Step by Step Tutorial: How to Make an Easy Shaker Card

Hi there, crafty friends! I’m Rebecca Keppel, and today I am sharing a how to tutorial creating a shaker card and decorating it with the Cheerful Chirps Pretty Birds Die Set.

The Spellbinders Cheerful Chirps Collection has several adorable bird-themed die sets. One of my favorites is the Pretty Birds dies, which showcases two sweet birds sitting on a perch. I thought it would be fun to create a shaker window behind the perch, but before we get to the shaker, let’s put the cute birds together!

The birds are very simple to assemble. Add a bit of liquid adhesive to the body of the bird where you will add the beak, wings, and cheek. The body die embosses lines to show you exactly where these pieces go.

Flip the body over and adhere a circle cut from white cardstock behind the eye socket. There is a die included that cuts out two circles (one for each bird) that is slightly lager than the eye socket.

Then flip back to the front and adhere the birds pupil on top of the white. I like to use an embellishment tool to pick up small die cuts like this little bird pupil.

Once the birds are assembled, it is time to work on the shaker element. You can use any basic die shape to create the window. I used the Essential Arches Etched Dies from the Glimmer Greetings Collection and held a small arch from the set on an A2 piece of Fawn cardstock with Spellbinders Best Ever Craft Tape.

Run the die and cardstock through the Spellbinders Platinum 6 Machine.

Add liquid adhesive around the back of the die cut arch and adhere a piece of Spellbinders Clear Acetate Sheets.

Add Spellbinders White Foam Adhesive Micro Strips around the window, making sure that the shape is completely enclosed with the edges of the strips touching.

Then pour the Chameleon Opalescent Color Essentials Sequins inside the enclosed window. Peel off the strips’ liners and place an A2 piece of Breeze Cardstock on top to trap the sequins in between the two pieces of cardstock.

After my shaker was created, I decided I wanted an embossed piece of cardstock on top. If I had realized this before creating my shaker, I could have cut one piece of cardstock and then drew pencil lines where the window was on a second piece of cardstock. But all is not lost! To make sure I cut the window in exactly the right spot on this second piece of cardstock, I placed a piece of Best ever Craft Tape with the sticky side facing up on the window. Next, I placed the same arch Die on top of the window. Then place a piece of white cardstock on top and press down top get the tape to adhere to the cardstock.

When you flip the cardstock over, the arch die will be held in the proper spot on the cardstock. Simply run it through the die-cut machine to cut it out.

Then run that die-cut piece of cardstock through the die-cut machine with the Adapter Plate inside the Bamboo Screen 3D Embossing Folder.

Trim the white embossed panel down to 4”x5.25.” Add some adhesive behind the embossed die-cut panel.

Place the embossed window down on the shaker card.

To create the bird perch, die-cut the perch pieces out of Gold Mirror Cardstock and add liquid adhesive on the back.

Then place the perch and the “chain” it hangs from on the embossed panel.

Next, I adhered the birds down by lining them up on the perch surrounding the shaker window. It was at this point that I realized my mistake! I should have put the birds down first and THEN the perch they are sitting on. This way their tails would be behind the perch and I could adhere their claws down on the perch itself. Instead of trying to tear the birds and the perch off and re-do it, I simply re-cut the bar and adhered it on top of the birds lining it up with the bar behind.

Then I was able to adhere their claws on top of the bar by adding small dots of liquid adhesive and placing the die-cut claws on top of the bar using an embellishment tool.

The Pretty Birds Die Set also comes with dies to cut out flowers and leaves to decorate the perch. You can add the same Chameleon sequins that you use in the shaker to create the flower centers rather than use the dies to cut those centers out.

Additionally, the Pretty Birds set comes with a small hello word die and a shadow for that word die. I cut the word die out of Gold Mirror Cardstock and added liquid adhesive behind the letters so I could adhere it to the shadow, which I cut out of Vellum Sheets from the Card Shoppe Essentials Collection.

For some added dimension, I used the White Foam Squares and Micro Squares to pop up the flowers on the perch.

Then add some liquid adhesive behind the word die, making sure to only add it directly behind the hello letters so you will not see it from the front through the vellum.

This cute die set would look great on its own, but I hope you love how a simple shaker behind it really makes it extra special!

Thanks so much for stopping by today! If you would like to see more of my Spellbinders projects, I share lots of them on my Instagram and Youtube Channel and would love to connect with you there!

Spellbinders Supplies:

Other Supplies

Liquid adhesive, embellishment tool