an A2 size card. I often spend a lot of time coloring or painting my images, and I don't want to lose much of them by cutting them off.

Instead, I LOVE to create new arrangements with some creative placement and snipping, so I get to use almost all of the image – and create a completely different look at the same time! Floral drapes like this one are often my go-to and a little easier to work out placement. They also have the added benefit of providing a natural placement to slot your sentiment.

My card today features the Craft Your Life Project Kit: Bewitching Rose. The CYL kits often feature some of the biggest florals in Altenew's collection – if you're not yet subscribed, check out how here.

I stamped the largest image with Permanent Black Ink – this is alcohol ink friendly and perfect for use with Artist Markers. I also used X-Press It cardstock which I like to pair when coloring with alcohol ink.

Add Color

Once stamped, and after a little drying time, I colored in my image. I used the Rock Garden (the browns) and Sunshine Valley Artist Marker Sets (yellows, greens, and pinks). I love the bright pops of color. I then die cut out the whole image with the coordinating die from the project kit. I also stamped out the sentiment from the stamp set on a scrap of white cardstock with Obsidian Pigment Ink.

Making The First Cut

For the background card panel, I used an A2 size panel of Woodgrain Powder Cardstock. I overlaid the die-cut flower over the top right corner edge until I thought I would have enough overhanging the corner down into the card while still saving plenty of off-cut to reuse. I then adhered it down with foam tape and used a guillotine-style trimmer to trim off the excess – which was sizable, and therefore I could use twice more.

Creating the Floral Drape

The daffodils in the arrangement were all from the offcut. I flipped them over and tucked them into the upper left corner, adding an extra layer of foam tape at the side for a stepped-up dimension. Where I had extra leaves in my offcuts, I tucked these in on either side to pull the drapery down a little (both that green leaf on the far left and the bottom pair of leaves are offcuts). To finish, I popped in the sentiment and added a few Satin White Sequins.

Thanks for stopping by today!

~Jenny

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