Consolidation: I never knew what bravery was...

We all are affected by cancer in one shape or form. Whether it is a family member, a friend, a friend of a friend, or a personal journey. I was honored when a good friend of mine requested a castle card for one of her friends.

After finding out a bit about what he is facing, I immediately thought one of Lori Whitlock's 'Center Box Card' from the Silhouette Design Store was perfect for this project. However, I couldn't find a castle one. So I set out to design my own.

I decided Scrappy Dew's 'Knights' file for the castle and knight was a perfect fit. I wanted to have the castle be 3D in a sense, so that means I had to slice and dice the file.

DCWV's 'Gray Kraft & Rose Gold' stack as well as the 'Rose Quarts' stack was perfect for the castle and knight.

I used my Sizzix Big Shot to emboss clouds in the sky, dots on the white clouds, and bricks on the castle.

Once I embossed the bricks onto the gray portion of the castle, I decided to bring in some Tim Holtz distress ink.

I am fairly knew the Tim Holtz spray ink. I use his distressed ink pads and decided to give the spray inks a try. However, I wanted the bricks to have definition, but only a slight difference. Instead of spraying the paper, I dry brushed the ink on.

Spray a bit on a paper plate, grab anything you can use to drybrush, dab the extra ink off on a napkin and run it over the embossed area lightly.

The sentiment is perfect for a card of this nature.

Untuck tab one for a full view of the knight. For the shield, I added a ribbon in the color that represents the type of cancer that the recipient is fighting.

Untuck tab two and you have a full view of the castle

The inside panel has an area for a message to be written.

I love the different lights/colors that the rose gold takes on in different lighting.

The card folds completely flat to be shipped or hand delivered in an A7 envelope.

Steps to Slice and Dice a file

Step One: Open file in Silhouette Studios Designer Edition

Step Two: Open the Knife tool

The knife tool is located on the left hand side tool bar, under the eraser

Step Three: Slice it and dice it

***Sugar Tip*** when I work with the slice tool, I click the checkbox next to auto apply to click that off. I do this so I can move or make multiple copies of the line so I can cut more than one thing at once as well as make sure it is lined up to where I want it before slicing.

Step Four: Line it up and select the arrow button. Select the red line and click apply selected knife.

Time saving step: Below I did two lines with the auto apply unselected.

Step Five: Click on both red lines and select 'apply selected knife' to get two ends of the castle

As well as the center of the castle

Optional step: I made a duplicate of the ends and stretched them higher to make another element to the castle

After slicing and dicing, this is what I am left with for my castle base

Step Six: Build the box base
The bottom of the castle works a whole lot like a card in the box.

Select the pieces of the castle you want to be the box portion of the card (in this case I did the main portion of the castle and two towers), I welded boxes to the bottom.

Step Seven: Build the base background
Now I am ready to build my base shape of the card using the rectangle icon. While I was at it, I decided to make the grass and fence of the card a bendy card.
The base measurements are 7in. x 7.250in.