she shoots, she SCORES!!!!!!!!!

happy caardvarks challenge day, everybody!


this time we have a special gallery to show you, since every member of the caardvarks’ design team was the lucky recipient (thank you, thank you) of a scor-it board! we were given the compact version, the scor-it mini, which measures 6x9” and is absolutely ideal for making A-2* cards.

since i rarely buy pre-made blanks, i generally score & fold my own cards using a self-healing mat and the non-sharp side of my exacto knife. i measure to my desired length, mark each side lightly in pencil, line up the marks with a metal ruler, and draw the reversed knife across my paper a few times; then i fold & burnish…and then…i neaten up the edges on my guillotine trimmer. (because somehow, mysteriously, they're always just a TEENY bit out of square.)


now it’s not like i've been laying about in despair, moaning, "oh woe is me--scoring and folding cards is such a tedious, multi-stepped procedure!" in fact, i never thought about it, until i tried out this handy dandy tool, and discovered it's got ONLY ONE STEP: you place your paper on the scor-it board at your desired measurement and run the notched tool along the raised metal bar. period. the end. you get perfect pressure, perfect depth AND…most importantly to me…you get a perfectly square edge EVERY. SINGLE. TIME. (niiiiiiiiiiiiiice!)

i decided to make an accordion-fold booklet for nephew matthew’s first birthday**. i like accordion books: they’re easy & flexible…you can fit a lot in…and they stand up by themselves for display purposes...all of which makes them AWESOME for gifts. in fact the only thing i don’t particularly like about accordion books is ALL THE MEASURING…but…with the scor-it...there is no measuring! i cut a couple of sheets of 12x18” paper in half and scored them every four inches using the built-in guide. the whole operation took approximately 30 seconds.


one thing that’s a interesting about the scor-it is that the side of your paper which is face up on your board actually becomes *THE INSIDE* of the fold… (this is so that the little raised ridge that occurs gets hidden; to me the ridge is not at all unsightly, as you will see from tomorrow’s tutorial…but the scor-it folks recommend always working on the OPPOSITE side!) …ok, so in an accordion scenario, this means you need to *flip* your cardstock for each successive fold. had i been MEASURING, this would be quel drag, since i’d have to re-align board, ruler & cardstock between every fold. but on the scor-it you’ve got a nice flat edge to line up on, and the built-in ruler means that your panels will all be precisely the same size. there is even a little metal stop/attachment thingie you can use if you’re going to make the same fold a whole bunch of times; which would be excellent for xmas cards or other bulk items. (as i write this it occurs to me that you could also use the ruler feature to make graduated accordions, in which each panel gets bigger as the card goes on; i am going to have to investigate this in a future project!)


in this case, i wanted to incorporate 8 photos plus front & back covers, which meant i’d need 10 panels total. since i wanted each to be 4x6” that meant i needed to join a few sheets of scored paper together to make my finished booklet. which brings me to the other thing i used to dislike about accordion-fold booklets: if you have to join more than one sheet, and you don’t get every fold absolutely, completely, 100% square…when you go to overlap panels they are going to look wonky. i no longer dislike this, because every panel of every sheet of every section you make on the scor-it IS immediately and effortlessly compatible. and you know what that means: less time engineering and more time embellishing!


the concept was to give young matthew some birthday “do’s and don’ts” illustrating each with a photo of one of the nieces, taken on various birthdays. the pictures incorporate A LOT of colors…which meant i could either covert them all to b&w OR use a selection of multi-hued papers, each with a healthy dose of white to tie them together visually. (to this end, i also left a small white border around each photo and around each panel of patterned paper, inked all edges in black & printed every text box in the same bold black font on a stark white ground.) unusually for me, i went very light on the decorations; there was already SO MUCH going on here, plus i wanted the pictures/caption combos to be the stars of the show.

A simple ribbon tie and a few birthday themed embellies for the front and back covers and VOILA: a fun booklet that was a big hit at our the little guy's party!!!

panels L to R read, "DO: let people know it's your birthday" "DON'T: blow out all the candles yourself" "DO: examine your cake thoroughly" "DON'T: ask grown-ups their real age"

panels L to R read, "DO: enjoy evey treat to its fullest" "DON'T: miss even a little bit of ice cream" "DO: make some noise" "DON'T: wear the hat!!!"

TOMORROW: sure it folds like a dream, but what else does the scor-it do??! (don’t worry, i have some ideas for you!)

(products in birthday booklet: patterned paper: chirstina cole, dcwv, ki, sei, basic grey, junkitz; ribbon: making memories; chipboard star: heidi swapp; gems: k&co; fonts: brando, nip & tuck; ink: color box)

*if you don't consistently work with small card sizes, i think you will prefer the full-sized scor-it board which measures 12x12" and provides greater flexibility!

**you were wondering at the time why there was NO CARD to go with that present, now weren't you?!