Title Tips Part 5 - Stencil Cut-Outs

A lettering stencil was the base for this title.  Here's the process:

• Place the stencil upside down on the BACK of the paper and draw the reversed letters on the back of the paper.  Repeat with a second color of paper.
• Cut out the letters. 
• Glue the letters as shown to form a title with a shadow/mat. (One way to easily glue these is to run them through a xyron sticker maker.)

A Blog Award!

On July 14, Penny awarded me my first "Blog award"!  How exciting!

I was out of town helping my grandmother who has just be sent home with hospice, so was unable to "pick it up" until now, but knowing that I had been nominated helped raise my spirits during a rather difficult time.  Thanks, Penny! I'm glad you like my blog.

I would like to pass the award on to someone whose blog I've been following for quite some time.  Angelique draws the cutest digistamps and gives them away free!  They are WONDERFUL.  You can see them at Sliekje digi Stamps.   Thanks so much for your generosity, Angelique!  You are very talented and I can't think of anyone who deserves this blog award more!

More with Braided Ribbon

Last week I shared about a braided ribbon challenge that really got my creative juices flowing.  After making the butterfly bodies, I decided to braid a longer piece and make a "book worm" for this card. 

The little book was cut with my Silhouette, then a few holes were punched in it and the book worm threaded through it before I added the little googly eyes.   I didn't take a picture of the inside of the card, but on the inside I created a little pocket, just the right size to add a gift card to a bookstore.  A fun and quick little gift - in addition to the gift card, the book worm becomes a book mark! 

I'm not yet sure what occasion I will be using this for, but can quickly add a "Happy Birthday" or "Thank You" or whatever when the time comes.

Another Christmas Card

This card uses the same stamp used in the example from last month.  It is stamped in white on a dark turquoise card stock. I've had a hard time finding a good white ink, but am quite happy with this one.  It is "White Daisy" from Close to my Heart.  The background paper is from Hot Off the Press.  Plain colors and stickers finish things off.

Christmas in July - Let your Paper do the work

It's the last Thursday of the month and time for another Christmas Card.  How are you doing at getting a bunch made ahead?  If you're feeling behind, cards like this can help you catch up as they are so quick to make!

I called it "Let your Paper Do the Work" because much of the design comes directly from the card stock used to create the card (I think it was from a Christmas Pack by DCWV). I DID cut a border from the main green pattern and paste it to the bottom, and added the tag which holds the Dazzles greeting.  Even that tag was very easy.  It is a purchased tag with faux brads (from a set by Paper Wishes).

Silhouette House

Today's card is another one I made with my Silhouette.  I LOVE that machine!  This card was cut out of white card stock.  The blue letters were also cut with the Silhouette.  The basic pattern is a freebie from somewhere on the web ( probably ukscrappers?) - made by Susan Banks Vena.  I adapted it a bit and created this card to send to my brother when he moves into his new home. The door & shutters open, but don't show through to the inside of the card as I've lined the whole card with the blue. This way I don't have to worry about making sure my message inside the card isn't seen through the windows!

Folded Paper Flower from Scraps

Today's card was inspired by a challenge on Nancy's Creative Space.  The base card is a blank one from Paper Wishes.  This was my first time for making a rosette and it was surprisingly easy to make, and both the rosette & the leaves/stem came from scraps.  Nancy's blog gives you great directions for creating the rosette. I used a large brad for the center of the flower and a punch along one edge (before folding it) to create holes to thread the ribbon through.  The stem and leaves were drawn free-hand onto green paper and then shaded a bit with chalks.  The sentiment was cut with my Silhouette.

Chalking Effects

 

 

This dual-page spread illustrates how chalk can be used to support a theme.  In this case, I was showing pictures of a visit to some caves where the walls were really dry (in contrast to some other caves we went to that had a bunch of water in them, flowing over the walls and even creating a bit of a stream in the floor of the cave). 

If you look closely at the pictures you can see that these dry caves had all sorts of little lines running here and there in the walls.  I wanted my pages to reflect the feel of the place so did a couple of things.  First, the mat and pictures are cut out with little squiggles and such to reflect the rugged nature of the caves.  Backing the yellow mat with black helped create some of the feel, but I wanted more.  So, I took the edge of a piece of pastel chalk and drew a bunch of fine jagged lines as you can see. 

Other options for creating a similar look might be to use paint or ink and a fine liner brush, or perhaps to just draw the lines with a very fine pen.

Title Tips Part 4 - Pre-made Tags

Another easy way to create titles is to use purchased tags.  In this case, the sub-title is hand lettered onto another purchased tag.  Note how nicely this background paper supports the theme!

Braided Ribbon

Another challenge I enjoyed had us doing ribbon weaving.  You can see the information on the challenge here.  In this case, I just braided a short piece of ribbon.  As I looked at it I thought, "That would make a great butterfly body!"  So, that's what I did with it. 

The background is a blank card from Hot Off the Press, and the butterfly wings are from one of their templates. I love the shiny blue paper I used - the yellow sets it off nicely.  Nestabilities dies were used to cut and emboss the frame for the sentiment, and a simple punch was used to create the holes for the ribbon to weave through on the side.

Here's another card I did in a similar way.  The outside border is drawn with a gel pen. I drew the straight line first with a ruler, then added the scallops by hand.

Family Focal

The middle picture here is clearly the focal point. It is bigger than the others, placed in the middle of the page, and matted with green in addition to the narrow black.  The focal is enhanced by being surrounded by little pictures of each individual in the larger picture.

Wedding Paper Pack not Just for Weddings!

I LOVE the Paper Pizazz 8" x 8" Wedding Papers from Hot Off the Press!  This card demonstrates that they can be used for things other than weddings and anniversaries.  I loved the soft colors for this card I made for my grandmother. The borders, focal and embellishments were all printed borders, tags, and art from this paper pack.  A couple of little tricks I used:

• The focal was created by layering a couple of art pieces (larger rectangle with smaller rose-filled rectangle) 
• The sentiment is a peel off sticker adhered to a small faux ribbon with faux heart-shaped brads printed on it.
• To create the small tag in the upper left corner, I took a plain pink tag, cut out a rose from a second small rose-filled rectangle, and adhered it to the tag.

Stencils and Die Cuts with an Oriental Flair

I made this card for someone who loves the Oriental look and the colors red, black and gold.  It was easier than it may look because the tag focal came out of a book of pre-printed tags I bought from Paper Wishes.  The bamboo stenciling was done with gold dimensional paint and a stencil from The Stencil Collection and I thought it set just the right tone.  I DO like the look (and feel) of that dimensional paint on a page.

At first I drew a blank when I came to the inside of the card, but I decided these die cut shapes had a bit of an oriental feel to them and added a nice touch while still leaving room for my message.

Pleated Paper Frame with Dazzles Scraps

The color on this isn't true -- there is no hint of orange, but the glittery paper played tricks on my camera!  The pleating was inspired by a challenge on Nancy's Creative Space.

The card starts with a focal that is actually a design on the inside page that you can see through a hole in the front of the card.  The frame is made from strips of paper scored every 1/4" and folded accordion style.  I cut them at 45 degree angles to miter the corners.

To decorate the card a bit, I added a few Jewel Dazzles to form flower accents.  The dark pink sparkley frame border, diagonal "ribbons", and greeting were all cut from scraps of the dazzles material that came with the Jewel Dazzles.

Alcohol Ink with Heat Embossed Focal

Here's another example of the lovely look that can be achieved with alcohol ink.  I received the butterfly from a swap I was in. The person that sent it to me (unfortunately I don't remember who it was - if it was you, let me know so I can give you the credit!) used a stamp and embossed it with gold.  It was really neat and I wanted to use it rather than just having it sit in a drawer somewhere. 

I found some cardstock and ribbon that worked for matting it and the greeting (a Dazzle sticker), but I wanted a coordinating background to tie everything together.  That's where the alcohol ink came in.  I took a blank card that was a little glossy (didn't want it totally mat as that doesn't work as well with the alcohol inks, but the card wasn't really glossy either.).  Anyway, the colors of the card (it had a design printed on it) didn't work, so I just covered them with the alcohol ink - in this case I used gold mixative with lettuce and cranberry inks.  I simply applied the ink by putting a few drops on the felt-covered applicator and then dabbing it over the card.

I LOVE playing with alcohol inks!

Title Tips Part 3 - Crossword Style

Another way to create a title is to print it directly to the background paper (with the use a smaller sized scrapbook page or a wide body printer for a 12 x 12 page).  Many software packages allow for a shadow effect which gives the look of dimension.  The title is made more interesting by styling it like a crossword puzzle.

Black on Black

I find challenges can really stimulate my creative juices.  This card was inspired by the Black on Black Challenge on the Paper Wishes board. 

It was pretty simple, but I would never have done anything like this without the challenge.  The front of this card is black card stock with black Scrapbooking Dazzles adhered to it.  The bluish sheen was created by taking a shimmery blue dimensional paint, rubbing it very thinly over the background, and then quickly rubbing it off the dazzles.  As you can see, I then mounted the whole thing on a light blue card.  It looks better in person than in the picture and was a fun thing to try.  It could be fun to try a variety of different paints and see what one could come up with.

Stenciled Butterfly Focal

This card is based around the stenciled butterfly.  I started with a metal stencil and ran it through my Big Shot to emboss the stencil onto the yellow card stock.  I then use the stencil to protect part of the butterfly while chalking the colors onto the wings and body.  This is then matted onto a plain blue square.

The background is from a mat stack that coordinates well with the focal.  Yellow strips of paper form borders.  The stamping on the one reminds me of a ribbon.  A stamped greeting and bow made from 1/8" ribbon finishes off the card.

Birthday Card with Instant Card Art & Nestabilities

Today's card was pretty quick to make as it used elements from Cardmaker's Classic Creative Pack and Cardmaker's Instant Card Art Classic Colors - both from Hot Off the Press.  Additional elements were cut with Spellbinder's Nestabilities Labels Four.  A glittery ribbon and a few small brads finish off the card.

Here are a couple of tips demonstrated here:

• I wanted a blue ribbon border edging the patterned border on the left of the card, but none of my blue ribbons were the right color.  There was a faux blue ribbon in the Card Art pack, but only one piece.  I cut it in half lengthwise and tucked it underneath the patterned border to create the look shown.
• After cutting and embossing the blue shaped mat (using labels four nestabilities), and drawing around the edges of the embossing with a pen (like I did on the larger peach mat), I drew vertical lines every 1/8 inch to create the striped effect.

A scrap piece of the background paper and a few other elements from Instant Card Art completes the inside of the card:

Suede Paper Part 3

I LOVE the way this page turned out!  The red suede paper really sets off the page nicely as it narrowly borders the larger border, mat, and title (yes, this red is also from Hot Off the Press).  In real life, the page just POPS!  It really didn't take much of the suede paper either, as I was able to cut the title's mat from the inside of the photo mat before I matted the picture! (Yes, once again I used my Silhouette to cut the title.  What a wonderful time saver that is!)

Mats from Scraps

I'm not really sure whether the paper with the hole in it that was used to frame the cream colored background on the first page is the "scrap", or if the scrap is the mat on the second page.  One way or another, however, the same piece of paper was used for two things - cut in such a way that the leftovers worked for the other page.  I really liked the diamond shapes on this paper, but a whole page of it seemed a bit excessive.  Then I thought about cutting around the diamonds to create an interesting shape, and this set of pages was born.

Make Your Own - Faux Printed Ribbon

One of the things that can be a challenge sometimes is finding the right ribbon to match a page.  Sometimes I choose to print my own.  Using my photo software, I started with a black background and typed up my journaling in tan letters.  Then I decided I wanted to have strips that looked like ribbon as border accents for my page.  I simply typed a few strips of repeated words - in this case the word "FLAX" is repeated across the length.  This page was made before I had my wide body printer, but if you look closely you will see that the focal photo overlaps the "border" in strategic places so I could piece my "faux ribbon" without the join showing. 

Don't have or don't know how to use your printer software?  No problem.  Just letter strips of cardstock by hand as I did for these heritage pages (in this case the repeated word is "Graduation"):

Title Tips Part 2 - Printed with Special Fonts

Another easy way to create titles is to print them out and trim around them in a rectangular fashion.  In this case, it was matted against black on the diagonal.  With the wide range of fonts available, one can easily choose one that supports the theme of the page.  Here an Asian font supports the Chinese theme.  Here's another simple page done in a similar way.

Digistamp Focal with Spellbinders Nestability Die

This card showcases a digi-stamp (I think it's from Digital Two for Tuesday) that I colored with chalks and glitter gel pens.  It is actually on the inside of the card, and looks like this:

The outside is simple, but effective.  It is a white card with a square cut-out which frames the girl in the picture.  A piece of glitter card stock is cut a bit smaller than the front of the card and then a hole is cut with a Spellbinders Nestability die in such a way that it will frame the square hole in the card front. The card is finished with a silver outline sticker greeting.

More Fun with Stamps

Here's another project I created using stamping supplies from Paper Wishes.  Ordinarily I'd have saved it to post on Saturday, but I'll post two today instead so I can enter it in the Paper Wishes Blog Giveaway.

This is a Sara's Surfaces 4-fold Folder from Hot Off the Press.  I started with acrylic stamps from their Sweet Blossoms and Swirls set.   I stamped the designs with Versamark ink and embossed some of them.  Then I used distress inks to cover the background with fun color and to make the stamping "pop".  I colored in some of the stamped images with Marvy markers, and covered the inside of the folders with paper.  I haven't finished it off with sayings and such inside because I plan to use it to hold some gift cards, and have yet to decide for which occasion it will be given. Tip: I used a small piece of self-adhesive velcro to hold the folder closed.

Here are some more pictures showing other views of this folder:

This is the back.

And this is the inside

Stamped Birthday Card

This card is a Joy Fold Card, one of the fancy folds described in the Just Add Ink blog hop.  It's made from cardstock in four colors. The stamps used are from Paper Wishes (cup cake small stamps & Tiny Words & Images).  A bit of birthday confetti finishes off the card.  Here are a few more pictures:

Suede Paper Part 2

Today's post shows off another color of Suede Paper from Hot Off the Press (last week's post showed the burgundy).  On this page, the velvety green sets off the page nicely with thin strips for borders, matted map, matted title (cut on my Silhouette) and even a hand-cut arrowed line showing the path we traveled on the map.

Card from Scraps

Today's card was inspired by (and being entered in) two challenges: Paper Wishes and Just Add Ink.

The Paper Wishes Blog Giveaway called for the use of stamping supplies from Hot Off the Press, so that's what I used (Medallions & Corners, Tiny Words & Images). The paper is also from them (I glued it to card stock to add more stability for this telescoping card.

Just Add Ink has a fabulous blog hop with lots of different folded card variations. This is based on Patrice's card example, here. Hers is called "Telescoping Circles" so I guess mine would be Telescoping Ovals.  I didn't have circle punches or dies, so used my Nestabilities Scalloped Oval dies.  The picture of the fully telescoped card is at the bottom of this post.

Since Tuesdays are my day for looking at using up scraps, the papers were leftovers from other projects, making for a very inexpensive card!  Here's a picture of the card when the ribbon is pulled to open the card up:

You might note the thin lines around the edges of the larger two panels. Often I make these lines by embossing my paper and then just hand drawing around the embossing with pen. In this case, however, I didn't want to emboss them, so I just inked up the cutting edge of the next smaller nestability die and used it as a stamp. Works great for creating an ultra-thin border.

Make Your Own - Special Effects

For this set of pages, I made a lot of my own things.  It started with the background paper.  I had a hard time finding paper I liked, to coordinate with the elements I planned to use, so I took a cream-colored cardstock, a natural sponge, and some brown ink.  Dabbing the ink here and there on the page with the sponge gave me a somewhat muddy look which reminded me of some of the surrounding countryside while tying the elements together better. 

Also, the outer thin brown borders on the first page are extra suede fabric from an expandable scrapbook I had on hand.  It was only about 8 inches long, but I was able to piece it so it looked pretty good.

The "Wai-O-Tapu" letters are printed from my computer and then covered with Crystal Lacquer before being cut out.  The letters on the other page are printed with their mats in one piece and cut by hand.  Finally, I chose to draw more attention to the brad arrows on the second page by matting them with scraps of brown cardstock which I carefully cut to shape.

Party Time Tuesday - 4th of July themed Card

This card was made for Party Time Tuesday's - PTT#22 - 4th of July Challenge.  The card is 3-dimensional with a diamond center.  Here's a side view:

The butterfly was cut with my Silhouette and hand-lettered to simulate ribbon stripes.  The "Celebrate" is a stamp from Hot Off the Press and pen-work finishes off the card. The basic card design was inspired by a blog hop posting here.

Title Tips Part 1 - Hand Written

There are a lot of fun ways to create titles for scrapbook pages.  One of the easiest is to letter the title by hand as I did with this page.  There are several challenges one runs into when hand lettering.  Here are some helpful hints:

• Lightly draw horizontal guide lines with a pencil.  These can be erased later, but help keep the letters straight and of a uniform size.
• Write the title before trimming to size.  This allows you to trim it after the fact for easy centering of the title.
• Use a paper punch to decorate the edges of the title block.

A Third Mini-Book!

Here's another mini-book, similar to the ones I've shown the last couple of weeks.  It was made for another of my dance teachers and showcases an Argentine Tango exhibition dance they did.  The focal on the cover is a Dazzles outline sticker backed with red and green colored papers and then glued to the front.  It really fits the theme well since she was holding a rose as she danced and tossed it to the floor at the end of the dance.

The black and silver background is another of those lovely hand-made papers I got at Costco.  Here are a couple of pictures of the inside:

These little books make such nice little gifts that are really cherished.