Christmas Gatefold Card with Belly Band | Kathleen Schmelz

Hi Pinkfresh Studio fans! It's Kathleen here and today I have a fun gatefold card design with belly band for you, mixing and matching lots of different products from the Twinkle & Tradition release.

Now I want to say right away that this card design can easily be adapted to whatever products you have in your stash. So please don't feel like you need these exact products to make a card like this. You can also simplify the design to make it easier to mass-produce and I will give you some ideas for that at the end of this blog post.

In fact, this card came together while I was playing around with some pieces I had leftover from creating some other cards with the Twinkle & Tradition release!

*Disclaimer: All products used are linked below as clickable images. If a product isn’t listed, it’s been discontinued.

How to make this card:

1. Card Base: Cut piece of white cardstock to 8 1/2" x 5 1/2". Score at 2 1/8" from either side on the long side to create the gatefold flaps. The space in between the two score lines should measure 4 1/4".
   
2. Background Panel:
   
   1. Die cut the Evergreen Sparkle coverplate die from an A2 piece of white cardstock.
   2. With a 1" blending brush, lightly ink blend Cherry Blossom around the outside.
   3. Cut the panel in half vertically and adhere the pieces to the card base's gatefold flaps.
3. Belly Band:
   1. Cut a piece of white cardstock to 9" x 1 1/2". 
   2. Ink blend diagonal stripes onto it using the Border Stencils and Candy Apple ink.
   3. Wrap around the card and adhere ends together.
4. Embroidery Hoop + Elf:
   1. Die cut the smaller Embroidery Hoop die from Gold Glitter Cardstock. Back opening with white cardstock.
   2. Hot foil elf from The Shelf Edit: Magic of the Season press plates and a sentiment of your choice (I used "Warm Holiday Wishes" from the Once Upon a Holiday press plate) with gold/champagne foil on white cardstock.
   3. Ink blend elf with Cherry Blossom, Peony, Warm Buff (belt), Peach Fuzz (face), and Sage.
   4. Die cut elf & sentiment with the coordinating dies and stack with (1) blank piece each.
      
   5. Adhere elf to bottom of embroidery hoop using foam adhesive and sentiment to lower right of the card base.
   6. Ink blend ivy leaves & berries from the Timeless Tidings set with Eucalypus, Evergreen, and Candy Apple. Die cut & adhere to the top of the embroidery hoop.
      
5. Embellishments: Add Clear Drops in Scarlet 
6. Inside Sentiment (optional): Stamp a sentiment of your choice on the card inside using Metropolis.

Now as mentioned before, you can absolutely change this card design to make it easier for mass-production! Here are some ideas for how to do that:

• Hot foil & ink blend all images from the The Shelf Edit: Magic of the Season press plate at once and use one on each card (this gives you enough for 5 cards).
• Hot foil a bunch of different sentiments at once to use on your card fronts OR use stamped/hot-foiled sentiments instead of the images on the embroidery hoop.
• Skip the background coverplate die cut and just lightly ink blend the card base for a bit of color.
• Instead of ink blending the belly band, use a piece of colored or glitter cardstock in matching colors OR maybe you have some patterned paper in your stash that fits the design.

These are just some of the ideas for how you can adapt this card design. Also, the basic design idea can easily be translated into a non-holiday card! Simply switch out the colors and choose some non-holiday images, pair them with some beautiful ink-blended flowers, and you are good to go!

If you are inspired to recreate this card, we would love to see your version, so please make sure to tag us (@pinkfreshstudio and @cardsandconfetti) on Instagram and use #pinkfreshstudio.

Thanks for stopping by! Have a wonderful week!

-Kathleen