Welcome crafty friends! For those new here visiting from Marie’s amazing blog, I’m glad to have you here and hope you’ll consider subscribing! And for those who have been here before, I thank you for coming back each month to see what the Squirrel Squad have been up to! “The Squirrel Squad?” you say? Yes! We’re a handful of crafty gals who easily get distracted by squirrels and craft supplies… so much so that we have accumulated a hoard, er stash, of supplies that hardly get used before we’re on to the next supply. So we challenged ourselves to pick a new supply or technique each month, along with a theme or prompt, to see how we could use some of those neglected craft goodies! This month’s theme is Birthdays!!! I *love* to make birthday cards! And the technique this month is Interactive Cards, with a side challenge of using foil for extra points! (Not really, but when discussing how much foil we own, a couple of us wanted to challenge ourselves to apply foil (see what I did there?) to this theme as a supply suggestion.) Ok, so before I dazzle you with the shiny, foiled, interactive cards, let me give you the super short line up for this month:

• V Fairchild
• Anna Mahtani
• Marie Bingaman
• Karen Page – YOU ARE HERE
• Lounon and Bory are skipping this month

Formalities out of the way, lemme tell ya, this was a tough challenge for me!!! Interactive cards are always HARD for me… I don’t have the patience for fiddly projects. I thought I’d do a shaker card, cause that seemed like the easiest interactive card I could think of at the time. But even shaker cards are such a challenge for me to get everything lined up, keep stuff from sticking where I don’t want it to, keep the static from the acetate under control, etc. These cards look ok in the pictures, but I’m not at all happy with how wonky they are in real life. I ended up with 4 cards to share, but only because I kept messing up and then didn’t want to waste the pieces! Have a look:

From the moment I decided on a shaker card and that I was taking the extra foil challenge (LOL: accidentally typed “fool challenge” which is actually still totally accurate), I knew I wanted to make a card with this toner sheet card front from Gina K Designs. Years (and years) ago I HAD to have these toner sheets… birthday, Christmas, backgrounds… I have a BUNCH. Out of 9 packs I’ve previously only used maybe 4 individual sheets from 2 packs, and this is my first from any of the birthday packs. These 2 came together easier than I thought they would:

To make the shaker card version, I die cut the toner sentiment with an oval die and foiled it, then used a smaller oval die to make the aperture in the card front piece. The shaker bits in all of today’s cards are tiny foil cylinders in rainbow colors, a score from Dollar Tree several years ago. These foil pieces multiply when you use them… you take a pinch out and somehow the container is more full than it was before you opened it! And while they give a fun look, they can be obnoxious little buggers that spring across the room when you just look at them and they leap into any exposed foam tape if you make the mistake of breathing. There was a fair amount of cussing during the making of these cards! LOL However, after getting the card assembled, I had fun coloring clear foil epoxy dots with alcohol markers to match the foil colors. I love how these 2 cards turned out and they are the least wonky of the set. Here are hopefully better pics, but the angles may be unusual because its even harder to take pics of shiny cards than it is to make shaker cards with festive but evil foil shaker bits!

I was able to foil the sentiment (from another GKD pack) in the middle of the Rainbow Shattered Glass foil sheet used for the card front piece, and I couldn’t help but use the negative to make another card (albeit not interactive, but stunning IRL if I do say so myself) using a sheet of full toner paper from Deco Foil.

These next 2 cards started out really fun. I have a set of foil washi tapes from Hobby Lobby that have virtually never been used despite being in the craft room at least 5 years. I was pleasantly surprised to discover that their adhesive was still good as washi is known to have a limited life span. I envisioned a set of 2 cards, 1 black and 1 white, but all the toner sentiments in my GKD packs were on white paper, so I resigned myself to make just the 1 card… until I die cut the sentiment wonky and opted to make another to replace it. But then when I was constructing the card I accidentally used the wonky version. 🤦‍♀️ So I made another striped card front and decided to play around with the size of the shaker window to make the 2nd card different. All the pieces were die cut with a stitched rounded rectangle die set from Pink and Main. I used the largest die to make a card front and card back, scoring the back piece 1/4″ and using Scor-tape on the flap to attach it to the card front. Sadly, I couldn’t get the shaker parts lined up well, so I ended up having to trim the pieces I die cut for the card base because both are so wonky! See:

Oy! And the static!!! I dusted the acetate with my powder tool and carefully wiped out the extra powder with a microfiber cloth, and still the static was unbelievable! I know the static will fade in time as the paper absorbs humidity from the air, but it was just an extra level of frustration dealing with the foil shaker bits. I will say that I took the time to glue a handful of the foil cylinders so that when the shaker bits finally settle to the bottom, some will always stay where I wanted them. I prefer the version with the larger shaker area better, but the one with the smaller window and larger frame was easier to put together. I like them both despite their wonkiness and would still love to play around with the foil washi on black cardstock sometime. It was actually enjoyable to add the foiled washi stripes using my Misti grid to keep them fairly straight… it was just the shaker aspect that drove me crazy! (Correction: crazier) Anyway, the sentiments were foiled this time with a regular rainbow (not the Shattered Glass) foil from Deco Foil, which totally matched the washi colors in a stoke of luck. Here’s a closer look:

Phew! If you hung in there with me this far, I appreciate you putting up with all my whining! 😄 I’m actually glad to have the chance to play with the foil and laminator, and to use up some of those shaker bits. I really enjoyed foiling the toner pieces and hope they don’t get buried again not to see the light of day for years. And for those of you who are just scanning the pictures (I’m looking at you, Sharon 😉), your next stop on the hop is ever entertaining V Fairchild of Passions and Distractions and I am sure she will inspire you to find ways to make interactive cards with whatever you have in your stash! I know she always inspires me, so make sure you go see what she made, then hop on to Anna and Marie if you haven’t already!

Thank you again for dropping by! Leave me a comment and let me know if shaker bits or making shaker cards make you cuss too! 😅 I greatly appreciate when folks take the time to leave a message so I know I’m not just talking to myself here!!! LOL,,, let’s be real, I talk to myself all the time. Why would this be any different?!? Ha! See you next month for another installment of Squirrelz Stash Bash!