Priscilla's Papercrafts: A Fractured Card with Paper Piecing

I always like to "teach" something at my monthly Sunday Crafternoon card club meetings. Whether it's a fun fold, or a new technique, I want the attendees to leave knowing that they learned something new.

So at my August meeting, I decided to go with the "Fractured Card" technique. Have you seen this? You probably have, although you may not recognize the name, but these cards are all over the internet right now.

I'm not exactly sure where the name "fractured" came from, but I suspect it's because the card is divided into sections. It could be made by cutting your background paper into pieces, but as they are all different sizes, this would be difficult.

Instead, it's a pretty easy process. Starting with a square cut-out in the middle of the patterned paper (Stylish Shapes dies), I then cut a slightly smaller square in the center of the first square on a piece of Basic White cardstock of the same size. It's easiest to layer the patterned paper (with the hole already cut out) on top of the white piece; place the smaller die in the center of the first hole and then cut it out.

Adhere the two pieces together, with the smaller hole under the larger one, leaving a little border.

Add the strips, which are cut 3/16" wide, letting them run off the edge of the paper.

Now, did you notice the cute cupcake in the center? How about that cupcake paper? It was done with paper piecing. We used a piece of the patterned paper, stamping the cupcake on it and fussy-cutting the cupcake paper. This was then glued over a stamped-and-fussy-cut image of the cupcake, covering the bottom and adding a delightful accent to our cupcake.

We finished our card with "Celebrate" in coordinating colors (here we used Lost Lagoon and Pool Party), cut with dies and popped up on Dimensionals.