Cutting a Stamped Image

I had stamped a couple of images on a scrap of cardstock and needed to cut them out in an oval. This is really easy with the Cuttlebug and similar manual die cut machines. And it really is not so hard as it may seem to do on the Silhouette.

First of all you need to keep a straight edge on one side of the paper to be cut and it is probably best to have it 8 1/2 inches wide so that it will be held in place with the two feet that feed the paper through the machine. After you get used to this procedure you could probably use narrower pieces and use making tape to hold down the corners not under the other wheel.

Place your cardstock in your scanner, straight (even) edge flush with the starting point of scan (which is usually the left side of the glass). Place a sheet of colored paper behind it to show up the edge of the cardstock, click preview and move the crop lines to fit as shown.

The next thing is to make a scan of this project and turn it into a jpeg file. I have a canon mp210 and if i sue the quick scan menu that comes up i get the images separated into 2 files all nicely cropped. This is absolutely wonderful except when you need to do something special like i am today. So I use the scanner driver and up pops another window that allows me to preview and crop my image right where i want it. The main thing to remember here is the flat edge of your cardstock is what makes sure that everything will line up, so start cropping with that straight edge as a starting point and cover from there, the whole image + some space for a margin up to the lowest portion of the edge that is not even. You also need to make sure you have the full width of the paper (8 1/2 inches).

Then you can bring it into the Robo Master software. Using the little icon that looks like an open folder find your file and bring it in to the program and down so that it lines up with the ‘L’ brackets as shown.

You may need to flip it so the it fits exactly with what you have on your cutting mat. Have the mat facing you so that the arrow and ‘L’ bracket are in the same position as what is on your screen.

You can right click on the software and use the mirror command to flip the image till it looks exactly like you have on your mat.

You can press the + (plus) key on your number pad to get the screen to enlarge and make sure that you have your image on the lines just as you have your cardstock on your mat. Then press the - (minus) key on you number pad to set the screen back to where you had it. Everything has a meaning in this program when you have the lines match up they turn a green color here.  when you  have duplicated a cutting line it turns green and you know that you have 2 or more cutting lines in the same spot, or when you are moving a shape to match up with another shape the lines will turn green to show that they are exactly on top of each other (those are just two reasons i love this program!).

Now you are ready to make your shape. Click on the shape you want and size it to fit within the margins of the paper. If you noticed when i cropped my scan, i made sure that i cropped just at the lowest portion of the cut up edge to give the most room to the image and still be cutting on the paper. Otherwise you run the risk of cutting off the paper.

Here is my shape, lined up within the red lines and the edge of the paper; this is important because the red lines designates the cutting area the machine operates in. You get over that red line and the machine will cut up to that line and no further. The grey line is important because if you are printing this is the margin line that the machine allows for printed images and you would have to move your image.. Since I am not printing, just cutting, then I can ignore this line.

Now i can duplicate this oval (the lines are green) and place it over the other image. After moving and placing the cutting lie where you think you want it go back to the first one and use the right click menu to get to the position input box.

Make note of the ‘y’ coordinate and change the second oval cutting line to match. The ‘x’ coordinate is the left hand side of the cut line; you better not change that one or you will end up right back where you started. You are now ready to cut.

Now i am ready to color!

cutting Fragile Lacy Items

Just some tips:

1. make sure you are using lighter weight paper – 65# bristol and Dick Blick’s drawing paper

Make sure that you have smoothed over every inch of the paper to make it stick to the mat

When finished cutting:

Gently, slowly carefully pull away the surrounding paper, cutting off pieces as you go Most of the time your cut piece will still be on the mat

Then go back and pick out the parts of the design that will be discarded

Work in a well lit room so that you can easily see the cutting lines

have an exacto knife and a really good pair of manicure scissors(with very thin curved blades; mine came from Korea), ready in case you made need to finish a cut that didn’t come out so well, but do not use it while paper cut is on the mat.

 

another must have tool is this one…

and this one… 

the finish

This week has been very hectic with my daughter and 2 of the 3 children moving out. A very unhappy time for me, but cannot be helped. I am wore out and i didn't even do the most of the work. So the post that was going to take one day took three but here it is.

I cut the lettering on the Silhouette. Unfortunately I could have added in another ‘s’ to make the phrase ‘blossoms’ which would have been more appropriate, but i was so tired. And I still haven’t caught up. So i cut it like it was and figured that would work with the other little phrase on the side of the box. After all it is only I who will be using the box. I suppose that phrase will be good to remind me to be pleasing to the Lord in all i do, even at 63.

Back to the lettering: I cut all the pieces on 65lb paper (bristol type drawing paper about 6 inches square) and in order to do this I used masking tape (drafting tape would be better) on the corners (as the paper is only 6 inches wide) to help hold the paper in place on the mat. Also had to make sure that the tape did not cover any are that was going to be cut. The letters for ‘my paper flowers’ laid out on the table and gently placed some masking tape over them (drafting tape would have been better – i can’t help but stress that.), again gently (with the tip of my fingernail) press down onto the lettering in 2 –3 spots on each letter, being careful not to press to hard. This did work but is risky. Also i pressed the tape on the work surface a few times to help take off some of the tack on the tape. Then i turned it over and placed tiny bits of glue on the back side of the lettering and placed it on the box. This worked okay, but i had to be very careful pulling the tape off. I hate not having the proper tools to work with but as i live out in the country (15 minutes from town) and have to go so far to the larger city to get anything, I prefer to get things by internet. This has it’s own problems but i do pretty good.

As you can see I did not press the one paper flat. I really liked the texture that the wrinkled paper made on this project.
So now my box is finished.

Summer Daisy

The flowers form yesterday’s post are now decorating a candy box.

Ta - Daahhh…

The background papers are :

1. Basic Grey’s ‘Sugar Rush’ : the backside of the paisley background
2. The beautiful blue is From Bazzill’s Winter Collection cardstock and served as mats for the next 2 backgrounds.
3. The next background was a piece of inkjet paper wrinkled up into a ball and pressed flat the distress inks were applied directly over the wrinkles, and then sprayed with water then took a leaf stamp and stamped that randomly over it.
4. The last and topmost background piece was done with smearing cotton balls covered with distress ink randomly until i got a pleasing blend.

The Flowers were cut on the Silhouette (files: 12-petal_flower_C00667_20509 & 5_petal_flower_C00041_27011 ) and the leaves are a Martha Stewart punch. The Daisy is cut at almost 1.5 inches; the other flower is cut at 1.86 inches.(when you pull up the file you will only use the lower right-hand layer) Those measurements are not square; you need to check the Hold Aspect Ratio box before you put the size in the width input box.

The center on the daisies was done by pouncing Distress ink with a cotton swab make-up applicator, using Scattered Straw and Wild Honey, then  shaping them by embossing the flower center on the back side, turning the flower over and using the smaller end of the embossing tool, pressed down at the base of the flower petals where it meets the center which pops the petals upward a little and then curled the ends of the petals between forefinger nail and thumb. The teal blue flowers were watercolor crayon and have a Mill Hill bead (these are equivalent to size 15 seed beads) in the center

Got the perfect layout?

You’ve got you design all layed out and the flowers in plae then you have to move the flowers to put the glue on. Sometimes I have trouble, one way or another, making sure that my flowers land up i the same place as i found i liked them before i glued them into place on the card or other project. So I decided to make a little template. This post is how i did that.\

this is the way i want my flowers to look like when I have applied the glue and put them into place on my project.

I then took a piece of wax paper about the size of the object that the flowers are going to be glued onto and laid it carefully over the flowers and leaves then marked the flower centers and the stem of the leaf cluster starting at the base of the furthest out leaf. The daisies and roses are marked with a circle while little flowers are marked with a dot right in the center of the flower.

I marked the flowers in the order that they will be placed onto the object with a number and punched a hole through the wax paper to place the glue. I used a larger hole for the larger flowers as more glue is needed as well as I need to know that this will be the larger flower. For the leaf lines, I cut a slit in the paper.

Next i laid the wax paper template on the object i want the flowers on and placed a dot or line of glue (mono multi) in the hole of the template and carefully lifted the template off and laid it aside. I let the glue dry just a little (mono multi dries quickly) till it was just tacky enough the flowers wouldn’t go sliding, and laid the flowers and leaves down in the order I wrote on the template. You do need to remember to lay the template in a safe area of the work area because there is a little glue that will be on the template itself

The flowers are glued and waiting the next step.

I save the template with the other cut flowers in a snack-size baggie and have them in a candy box.

Today’s Tutorial

 

This  photo i was hust playin’ around with an idea. I thought the frame would be a little too fancy for the stamps i was planning on using but nothing else seemed right. The cheery little set is from Our Craft Lounge and is mostly phrases but the sun, clouds and other little items make it so cheery and cute. The frame is a very fancy victorian curlicue frame (victorian_lace_frame_part_1_C20090803144901_19210) from Silhouette that i set to cut at 4 inches square.Then I wanted a little patch of blue to fit behind the frame and be the holder of the other design elements.

 

 

 

My paper for the background is Basic Grey’s ‘Sugar Rush’ and the blue is from the 6x6 collection but the Yellow is a sheet of 12x12 cut to 5 inches. Because of the scale of paper for 12x12 and 6x6 is half the 6x6 pads usually work out better for card making but i bought a couple of the larger sheets because i love the flower print on the back side. Then a couple of scraps from the ‘Porcelain’ pad to make the hills.

At this point I don’t have the sun and clouds glued down yet so i can glue the frame into place. I put Tombow’s mono multi glue on the 4 inside corners of the frame where it will line up with the patch of blue sky, and let it set a little before laying it onto the blue cause i didn’t want glue smears showing. This way there is no smearing of the glue and positioning is easier. I did this with the flowers also as it dries 3-d and adds just a little bit of dimension

 

In order to get the patch of blue to be the right size for the frame (which had been cut for months now); i measured the frame (which is 4 inches at widest point across)  and re-opened that file in Robo Master and sized it by getting the right click menu/positions settings and setting the size at 4.00. Then clicked the Rounded Rect. and holding the shift key down drew out a diagonal to size the square at about the size needed.

 

 

 

 

You will notice a little green dot in the selected square. This little green dot, if you move it up, will make the radius of the corners wider while pulling it down makes the radius smaller giving you a tighter curve. Pretty neat! The other rounded square to the right with the red line had already been pulled the rounded square down into place on the frame and drug the corners to make it the right size and then set the radius in place. Just showing you the other square so you could see this neat little trick.

 

 

 

This shows you how i lined up the square and the four inside corners are on the blue sky; about 3 inches square. I deleted the frame, re-positioned the square within the red guidelines which denote the cutting area and cut the square.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Finished card – well almost, but i couldn’t wait to share…

Fragrance of Roses

 

This little card is a scrap of cardstock 4 7/8 x 1 7/8 inches wide and covered with distress inks in shabby shutters, tattered roses and victorian violet. The rose (1 1/2 inches) is done with Dick Blick’s Sulphite Drawing paper and covered with victorian violet with a cotton ball. The sentiment is an old PSX stamp that is one of my favorites.

The leaves are a punch and a spray i cut on the Silhouette. I should have stamped the sentiment before i put the leaves on but i didn’t think to do that at the time.

A strip of card board on the back with a bit of ribbon to keep it standing making it an easel card.

the original information on the rose and name of the leaf spray is here and here so you can print and cut by hand and the cutting file for the rose is in the right-hand column. Sorry it is not a real tutorial on the rose; i don’t know if anyone needs to have one. If you are printing and cutting by hand it might be easier to color before you cut them out, loading your cotton ball with some color and starting at the center of each petal layer, in a circular motion, move out to the edge of the petals. If you are cutting on the silhouette you could color before removing from the backing sheet. I do make sure that i color both sides of the bottom and top 2 layers but it would be best to make sure that all are colored on the back.

Fanciful Flower

I have this flower from Fred She Says which is probably my favorite, and did some coloring fun this last weekend. I tried to do a wood rose look to this flower and used Neocolor II water color crayons in #049 raw umber (which has a greenish-brown look to it) and #039 Olive brown for the flower trimmed it with The beautiful Sakura’s gelly roll pen ‘clear star’ glitter on the accent lines. The leaves were colored with the same 2 colors and #025 green ochre and used the same glitter pen on the accent lines.

My inspiration for the card came from a challenge to use white with one color (with accent splashes of another color allowed) and used Impression Obsessions' fantasy berry vine flourish stamped in metallic gold. I don’t know if this really qualifies for that but comes as close as i had materials to match the flower.

For those of you who are unfamiliar with water color crayons, these are really neat color sticks that are like crayons but a softer formula that melt with water. Stampin’ UP! makes them and Dick Blick carries Caran d’Ache of Switzerland. They are not inexpensive and because of the formula will turn out a little bit like transparent gauche paints. Since i like to use Dick Blick’s drawing paper for the flowers i paired it with a water brush and watercolor crayons.

When laying in the color on the flower you want to use a light hand; you would be surprised at how little it takes. And I find the water brush adds just enough water and keeps a flow of that amount; the paper does not wrinkle but it is enough to blend the colors to the paper.
I forgot to mention that i entered this card to the Paper Sundaes challenge, the logo is at top right. Just click on it to go to that site.

Hey, Guys! I just found something new!

As we all know when printing your own paper it does not have the surface permanence of store bought paper. and so you have to be very careful not to let a drop of water onto this paper as that drop of water shows! whether you wipe it off or not. And if you wipe it off or bolt it it is likely to show worse than anything! So I was playing around again, last night with water color crayons on a stamp and i misted it with water and then stamped my paper scrap to see what i could come up with. Well I found that i did not see the color (it was a very pale pink, anyway) but the design was still there. in a shadow or watermark style. And as it was late at night i thought my eyes might be fooling me. But, no, this morning the design is still there and i can find traces of the pink. I will remember this and if I want the color to show I will use a deeper color. I don’t know if i want to do this with crayons though…

So I tried doing this with just plain water and it worked!

With that in mind I decided to do some flowers to go on this piece with my birdcage stamp (which is a cling stamp and every time I think I have it on straight and I take the stamp off – it’s crooked; so i trimmed the paper to fit.)

Then after painting these I decided to try something and came up with…

I don’t know how obvious this is but the 2 yellow flowers on the right are outlined with gelly roll pens; clear and black. The 2 yellow flowers on the left were painted with not outline protection and the ink bled al little less but I was using less water and the paper had had more time to dry. The pink and lavender flowers were done the same time as the flowers on the card front above.

The paper i used is the new ‘Pure as Silk’ water color paper and I could not emboss it as the printer ink was so thoroughly dry by the time the half sheet of flower came out. I thought it might be worth the try as water color paper, though absorbent, has a binder in it to help make water colors flow nicely and not be absorbed but lay on the top of the paper. So there are my findings for the day.