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Sometimes the best card designs are the simplest ones. You don’t need a complicated fun fold, a dozen die cuts or hours at your craft table to make something you love.

This week’s Torn Strips Template proves it!

The basic design uses three torn strips of paper across the bottom of the card, a few focal elements and a small banner for your greeting. That’s it. But don’t let the simplicity fool you. Once you start changing the Designer Series Paper, colors, focal images and placement, this one little template can give you all kinds of different looks.

Even better? It isn’t just for card making. Keep reading because I also took this same design and turned it into a two-page scrapbook layout!

Watch the Torn Strips Card Template Come Together

In the video, I walk you through the template and create a fall card using the new Painted Pumpkin Suite from Stampin’ Up!®. Then I share several other cards I’ve created with the same basic design before showing you how easy it is to take a card template and make it work for scrapbooking, too.

Want the Measurements?

You’ll find the complete Torn Strips Inspiration Sheet, including both Imperial and Metric measurements, inside my Crafty Klock Inspiration Vault.

The Vault is where my subscribers get the measurements for my weekly video projects, so you don’t have to pause the video, scribble measurements on scraps of paper or try to remember what I said three minutes ago.

Creating the Torn Strips Look

For my first card, I used a combination of Designer Series Paper and Two-Tone Cardstock for the three strips.

There’s really no precision required for the tearing—and that’s part of the fun! I simply tore roughly 1/4″ to 1/2″ from the edge of each strip before layering them across the bottom of the card.

When using Two-Tone Cardstock, pay attention to which direction you tear. I tore the Timid Tiger Cardstock toward myself because I wanted that white core to show along the torn edge. It adds another little bit of texture and contrast to the design.

And remember: those torn edges aren’t supposed to be perfectly straight. If you wanted perfectly straight, we’d use the Paper Trimmer! The irregular edges are what give this design its character.

I finished the card with pumpkins cut directly from the Designer Series Paper and a simple “Hey” greeting.

Same Template, Completely Different Cards

Here’s where I think this Torn Strips Card Template gets really fun.

For the Radiant Sunflowers version, I kept the three torn strips but changed the focal area to three die-cut flowers. I also changed the shape and placement of the greeting.

Same template. Different look.

Then I went in a completely different direction with Splash & Relax. Once again, you can see those three torn strips anchoring the bottom of the design, but the colors and images give this card an entirely different personality.

And yes, I had to try it with Homemade Sweetness, too! This version uses two pieces of Designer Series Paper along with Two-Tone Cardstock and those adorable strawberries as the focal elements.

Put all of these cards side by side and you can clearly see the same basic design running through them—but none of them feel like the same card.

That is exactly why I love working with card templates.

A template isn’t there to tell you exactly what your card has to look like. It’s there to get you started. Change the paper. Change the colors. Use three focal elements instead of two. Add a layer—or don’t. Change the shape of the greeting.

Make it YOURS.

Take Your Card Template to the Scrapbook Page

Now for my scrapbookers!

I took the exact same Torn Strips Card Template and expanded it to create a two-page 12″ x 12″ scrapbook layout.

Instead of short strips across a card front, I used 12″ strips across the scrapbook pages. The focal elements from the card became photos and embellishments, and the small greeting banner became a larger area that could be used for journaling.

It really is the same design—just on a much bigger canvas.

And this works both ways! If you’re a card maker and see a scrapbook layout you love, look at the basic shapes and placement and think about how you could shrink that design to fit a card front. If you’re a scrapbooker, start looking at card templates and imagining how you could make them bigger.

You may already have a whole collection of design inspiration you haven’t thought about using that way!

Love the Painted Patch Suite?

The Painted Patch Suite I used for today’s card is also the featured product for my October Double the Sweetness online event!

When you purchase the Painted Patch Suite from me—or place an order of comparable value—you’ll receive an invitation to join us.

Dana and I will be sharing 10 projects, plus we’ll have a live Craft Along and more crafty fun throughout the event. If you love Painted Patch, we’re going to give you plenty of ideas for putting those new goodies to work!

One purchase gets you the beautiful new products to play with and an entire online event filled with more inspiration for using them. That’s a pretty sweet deal!

Now I want to know: Which version of the Torn Strips Card Template is your favorite? And have you ever taken a card design and turned it into a scrapbook page—or the other way around?

Leave me a comment and let me know. I always love seeing how YOU take an idea and make it your own!