Now that the gifts have been opened, it’s time for thank-you cards. Since I’m trying to reduce the amount of scraps I had, I decided to make four cards on the same background. Here’s what I came up with:
They don’t exactly fit the season, but it has been dark and dreary for the past few days and I wanted to work on something spring-like.
Spellbinders die templates used:
OK. I’m pretty much hooked on kirigami. Here are a few more of my creations made, for the most part, with the Christmas Kirigami template.
I matted this one by tracing it about 1/16” from the edges onto vellum. I then embossed the traced lines on the vellum, cut it out just to the outside of the embossed lines and stacked the snowflakes. The label and writing are also embossed on vellum.
This one is just two stacked snowflakes, one on printed paper and the other on vellum. I added punched snowflakes to the background. You can’t really tell from the scan, but the background is sparkly.
Here’s another card with a sparkly background. You won’t find the pattern for the red part on the template. I freehanded that one.
I found a label I liked, but didn’t like the color, so I traced it onto vellum and embossed it the same way I did the first card.
This card opens like an envelope and has two pockets inside for stashing a greeting and a gift card or money. You can find the instructions for it over on my Chic’n Scratch.
You can used stamps or clipart for the picture, but I was thinking that this would be a very good way to recycle images off of old greeting cards. I didn’t have any old greeting cards on hand, so I used this image from PcCrafter’s Christmas Card collection. I just love the vintage look of this collection!
Last month in my Templates Plus kit from Paper Wishes, I received a Christmas Kirigami. I’d never done Kirigami before and it looked kind of difficult, so I was pleasantly surprised to find out I was wrong. Here’s my first card.
Not bad for a beginner. I love the paper that came in the kit with the template. It’s called Glimmer paper. It is lightweight enough for kirigami and it holds its shape very well (Note the curved petals on the flower).
After playing with the template a while, I decided to branch out and make my own design. Here’s what I came up with.
And here’s a close up.
See what I mean about the paper? It curled very easily and stayed put.
I made this card using the Gingerbread Dazzles stickers and papers I received in the August Premium Dazzles package from Paper Wishes.com.
This was a very quick and easy card. I stuck the gingerbread house dazzle on a piece of white card stock and painted the background, chimney, door, windows and trim with watercolor paints, then I cut it out and put it on the card.
I have decided I’d better get busy making Christmas cards if I plan on sending any out this year. Since one of my goals right now is to use up scraps, I decided on doing some paper piecing.
The pattern for this darling little angel is from Annie Lang’s 202 Paper Piecing patterns. I bought it several years ago, so I’m not sure if it’s still in print. You can get a lot of really cute graphics from her website, though.
This card was inspired by a card I received from Norma at Just Cards. The instructions for making a center step card can be found at Split Coast Stampers, but I wanted different dimensions for my card, so I had to make my own pattern. Getting the folds just right was a little tricky. This is another card made primarily with paper from my scrap box.
I made this card for a friend for her 60th birthday. You can find the iris folding template for the hat on my website.
The focal point of this birthday card is done with a technique called reverse iris fold. It’s really a lot simpler than it looks. You can find the instructions HERE.
The picture I used is a combination of images from the Birthday Wishes collection at PcCrafter.com.
Once again, I have found myself in a card making dry spell, so I turned to my friends for some inspiration. This card is based on a sketch posted by Norma at Just Cards. The square in the upper left corner is a window.
The background paper is from my ever-growing collection of scraps. Why I keep buying more paper, I will never know! I have enough scraps to make cards for a very long time without ever cutting into a new sheet up paper.
I used three pieces of ribbon from my overflowing ribbon stash to make the diagonal stripe. The flowers were made with a punch and the butterfly is from the Butterfly Dazzles sheet I bought from Paper Wishes.
Since I knew I would be off work on disability for several weeks this summer, I dug around in my to-do pile looking for something to keep me busy. My search was successful and I found an afghan I started about eight years ago. I’m happy to report that I finished it yesterday.
I made the squares on a lap loom and then crocheted them together. it was quite easy to do and went together pretty quickly. This is only the third afghan I have ever made, so when I say it was easy, I really do mean it.
I just love Dwight Kirkland’s Father’s Day collection at PcCrafter.com. The images are perfect for making cards for men (something I struggle with!). I made this birthday card for my Nephew using both reverse iris folding and 3D decoupage.
The thing I really like about this particular collection is most of the animals overlap the frame, which works very well for 3D decoupage. Doing the background in reverse iris fold also gives the card more depth.
I have a small collection of card blanks with patterns printed on them. Until now, I haven’t really figured out what to do with them, but the other day, I needed to make some quick thank-you cards and having the pre-printed backgrounds really saved me some time.
I cut a couple labels using my Nestabilities Labels Four template and punched out some flowers. I layered the labels, stamped and embossed “Thanks” on the small label, then added the flowers, using tiny flower bradlets to hold them on. Easy as can be and I think it turned out pretty nice.
Well, I’m off work for a few weeks due to surgery, so maybe I will get some cards made while I’m recuperating. Here’s one I made today for my niece’s birthday.
I used alcohol ink to color both sides of a 12 x 12 sheet of shiny lightweight card stock (butterscotch on one side and a mixture of cranberry, wild plum and butterscotch on the other). I used the Giant Fold-it Flower Card template from Paper Wishes to make the flower. I love this template because both sides show on the finished flower. I added happy birthday peel-offs to the petals of the large flower and cut apart some Border Dazzles and added them to the petals of the small flower. The flower opens up to reveal a birthday sentiment inside. Sorry, I forgot to scan the opened flower.
Coming up with ideas for cards for men is always difficult to for me. As I was sorting through my scrap pile the other night, I found some good papers for a “man” card but I couldn’t figure out what to do with them until I remembered some Father’s' day clip art I had. I used this cardinal from PcCrafter’s Father’s Day collection. The technique is reverse iris folding with 3D decoupage. I really like the way it turned out.
I had always wanted to do this picture in 3-D decoupage, but the thought of all of the detailed cutting kept me from it. The reverse iris folding gives the card depth without all of the intricate cutting. After finishing the iris folding, all that was left to cut out was the bird and the branch. I just love how he pops out of the frame!
I do not like to throw scraps away and I don’t like to file them either. So, they accumulate in a pile on my desk. About once a week, or more often if needed, I sort them by color and put them in an accordion file.
This evening, as I looked at my growing pile of scraps, I decided to see what I could make with them so I wouldn’t have to file them. I ended up with two cards and a slightly smaller scrap pile. Here’s the first one:
It was really simple and quick. The rainbow colored paper is the result of my playing with alcohol inks last Saturday afternoon. I think it made very pretty butterflies, don’t you? I used a Martha Stewart butterfly border punch for the border and a Sizzix medium butterfly die for the large butterfly. The flower was cut using the Nestabilities Blossom Two set.
I will share the other card I made tomorrow.
I had some free time last Sunday afternoon, so I visited the Sketches thread over at Just Cards for some inspiration. I decided upon one with diamond shapes across the top. Here is my rendition:
The background was made using alcohol inks. I cut the diamonds using a Coluzzle nested diamonds template. The embossing was done with a brass template I’ve had for ages. I was feeling lazy, so I did the embossing by running it through my Cuttlebug with the Nestabilities embossing pad. It worked very well, but it did curl my template a bit. I was able to flatten it back out though so no harm done. After embossing, I used pink distress ink to make the pattern stand out.
I am terrible with tea bag tiles. I will print them out, and sometimes even cut them out, and then not use them. I have a notebook full of pre-printed pre-cut tiles that has been gathering dust on my bookshelf. Today I grabbed that notebook and told myself that I had to make something from my pre-printed tiles. I looked through my collection and found some tiny green and orange ones that looked very spring-like and decided to start with those. Here is the end result:
The tiles for this medallion are 3/4” which is kind of small for tea bag folding, but works perfectly for this medallion. The medallion has three layers and I used a simple kite fold for everything except the center, which is a layered star.
Here’s a birthday card I made for my granddaughter. The papers are from ProvoCraft’s Super Slab by Rob and Bob Studios. I chose these colors because they are what she wears most. The ribbon is from Michael’s.
Here’s the cupcake pattern for the paper piecing. I drew it with OpenOffice.org Draw. Feel free to use it if you want, but please do not post it on another website or group.
I got the idea for this card while thumbing through an old Cardmaker magazine. The card in the magazine had the pop-up window like this, but just had a flat scene inside the window. I wanted to give it a bit more of a 3-D look, so I used this cute clip art from PcCrafter’s Friends Forever collection.
Here’s a close-up:
I carefully cut out the girls on the swing and saved the tree and bunny for the window background. I glued string to the backs of the swing ropes and taped the ends of the string to the back side of the window opening so that the swing really swings. For the window background, I cut a picket fence with a Sizzix picket fence steel rule die and added the tree and bunny and some green paper to resemble grass.
I used the paper from window cut-out on the front of the card to frame the sentiment.
Four cards today. Some Spring string art cards (aka Spirelli) I made. I printed these on cardstock using this pattern then cut them out and chalked them to give them extra color.
They really aren’t as bad to cut out as you may think. I cut the leaves out using scalloped scissors.
I love butterflies, don’t you? This one is from Stampin’ up! I stamped it onto vellum with blue pigment ink and embossed it with holographic embossing powder.
The vellum is kind of unusual as it has a textured weave so that it almost resembles Aida cloth. It’s really pretty. The background paper is leftover from another project, so I’m not sure where I got it. I like the bright colors, though.
I have loads of scraps and loads of die-cuts. So when I sat down to make this card, I grabbed a box of die cuts and told myself I had to use something from the box and that I couldn’t use anything but scraps for the background. I had no idea how it would turn out.
When I got done, I liked it so much that I sent it to a dear friend with whom I have been exchanging cards and ideas for several years now. She truly is one of the flowers in my friendship garden!
Well, it has been a very busy few months. I’ve been making cards, but haven’t had time to post. I’ll start out with a card I made last fall. It is based on a sketch Norma posted at Just Cards. I love sketches because they often give me the opportunity to try something new. I hadn’t done a lot with torn paper or distress ink prior to this. It really does give the card a whole new look.
The mouse is from PCCrafter’s Gratefall Critters collection.
I am having so much fun with my parchment starter kit! I don’t know why I didn’t take this up years ago. This afternoon, I moved on to lesson four, which involved dorsing (coloring) some flowers. I also found my fine-point embossing tool, which really helped with the fine lines on the butterfly.
I didn’t color the flowers quite dark enough and I got a little carried away with the embossing on them, so the color doesn’t show through as well as it should, but overall, I’m pretty pleased with the results.
I’m loving the 3-d effect of embossing on parchment. You can’t see it from the scan, but the flowers and butterfly really stand out from the paper.
I received some money for Christmas, so I decided to buy a parchment craft starter kit. I’ve been wanting to try parchment craft for a long time. It is so pretty, but it looks like it would be difficult and time consuming.
I ordered a starter kit from www.paperwishes.com and was totally blown away when it arrived just 3 days later. Either it was a slow week for them or they are doing something right in their shipping department!
The kit had everything I needed except something called “white spirits.” Sounded kinda creepy to me, but a quick search on the internet revealed that what I was looking for was turpentine. A quick trip to Michael’s solved that problem.
The kit contains seven patterns arranged by difficulty so that each one builds on the skills gained in the previous project. The first card was straight tracing and embossing. Here’s mine:
It looks pretty good at this resolution, but if you click to enlarge it, you’ll see several mistakes. I did a bit better on the second card. I plan on giving it to my mother for her birthday.
The third is a book mark and for it, I had to color the paper, which is where the “White Spirits” come in. The previous two may look like they are colored, but they are just mounted on colored card stock.
I plan on giving this to a friend as a gift, but I’m not sure how to protect it. I was thinking about putting it in a plastic sleeve, but I don’t know where I’d find one the right size.
