First play with Lawn Fawn's pop-up platform die

My stamping buddy Sarah let me use her platform die to play along with Lawn Fawn's Create with Us Rainy Day class. These are FREE classes they host via their website which also includes PDF instructions to download showing the completed project, your prep before class and the Copic colouring guide. They host these classes regularly on Facebook or YouTube. This class was from April 2022.

When I created the first card in the class it was 30 December 2022 and we had gone into a heatwave and summer overnight but it's raining now complete with tropical cyclones and flooding in New Zealand. It was a cute card using liquid stardust through a stencil and you can see it HERE.

The second card for this class uses their pop-up platform die which wasn't on my radar. Sarah says try mine I love it, she was right I now love it, so much so I went and ordered one. It's so easy and they show you how in the class which is always at a very slow pace so you "create with them" plus there are instructional videos on the Lawn Fawn site. The platform folds down into a flat card for posting until you push up the bottom and you have a display piece.

A few tricks which I will share. The first one was to apply your glossy accents/Crystal Glaze etc rather than apply when the item is on the card, attach it to some low tack tape (mine from SSS was so low tack I had to tape it down). It only takes approximately 30 minutes to dry but I left it for a few hours. I saw this trick on the Essentials by Ellen Instagram feed after I had just coloured everything up, so thought that was a sign to try it!

The second one which is so obvious I should have worked this out was when cutting acetate put it between 2 bits of copy paper to protect it from getting scratched from your plates. I was looking at mine thinking these will scruff it up and chose the least cut up side, amazingly they didn't. I used Lawn Fawn's acetate which is very clear and very thick and I had to use my metal shim plus 2 pieces of card stock to cut out my circle that we use in the middle of the platform instead of another T/hill die-cut. It's a really cool effect to have things floating.

Trick one in action:

The platform construction is nearly complete:

Normally when you stick the 2 halves together you add another "T" for your third layer but we used an acetate circle which looks fab but OMG it makes taking photos hard, added to the fact there was depth so my normal f stop of 5 meant the back layer was out of focus. 

I followed along with the Create with Us but coloured up my bears, umbrellas and clouds differently and I think when it was time to stick it all down after the first panel was attached I just stuck them directly or with little acetate strips where I thought there were gaps. The papers were from my stash and as I cut my platform out about 6 weeks ago using Sarah's dies I have no idea what I used at the time.

The card actually fits in a standard envelope, it's very sturdy and you just push the bottom up to make the platform, which the lucky recipient can display if they want. The message goes on the back panel, the die actually comes with 2 stitched rectangles. All the raindrops and puddles have Nuvo Crystal Glaze on them. They stuck to the acetate with just my Bearly Art Glue and a pair of tweezers to place. I do have to remember not to use up every scrap of my blending card stock as one of my bears had a badly stamped cake on his back but I just cut out a plain white one with the die and covered it up.

Unfortunately it does look like we maybe jumping in puddles come tomorrow as Cyclone Gabrielle is heading our way, so hoping it will not be as devastating as the last one that struck 2 weeks ago.

The Lawn Fawnatics current challenge is to create an interactive card using Lawn Fawn products. OMG you do need to check them all out, so much fabulousness and cute cards on display. 

✿ Karen ✿