Balmy Blue Gift Bag and Birthday Card

by What Cathy Made | Jun 18, 2025 | Baker's Twine Essentials Pack, Baker’s Twine Three Color Pack, Birthday Celebration Dies, Everyday Arches Dies, Everyday Arches Stamp set, Mediterranean Blooms DSP, What Cathy Made

Welcome to week seven of our Art With Heart 2025-26 Colour Creations Insta hop!

This week we’re celebrating another beautiful blue, the soft and dreamy Balmy Blue. My colour combination is very monochromatic, inspired by the beautiful blue tiled patterns in the Mediterranean Blooms DSP.

This is the sheet of DSP I chose to make my gift bag and matching card.

Making an origami folded paper handbag

I saw a beautiful origami folded bag online recently created by Mikaela Titheridge @thecraftyoinkpen, however she did not provide any instructions for the folding of the bag. So I searched online and found instructions for making this style of bag using 6×6 inch DSP and I simply sized it up for 12×12 inch DSP. There are plenty of online tutorials to make this particular origami fold, in both written and video format.

I created this card for a special friend whose birthday we celebrated this week because she loves blue!

Like Mikaela, I used the Everyday Arches Dies to make the top flap of the handbag. The die was too long for the back of the bag so ran it through my die cutting machine twice, moving the die up to achieve the desired length.

I scored and folded the die to make a 1cm wide top section of the flap and cut a matching 1cm wide handle from night of Navy and Balmy Blue cardstock, glued together.

I also used the Everyday Arches dies to make a matching card. The paper tassels on the front of this card (made using the Birthday Celebration Dies) match the bakers twine tassels I’ve made for the origami handbag.

The inside of the card is stamped in Night of Navy ink using a sentiment from the Everyday Arches Stamp Set and floral embellishments die cut using the Birthday Celebration Dies.

The tassels on my handbag are made using Balmy Blue bakers twine from the Baker’s Twine Three Color Pack and White bakers twine from the Baker’s Twine Essentials Pack.

To make your own tassel follow these steps.

Cut a piece of cardstock roughly 5 cm tall and wrap the baker’s twine around the cardstock about 13 times.
Slide a separate piece of twine under the looped twine at the top edge of the cardstock and tie it tightly. This will become the loop you can use to hang or attach the tassel.
Slide the wrapped twine off the cardboard carefully. Cut through the loops at the opposite end from where you tied the top.
About 1 cm below the top tie, wrap another piece of twine several times around the tassel to form the neck. Tie it off securely and trim any excess. Even out the ends of the tassel by trimming the bottom.

The front flap of the handbag is embellished with a Balmy blue dot from the Rainbow Adhesive-Backed Dots and I used small adhesive magnetic discs to create a resealable closure for the bag.

Supplied needed to make this project yourself

You can make this project with any type of DSP, however if you’d like to make the same bag as me these are the supplied I used.

Mediterranean Blooms 12″ x 12″ (30.5 x 30.5 cm) Designer Series Paper
Balmy Blue cardstock
Night of Navy cardstock
Everyday Aches Dies
Everyday Arches Stamp Set
Night of Navy Classic Stampin Pad
Rainbow Adhesive-Backed Dots
Birthday Celebration Dies
Tear & Tape Adhesive
Baker’s Twine Three Color Pack
Baker’s Twine Essentials Pack

Take a look at some more Balmy Blue inspiration on our Insta Hop!

Our blog hop is now an Instagram hop but the good news is that you don’t need to have an Instagram account to view all of the other projects!

Simply copy any of the Insta handles below into a new search window to follow the Instagram hop at any point.

Next in our Hop is Kate @craftwithkate. Be sure to check out her gorgeous project/s.

The full list of this week’s InstaHop are listed below:

Kate @craftwithkate

Kirsty @crafty.littlemiss

Rachel W @handstamped_by_rachel

Leanne @createwithleanne2

Vicki @vickiboucher

Helen @apaperparadise

Cathy @whatcathymade – you are here!

Our AWH Colour Creations team will be back next Wednesday, 25th June, showcasing Basic Gray.

I hope you can join us then!

Beach Days & Thoughtful Journey 60th Birthday Trifold Shutter Card

by What Cathy Made | Mar 5, 2025 | #simplestamping, Beach Days bundle, Birthday Celebration Dies, fancy folds, pool party, Thoughtful Journey 6" x 6" (15.2 x 15.2 cm) Designer Series Paper, What Cathy Made

I’m finally back with our Wednesday evening AWHT Colour Creations Hop and so glad you are here. In my absence we have made a change to how we are showcasing the full range of 50+ gorgeous Stampin’ Up! colours by moving from a blog hop to an Instagram hop.

I’ll continue to post my cards here as well, however if you want to follow along the blog hop you’ll need to visit my Instagram account 8pm on a Wednesday evening at @whatcathymade (https://www.instagram.com/whatcathymade/).

Our colour this week is Pool Party, a favourite colour of mine and just perfect for making a birthday card for my husband who turns 60 this week!

I’ve taken my colour combination from the sheet of gorgeous Thoughtful Journey 6″ x 6″ (15.2 x 15.2 cm) Designer Series Paper I’ve used for the front of the card, combining Pool Party with Misty Moonlight, Basic White and a touch of Petunia Pop.

My husband loves to surf so the Beach Days bundle was just perfect for his birthday card. And as it is a special birthday that ends with a zero I decided to make a fancy fold.

This short video shows you the magic that happens when you open up the card!

If you’ve never made a Trifold Shutter Card before, here’s a template I’ve created using metric measurements and A4 cardstock.

Trifold Shutter Card Template

Cut a piece of Pool Party cardstock (this is the outside card base) 24.5 cm wide x 18.5 cm high.
Score the outer card base at 12.25 cm along the 24.5 cm side and then fold in half along this score line.
Cut a Basic White inner card base (for the fancy fold) 24 cm wide x 18 cm high.
Score the inner card base at 12 cm and then fold in half along the score line.
Measure and draw with a pencil the cutting lines as per the template diagram below then carefully cut along these cutting lines.
Now measure and score all of the fold lines and then rub out any pencil marks.
Decorate each panel as desired.

This photo shows the direction to fold the score lines. I cut the larger Pool Party and Misty Moonlight cardstock layers for the panels at 5.5cm square. The smaller cardstock panels behind the surfboards measure 5.5 x 2.5 cm.

I’ve decorated the inside of the card using stamps and dies from the Beach Days bundle.

Using Post It notes to mask off sections of my stamps as I inked them up (you then remove the Post It note before stamping), allowed me to stamp the “happy birthday” sentiment inside the card to fit onto one of the panels.

The 60 inside the card has been die cut using the brand new Birthday Celebration Dies.

After decorating the inside of your trifold shutter card, adhere it to the Pool Party card base. Make sure you only adhere the left and right sections of your fancy fold to the inside of your card base so the middle section of your trifold shutter card can open and close.

I’ve also used some of the Thoughtful Journey Memories & More Cards to decorate the front and the inside of the card and the handmade envelope.

If you live in Australia, you can find and purchase these products in my Stampin’ Up! Online Store.

I’ll be back next Wednesday night with our weekly AWH Colour Creations Insta hop when we will be showcasing Poppy Parade.

I hope you can join us then.