I'm at our annual Founder's Circle achiever's retreat in Utah for most of this week. Tonight is our pajama party and card swap. There are about 125 of us who earn this trip and we all swap.

I was inspired by a card I saw from my friend Robin Merriman. Robin's card used a different stamp set. She was inspired by yet another stamper and so it goes. Ideas get passed around and lots of times something old is new again. A z-fold card is not a new invention but I haven't made one for a while so when I saw Robin's, it inspired me to use this layout for my swap card.

I never have enough of any one thing for a large swap so I just use what I have. I used 3 different red card stocks and every pearl size from my Basic Pearls. I like using up product!

Here are just a few snapshots of my work in progress and the finished results. Sweet Michael even helped me by Big Shot-ing almost all the card bases!

Lots of bows needed.

Lots of ribbon snippets on my carpet.

The sentiments all stacked and ready for assembly.

And the card bases are ready too. You can see the "z-fold". To make, score at 5.5 and 2.75 then fold to create "z". Then Michael ran them through the Big Shot with the Petals-a-Plenty Textured Impressions Embossing Folder.

And here are a few samples. There are several variations as I used 3 different red card stocks (Cherry Cobbler, Riding Hood Red and Real Red) plus 4 different ribbons (seam binding or satin ribbon in both Very Vanilla and Cherry Cobbler).

Here's how it looks flat.

And here's an overhead view.

Here they all are – 125 of them – in the basket I use for swapping.

The dimensions of the pieces are as follows (and, remember, you can make this card a birthday card, get well, a zillion different ways to interpret this simple z-fold card:

• Card base = 4.25 x 11
• Score card base at 5.5 and 2.75
• Very Vanilla insert with tree on it 5.25 x 4
• Sentiment on vanilla 3.75 x 2
• Green base for sentiment 4 x 2.25

Go forth and create! {click on the white button at the right to order 24/7}