Paper Crafts & Other Artwork

Taking time out for chemo

2011-04-02T14:03:00.001-07:00

what I am going to tell you will come as a shock, so be prepared.

I have been getting more tired all the time and strange things things were happening to my face. I was getting a lump near my right ear that was re-shaping my face and killing what little hearing I had in my ear. and then I lost sight in my right eye and my jaw was moving down and to the left. at the same time I was developing cancer in my right breast. Went for tests and they found bone cancer as well. Immediately they started work on more extensive tests and found that my bones were weakening and that I had blood cots in my right arm. I was nit able t use my arm at all for a month but am re-gaining use now. (I even crocheted just a tiny bit, but I still can’t right well yet. I can type with 3 of my fingers on my right arm.

They gave me a dose of chemo and I started improving there immediately; my jaw is still moving back up a little at a time but I can only eat soft foods right now.

I am taking chemo well but had to have a PICC Line put in for the intravenous infusions as my veins are not cooperating. I am really gratefulfor this as it means that they don’t have to go searching for a vein before taking bloodtests and in fusions.

I have two darling women doctors and team so I am being well teken care of and improving daily! I thank God for this as of course withoiut God nothing would work right.

I decided on POOF!

2010-10-19T15:06:00.001-07:00

Yesterday I left the card somewhat undone with the decision of BOO! or POOF! to be made.I kept looking at the card and decided it hade to POOF!So I opened up the Silhouette Studio software and whet to my Library and instead of looking for sentiments already made I went to My Fonts. and chose LDI Free Spirit, clicked on the Window icon to get back to my worksheet and the text tool and typed in what I wanted.

Now with the word selected, click on un-group, The word now shows individual letters with individual selection boxes instead of one selection box. Click on the Selection tool and, voila! you can move each individual letter just the way you want it.

When you have them placed just where you want them then weld them together.

I kept the exclamation point separate because of the fine lines of the ‘F’. As it was the little dot was too little and i lost it so I had to hand cut another dot for the exclamation point.

Almost Headless Horseman…

2010-10-18T16:26:00.001-07:00

or a witch who’s spell went bad???? Couldn’t resist that comment ~ I love this design. The cardstock was covered with a page from an old book i sprayed with Tattered Angel’s Patina and Olive Vine then tore it into pieces as the card is 5 1/2 inches square and the paper was not. The center (being covered with the main design, is bare and I left the edges ragged. The Sassy Cheryl digital stamp was printed on lovely “Pure Silk” watercolor paper which you can get here & here with water color crayons (Neocolor II) I also embossed the image; had to put it on high quality setting but i finally got it to emboss. I think the air is too dry around here (4000 ft. el.).

And used a couple of Silhouette’s cutting files makes a rather cute card! And being short on black cardstock, i painted white cardstock black with a marker (they do come in so handy!). The sentiment could be ‘Poof!’ or ‘Boo!’.

Circle Heart Scalloped & Web Frame From Silhouette were used for the cutting files. I had to use the old software becasue , for some reason, I couldn't get the image to import into Silhouette Studio. I sized the image in the shape then sized the shape and image to 4.63 x 4.63, printed and emboseed then cut. I love this paper! It is on the expensive side but then watercolor paper of any good quility usually is. And though this is not watercolor paper that a watercolorist would use, it is absolutely wonerful for cardmaking! it comes in 2 wieghts and sizes (12x12 and 8 1/2x11 inches).

The Other Machine

2010-10-15T09:48:00.001-07:00

I definitely won’t be trading my Silhouette for any other cutter on the market. I really love the ease of use that comes with this and the fact that I don’t have to buy a cartridge at a hefty $70.00, or more, a cartridge. But I do look around and check out other machines just to see what’s going on.

I did run across a write-up on the new Cricut Imagine and thought that my Cricut lovers would really like to know what differences there are between that on and the Expression so here is the link . (http://www.papercrafterscorner.com/papercrafters-corner/2010/10/cricut-imagine-review.html) I would definitely not buy until I read this article and knew what i would be getting into.
P.S. I have not disappeared off the face of the internet. I ran out of appropriate items for this time of the year and had to help my daughter out again so I am waiting till i can buy some more stuff.

Silhouette Studio

2010-09-27T09:14:00.001-07:00

Found out a new neat trick…i have been playing around a little and have saved a couple of files. so I opened one up and, then because i couldn’t see what was in the other file (both named drawing?.studio) i drug the other file into the window and found that the whole file did not open but the shape was there in the already opened window, now along side the other first shape form the first file. Pretty Neat!

There are some really nice short cuts that I have run across so I thought I should share them in case someone has not yet figured them out. So open your software and go to Preferences under File Menu and change 1 setting under Advanced and go to Show Bezier Handles for and click the All Points. By default the Selected Points Only option is chosen.

Now draw out a circle by holding the shift key (standard) Make it a good comfortable size for playing with. Now double click on the line and you will have your edit point tool. You will have to be careful while this tool is selected because anywhere on the line that you click will make another point. Really Nifty! To get rid of any points you don’t want you can right click on that point and choose delete from the right click menu.

Click on a point and one quarter section of the circle will have a heavy dark red line and the point you clicked on will be white.

Your point editing dialog box should be open on your right so click on the corner function. Nothing looks like it is happening yet but when you move the handles (upwards till it lands on the line of the circle) on the point you will notice that is is forming a right angle….

Do the same with the same point other handle…

Here is what that finished shape looks like…

Now make an oval and do the same steps and you will have the beginnings of another tear drop shape which at this moment look like a sunflower seed...

Those blue handles closest to the ones you just moved will need to be moved to make the shape more like a tear drop…

then you can change to the other selection tool and copy and paste rotate (by using the little green knob at the top of the shape) and you have an eyelet grouping.

To adjust you spacing you can turn on the grid dialog and go tot he (which is the last one along the top to the right; it looks like a grid) and change the divisions to 16 and click show grid. I’m sure guidelines and rulers are coming but at the moment this is all we have but you can line thing s up quite well…

Now i am not going to do a complete eyelet edge because this is just to familiarize you with the procedures and the wonderful way this program handles the design aspects. From here you can do your own! ;) For now we will select the three shapes and make an edge around them by using the offset function which has grown some new attributes!! You have the offset window open yet? It’s right next to the Modify icon (the one with the m on it) and click on offset. If you get trigger happy on offset you will end up with several offset borders; you only need one. The default spacing for the offset shows up and is set at 0.250 inches. This is fine for what we want here but you can move the slider and watch it adjust as you move the slider. You can set it where you want for the next step.

Now double click on the offset line and notice the point for shaping….you can go ahead and right-click/delete each point along the bottom edge till your edge is nice and flat.

Now you can click on comer and move the end bottom edge points out till you get your corner where you want it and adjust the handles till you get the shape just right…

From here you are on your own. The sky is the limit!

A Little of This and That

2010-09-25T12:14:00.000-07:00

Was wondering if any one wanted an update on the crepe paper costumes? She has posted 2 more lovely ideas from the past.
Rosebud and Tulip
& Slipovers for older girls
That should at leat spark some interesting ideas, I hope?!

The Silhouette Software is a preliminary version I am so glad they let us have to use. While the program isn't finished i can do a heart from a circle (not a square and 2 circles)! and silly looking arrowhead shape just for the fun of it. Also did a flat sided circle.

Yesterday i spent downloading my library as it wasn't picking it up on my computer and Silhouette waid this would not count as one of my recoveries i am allowed. I was so glad about that and then spent the rest of the day organizing them.

Silhouette Studio is here

2010-09-23T20:30:00.001-07:00

It’s here! the Silhouette Studio Software for the Silhouette machine. And it is spectacular. I have a few things to show you.

The first delightful surprise was the measurements as I drew out a square. To rotate you line your cursor up over the green dot to rotate freely or by visual means or use the circular arrow in the tool box along the top. And then i went looking for the way to change the measurement via the right click menu and it wasn't there. Have to get used to this…it is in the scale menu – the box that is greyed next to the rotate icon.

You do have to click apply, the program does not make the adjustment until you do.

the next neatest thing is that you can play with your squares and circles to make different shapes!!!

I did! After you have your shape you click on the edit points icon long the left side of the program an d click on the square, or circle, and play with the shape to your heart’s content! If you want the point on the tope left shape, you can click on the corner in the point editing menu and adjust the levers on the point till you get what you want.

The program does Weld, Intersect, Subtract and more. And the Offset function is dynamic (meaning it changes as you change the value in the Offset Distance box. So super neat!

Well I have to go and play now. See you later!

P.S. All silhouette owners had an email with the announcement of the new software. If you threw yours out or something else happened to it, it is on the Silhouette site under software.

Crepe Paper Costumes!

2010-09-22T12:14:00.000-07:00

This is from another blog that I just had to pass on today to you! Back in my childhood crepe paper was still an essential for decorating birthday parties and making paper flowers. My mother had a Dennison book on flower making but I never saw that she made any. When I got older I made some. They turned out so nice and almost life like (as far as paper goes) and i love the way you could shape crepe paper!

Anyway it is also great for making costumes!

grandmothersdollhouse.com/
Have Fun!
Also...check out this video on how to make a striped background with Distress inks from Gina K and Stamp TV: http://vimeo.com/15172436
You will like it!

the Time is coming when…

2010-09-15T10:14:00.001-07:00

We have been going through some severe trials and as i was going through the Bible to find certain verses fitting for comfort to my family, i was impressed by Our Father to also set forth this warning: We must not fall asleep! The devil, our adversary goes about like a roaring lion seeking whom he may devour.

I Thess 5:2-10

²For yourselves know perfectly that the day of the Lord so cometh as a thief in the night. ³For when they shall say, Peace and safety; then sudden destruction cometh upon them, as travail upon a woman with child; and they shall not escape. ⁴But ye, brethren, are not in darkness, that that day should overtake you as a thief. ⁵Ye are all the children of light, and the children of the day: we are not of the night, nor of darkness.Therefore let us not sleep, as do others; but let us watch and be sober. ⁷For they that sleep sleep in the night; and they that be drunken are drunken in the night. ⁸But let us, who are of the day, be sober, putting on the breastplate of faith and love; and for an helmet, the hope of salvation. ⁹For God hath not appointed us to wrath, but to obtain salvation by our Lord Jesus Christ, ¹⁰Who died for us, that, whether we wake or sleep, we should live together with him.

The devil is using every tick and staying/abiding in Jesus is our safety.

I love you all and do not want any to perish, so if you know of someone who might need this please pass it on.

Cropped Rock Wall cont.

2010-09-14T10:08:00.001-07:00

I saw this nice little ‘journal’ I found at the Dollar Tree (favorite place to shop) and bought some and thought I could make some covers even though they looked nice already. So with that in mind I have yesterday’s project finish. I took off both covers and scanned the cover into my computer and cropped the image in Windows Photo gallery (the greatest for quick and easy fixes). From there I brought the .jpg file into Robo Master.

The actual size of this cover is 4 15/16 (4.94) inches tall and 5 inches wide, so this is what we make sure the cover size is, at least after we make all the holes and have them in their places. I didn’t make the .jpg any large, i just enlarge the view by pressing the ‘+’ key twice; this way the cover is large enough to move my ‘holes’, not to mention drawing out the circle and seeing where to place it.

Circles are drawn from the center in this program so you can see how good your are at finding center. when finished press the ‘–’ key on the keypad to reduce the size of the working view. Don’t get rid of the .jpg file, this will help in the placement of the holes. after you have minimized the view the drag a selection around this and group the jpg and holes together.

Then you want to make a 6 inch square and center the .jpg in the center of this, group all together and line it up for cutting. You will want to add in your carrier mat if you haven’t done that yet. And now you can un-group this and make the lines of the 6 inch square another color and mark it for not cutting in the settings dialog box. The other choice you have is to fill this square with color and in the line settings click on ‘no line’ (way down at the bottom of the drop down list) so that it doesn’t cut; re-group for safety’s sake. This file can be saved and used for other covers of the same size.

Place your paper (mine is BG’s Green at Heart) on the mat lining it up like in my photo (the red cutting line along the left and bottom edges). You will have to tape the paper to the carrier mat at the corners and halfway on each side. Cut! You can make your liners and back cover the same way.

Now you are ready to cover the front. If you are not good at doing the corners, you can fold the corners in till they are at the right angle, crease then glue them in place. Fold the long edges and glue them. I used a double sided tape runner to place a strip of tape just under the holes and press it into place before folding the corners and sides then used Mono Multi glue and let it dry a little before pressing into place. For gluing along the edge, run a line (light but not too light) of glue long the edge of the base and fold the paper over. This should spread enough glue to glue this edge down and trim your paper (while glue is drying) to just above the holes. Using a wet glue like this also softens the paper a little to help it fold into place and i didn’t have to deal with any wrinkles.

Now i have another shape for you…

This is my background (cotton ball applied distress inks) for the birthday party….

I hope that you can see the stamped details. I just thought it would be a little more interesting than seeing my hand painted version so i stamped them on a page from a book that had been crumpled and distress ink applied (vintage photo) then misted with water.

the table cloth is from a 12x12 sheet of BG Sugar Rush with painted details in off-white acrylic paint.

The plate of cookies and single cookie and cake were painted with distress ink

The grass is Silhouette file: border_woodland_grass_C00852_19210

Cropped Rock Wall

2010-09-13T11:04:00.001-07:00

Another neat little feature of the Robo Master software is the clipping feature. And while it does require a little extra work you can still do something amazing! I did a rock wall for a Penny Black Stamp!

First you need to bring in you jpg file to be clipped. I used Bearly Mine Paper (freebie) that i like really well and would look really cute as part of the backdrop behind the stamped images.

after re-sizing the image (which wasn’t necessary for this) you want to click on the icon of a paper with scissors. the click on the closed spline tool and make your selection of the wall…

I hope you can see the selection I made. If not click on the photo for a larger view. The next step is to click again on the scissors icon and you will notice the excess paper disappear though the selection handles are still there.

This is where the extra work comes in because you will have to re-draw the outline of the wall again. But before you do that you should move you clipped image down where you want it and you can see that i added in a little bit of grass. these i will leave as is and color with Distress ink. Now you need to get the closed spline tool and re-draw around the wall, exactly on the edge, so that you will have a cutting line. After you have done that press on the plus sign on your keypad to enlarge the screen, click on the Edit Point Tool and make sure your line lines up along the edge of your clipped picture. I didn’t like this wall so I had re-done it but this photo will give you the idea anyway.

Next you want to run this through the printer and there are a couple of things for you to check before you actually print. If you are using paper that is a different size from the 8 1/2 x 11 paper you will want to change the size of your Robo Master and Printer page to match. You also want to make sure you have borderless printing checked on the printer settings. After you are done with your printing make sure your paper is lined up where i taught you here on your carrier mat, and cut.

My wall was off by about 1/16th of an inch too high but it is still good. I will have to work on this, but then i didn’t have my paper the right size and i had to eyeball it. So, really i didn’t do too bad. I just keep forgetting to make sure my paper is the same size. I used Dick Blick’s drawing paper and this after cutting it to 8 1/2 inches wide, forgot to make the height of the paper 11 inches. This is because i generally don’t have to be so exact but when doing this kind of cutting I do have to be exact. I put the design down at the bottom of the cutting area and when printing, the paper rolls through the printer till it gets to that spot and prints. If your paper is 12 inches it prints right where it was told but you have extra paper at the bottom. I could have trimmed it then to 11 inches but i didn't think of it. Really Dumb!!! because i had to line it up to the carrier mat. And my grass turned ot fine; I even colored some of the grass on the back side so I could fold the points down.

Tomorrow the finished piece.

Polygon Tool

2010-09-09T15:26:00.001-07:00

This may be a little useless tutorial because Silhouette has given a sneak peak on their new software and i don’t know if this tool will be available in the new program but it is such a useful little tool. I have a template that i want to convert to a cutting file and i could use the polyline tool but the polygon tool is even better for this.

I imported my .jpg scan of the template and I have not really goo line for tracing this file so I am going to use the polygon tool to trace around the perimeter. The first 2 clicks show only a straight line but when you mover you mouse you will notice it open into a closed shape. Just keep clicking the major points (this line does not curve).

If your template you are tracing is enlarged on the screen so that you cannot see the whole template at one time (as here)

and you have to move the screen, just use your mouse wheel while still holding the tool and scroll the screen up to finish the tracing.

I got to the last point where the line lined up perfectly aligned with the first anchor point and double clicked to finish my closed shape. I only had to adjust a couple of points (by using the edit point tool) and now i am ready to place my straight lines for scoring..

While drawing straight lines it is helpful to anchor at a further pint and move in on a line that to start where you left off on the last line you drew. Sorry my lines were drawn freehand paint brush and they are not very good but they give the general idea. After i finished laying in the score lines i selected them and grouped them then change the color and line properties.

The polygon tool is also great for doing the flaps on the boxes like the pencil box…

cut-ups

2010-09-09T12:16:00.001-07:00

I have a shape for you today. These will make lovely little pieces for messages or sentiments and images.

I have been making this shape for years ever since I first bought CorelDraw! 5. That is a fun(!!!) program! And i would combine shapes to come up with other shapes and came up with quite a few.

flower (nested_flower_3d_C00365_21585) and text frame (under cutting files in right hand column) were cut on the Silhouette Flower was colored with glimmer mists Tiger Lily and Old Lace. The center is gold mini-micro beads. I cut 6 petal-layers all at different sizes as follows: 1.55x1.77, 1.50x1.72, 1.22x1.39, 1.01x1.15, 0.98x1.13, 0.81x0.93. That’s so you can make sure the flower is the right size for the card. If you are cutting for something else you might want a larger size.

Leaves were stamped on water color paper and painted with water colors then cut out by hand.

Top layer of DP (Scrapper Dashery - IF, 12x12 from frantic stamper) is 3 3/4 x 4 1/2”

Mat layer (Basic Grey’s Kioshi – Plum Blossom, 12x12 from frantic stamper) is 4 1/4 x 5 1/4

Card Base (Bazzill Winter Collection) is cut 11 x 4 1/2 front is 5 1/2 x 4 1/2”

Sentiment is my own (feel free to use) and handwritten. Vintage Photo Distress ink was used with Tim Holtz’s applicator for the mellowing of paper.

Miss Mousie

2010-09-08T11:07:00.001-07:00

New stamps in at Paper Garden Projects include the cutest little mice called Cute Companions and designed by Jayne Nestorenko. This is just one set and she has several…some of which are Christmas and Winter designs. I received my order yesterday and I have Celebration Parade and Wishing Line, both of which have cute little backgrounds and sentiments; they were too cute not to get. And in my order Cathy had packed a couple of paper samples and so I put them together to make….

a card with a gift tag.
The pansy is shaped and all was colored with Distress inks.
For those who need to know certain details the background (or skyline) was stamped on the ‘sky’, white cardstock, then painted, and the bottom of the skyline was stamped and trimmed on the ‘grass’. Also stamped partial image of Miss Mousie on the grass then placed the image (colored on white cardstock - Neenah) over that so the the whiskers and pebbles lined up with the rest.
The card base was cut after placing the basic pieces together (sky, skline and grass – 5 1/2 inches wide the cut at 3 inches wide for main image). Card base measures 3 w. x 8 t. then the edge was punched and the top placed on. Paper is from the Hearts Bloom Paper Kit at Paper Garden Projects.

To Romeo and others….

2010-09-08T09:45:00.001-07:00

Life gets frustrating at times. I had a very bad time getting this file to weld properly! It’s just the pencil box from the last project but it took me forever to figure out how to get it to weld without losing proportions as it would not weld even though the line lined up!. I had to add a smidgen of width to the piece that would not weld and then it went together perfectly! What a pain! And i had to download a trial version of CorelDraw! x5 in order to get it at all because Robo Master only adds and does not subtract. Now Corel is offering Draw! at 179.00 if i buy it quick but i don’t have them money and i am crying!!! They have added some really good hints to show how thing are lining up and a spline tool for making curves that is really out of site. So here goes a tutorial…I just have to share it…

First 3 points are drawn as shown by the dotted line and the squares are where i clicked the mouse to anchor the points. These point are for shaping and the dotted guide line is where you can add or subtract points to get a curve more to your liking,

here i have added another 2 points and ended by double clicking on the last point.

Here I have added a couple of guide line for helping my shaping. the blue line had already been added and the red show the last line i added.

Now you click on the shape tool to start shaping

where the guidelines and the spline guidelines are intersecting I am going to double click to add 4 new points.

You can see the shaping now. the spline line itself has jumped into position according to where i place new points.

by double clicking on the lower middle point I released the spline from the guideline and it jumped to where you see it. For more precise shaping of the spline shape you are creating you can turn on the grid and make 1/8 inch square to move the shape to amore pleasing shape.

So fantastic. and this is a new tool from my version. They also have a new way of reshaping a square – you have to click on the shape tool (and your square looks like this (bigger handles or points))

and then find the little convert to curves symbol…

Then you square looks like this….

And then by moving the bottom 2 points you can com up with this….

The rest of the shape stays in place! I hope i didn’t bore you with this, but I am just so excited and wish I had the money to get the program. Now, to make up for al the boring details i have a zip file with .svg, .dxf, and .gsd files of the pencil box i cut the other day. The zip file also contains a .jpg for those who have to cut by hand.

Now that i have done this, I need to go get my first cup of coffee (it is now 9:43am here), which i usually have before i do this kind of thing and get ob to the next project.

Pencil Box

2010-09-02T17:05:00.001-07:00

Sorry i am so late with this. Too many complications not the least of which was the closure, but here it is anyway with explanation.

Paper Garden Projects is having their monthly challenge with a fall theme. Cathy made a pencil box and that got me to thinking. If I could net get my copy of CorelDraw! to work even after taking it off my computer and re-installing it several times over the last 3 years, I could do a cutting file and cut this on my silhouette! I don’t know why it keeps saying that the installation is unsuccessful. There was some comment on that on later versions of CorelDraw! and I know they don’t support this version anymore. So, I decided to check out the website again, and found that it is no longer Canadian but the UK has the whole Corel product line. Very interesting! So I downloaded the same version that i had purchased and tried again but it still will not work and says the installation is unsuccessful.

Well here is my box anyway, some of it hand-cut and the decorations cut on the silhouette.

The Silhouette store files used are:

corn_in_a_row_C00694_2-5-8
pumpkins_C20090817105708_19007

The back view:

Paper used was a piece of Bazill cardstock from last year’s winter collection and a 12 x 12 inch piece of Sugar Rush (by Basic Grey)

Inks used to dolor the corn stalks and pumpkins were:

worn lipstick and wild honey mixed on the cotton ball
scattered straw and wild honey wiped onto the paper separately and
vintage photo for the ground and shading.

I colored the pieces before i took them off the mat, this makes it easier to color them without bending and ripping.

The closure is a bit un-orthodox but it is all i had readily available. I took a length of embroidery floss (18 inches) and tied a knot in the center of that and glued it to the inside flap. If i had thought of it earlier i would have glued it between the decorative paper and the box itself. Wrapped that around to the back the to the front on each side and tied it in a bow. Because you can’t tie it too tight this way, you can slip it on and off.

If I had had some of the little magnets they would have been perfect for the closure on this case, but i am out at the moment. That’s one of those items i could use all the time.

Sorry…

2010-09-01T11:51:00.001-07:00

I am sorry that i haven’t had a project ready yet….I’m working on it. I have some new shapes i’ll be putting up and today there is a file for some digital paper in the cutting files list. This was prompted by the Mel of Mel Stampz blog and i couldn’t tell which post but it was one she did on making digital paper yourself. So, here is mine in several colors. Probably none of which you would want or need but you can take them into a Photoshop Elements program and use the color changer to re-color them. And i f you are really good at photoshop you could make a selection of the colored areas of the page and change the color that way. If you want a tutorial on how to do this I can do one. Just leave me a comment or e-mail me.

Here is a sample of the paper.

Beautiful Box

2010-08-25T14:34:00.001-07:00

This is such a beautiful little box.

Finished size is about 3 inches round x 2 1/2 inches tall. cut from an 8 1/2 inch piece of cardstock. The design was saying that it needed 2-sided cardstock so I printed one up from Tracy Ann Digital Art from 2 different files but they were only $4.25 each and i already had one.

The hard part would have been the scoring the curved edges, but after the other day I just went ahead and scored the lines @ 13 Thickness and carefully folded the lines so that when glued they would just fall into place with a gentle nudge (for a box, that is).

Files used for the paper were:

Susie_Q Melon leafy paper 7
Bold Blooms paper 6

I usually change the names of the papers so they are more descriptive when i go looking through the folder but leave the number with it so when you open your file and expect it to be called leafy, it won’t be called that. But i do think it is paper # 7.

The Silhouette Files used are:

star_top_box_C00586_20509
leaf_vine_border_adornment_C00482_19210
5_petal_flower_C00041_27011

Scoring with the Silhouette

2010-08-21T17:12:00.001-07:00

How simple this is and it took me till this afternoon to figure it out. Well, last night after i had gone to bed, really. Just didn’t get to it till this afternoon.

This is a ratio so that is should be easy enough to figure out on different papers, Though most of mine are cut on 100 tag and 33 pressure. The ratio is about 1/3 the pressure (I used 13) which is 1/3 plus 2 and that will make cut marks but not all the way through the paper. Which is what you want for scoring.

Edited 8-25-10: I used a template from the Silhouette store (adorable_box_17_C00627_20509) and i had to make a couple of changes to it so it would line up properly for putting tags in it. Lori Whitlock is the designer and she did such a lovely job on the box with scoreline to make it a little like a bag and for treats. I needed one for the tags so i took the line and moved it and took out the front decorative opening.

My project was making a little tag box for my Christmas tags i did and entered into caardvarks challenge. For scoring this little template I change all dashed lines to a different color (wild pink).

Then when i went to cut i clicked on the setting icon and made sure i was on the Cutting Settings tab, clicked on Cutline Settings and made sure i had appropriate color for cutting checked and the other color (wild pink) un-checked. Then cut the box. Without taking the box out of the machine I went back and repeated the procedure but checking the wild pink line and unchecked the red cutting line.

I made the appropriate changes to the Thickness and let the machine ‘cut’. The score line must be on the back side of the paper, so if you have something that has a right side/back side you must place it on the carrier sheet backwards for scoring before you begin!

A Little Exercise

2010-08-20T13:45:00.001-07:00

Nobody is just dying to know what the spline tool can do? Alright Robo Master owners, let’s try a little something new! This is only for the adventurous as this little tool needs some taming. That is it seems to need a little taming. Really it is ourselves that need to get familiar with this neatest of all the tools in the tool box.

I must point out here that i am a self taught person here with computer drawing tools; really I don’t know that much but i made an eyelet edge with this tool. And it was sooo loonnggg ago that i ran across the spline tool that i don’t remember what program i found it in. That program is probably no longer available anyway. That was back in late Windows 3.11 or early windows 95 days. But when i bought the Silhouette, there was the spline tool. I cannot tell you how happy i was! anyway, here goes….

With your ROBO Master open and a new ‘sheet of paper’, no carrier sheet or grid at this moment, we will make a shape. Click on the closed spline tool and click once on your sheet of paper, pull down a bit (about an 1”) and click again,

then go to the right just a tiny bit and you will see the spline open up and become a loop. Quick - double-click to anchor that point, you can always change it later.

Now take your edit point tool and grab the lower little square (node or anchor point) and when your cursor changes to 4 directional arrow (cross hair pointer), click and hold down mouse button while you move that node to the left and up to where it is in line with the other lower anchor point, let go the mouse button and you should have a rain drop. Or eyelet. Or egg. Whichever you like to think of your shape as. If you didn’t, just try it again. It takes a little getting used to. You make to big a move or loop back on an un-anchored shape and you can come up with some pretty wild shapes and the feeling that you are not in control here, the shape is. You can straighten the line out by going back or delete and start over.

You can further refine this shape buy right clicking while your cross hair pointer is right over the line and add anchor point. If you want to delete an anchor point you hold your cross hair right over the point you want to delete. To make a spline come to a nice rounded, but sharper, point add and/or move anchor point close to the anchor point you want more pointed.

This tool is remarkable in that it makes beautifully curved shapes where the polyline tool (which is easier for a beginner to use) seem more tamable and easier to use but takes more time to shape curves. I used the spline tool to get my scallop line for the lesson the other day and here are some example shapes for other possible projects using the closed spline tool….

Now maybe you can do something better.

I Finally Figured it out!

2010-08-19T09:07:00.000-07:00

Sometimes things are not the way you think they should be! This is so very true in the computer world. (Poor Programmers...they try so hard to make things as easy to use as they can and us poor users are so inept, We just do not speak computer-eze or think like a computer or programmer thinks.) Oh, well. Anyway I wanted to do a slide show but I didn't want to do the whole folder of items that is on my blog, but do you think i could find a way to make a folder? Nooooo....grumble, grumble.

I was trying from the wrong end! I had been trying from Google and my Picasa photos on the Internet instead of doing it from Picasa uploader/admire-my-photos-on-my-computer! So i finally found where to make a new album and drug my photos (the ones that i wanted) to the album and voila! it worked. Then i uploaded to Picasa on the Internet and added my little gadget with my photos like I should have been able to figure out in the first place. IT's right there on the right---->

Scalloped Edge Card

2010-08-18T16:31:00.001-07:00

From my card that i did yesterday I took the same cutting file and cut a scalloped edge on a piece of Basic Grey’s Green At Heart Polka-dotted paper and used that + a silhouette edge that I had hanging around just wanting to be used and another piece of Green at Heart paper and added a butterfly!

Then I went through my cutting pattern and picked out a phrase”just because”, cut that out of 65# bristol card and used mono multi glue to glue it to the card. I did let the glue set-up for a couple of minutes before placing it on the card; I find, for me, this works better because it won’t go sliding around as much. Last, i placed a 1 inch wide strip of paper on the inside of the card for pattern contrast.

simple scalloped edge (listed in right-hand column)

beautiful_butterfly_C00327_201509

diamond_floral_scallop_border_C00220_20387

just_because_C00338_19547

Have You Ever Wondered if…

2010-08-17T19:34:00.001-07:00

you could just cut a line on the bottom of a pre-cut card? A scalloped one? I have a scallop for you. Perhaps you don’t realize the importance of being able to just cut an edge for your card without cutting the whole card? That’s so you don’t go cutting into the mat/carrier sheet or make the cut size of the cut card smaller than it already is.

I have 3 pieces of scrap for cards each with a different width. So here we go. The first card is 5 x 4 1/4 inches; to cut the edge it has to be open and pressed down on the the carrier sheet lining it up at ‘0’ and along the bottom line as shown here.

make sure your tape is small enough pieces that it will Silhouette will not have to cut through them along that edge and I only placed tape where shown. Similarly lining up your edge in the software right at the edge of the printing margin line. I let the edge fall just a tiny amount under the printing margin line as you can see here (below).

Now to size the scallop to the cards size, right click and click on Position Setting and click the little box that says “Hold Aspect ratio'”, then enter the width setting to correspond with the width of the card you want your edge on and click ok. A little help here is that left-hand position of your scalloped edge (or ‘x’ coordinate) will be 0.272 inches. My ‘y’ coordinate was 0.149 inches and I could have gone a little lower. This is also in the Position Setting dialog box (the top set of numbers)and can be changed there if you need to. If you are having trouble lining up your file in the window you can, while the edge is selected, use the right and left or up and down arrows, but you have my coordinates so you can use those. Now you can cut your edge just as you would normally. I did this for the other 2 pieces which were 3 and 3 7/16 inches wide. For the 3 7/16 inch wide piece i used a decimal equivalent for 7/16 and rounded it upwards to .438 inch.

The final results are here…

There you go…now you can do your own..the cutting file (simple scalloped edge1) is listed in the right hand column under Cutting Files & Tutorials. A link to a Decimal Equivalent Chart is listed under Digital Stuff; they have it in .pdf file format.

Finished Box and…

2010-08-16T14:56:00.001-07:00

a couple of cutting files in .gsd format and jpg. I am sorry I don’t have other formats but it is way above my financial means at this time to get the software and or machines. So if you have make the cut or similar to take a jpg file and trace it then you are welcome to do that; i placed it down below the box information on this post. In any event the .jpg can be cut by hand. You will have to re-size to fit your card or layout.

I have finished my little box and it is now ready to be filled and given to someone.

I made a little daisy (opening up) bud by taking a smaller daisy and folding it into quarters and the calyx was made from a snowflake punch and glued to the bottom of the partially opened daisy. A little star shaped flower would have been more suitable but this was handy. Everything was cut on the Silhouette except the calyx.

Files used are:

box_bottom_0928
box_top_0929
3_flower-sprig_with_butterfly_C00480_19210
12-petal_flowers_C00667_20509
fern_frond_C00374_23067
Grannie's Wallpaper from Pink Petticoat (listed under Digital Stuff)

box_
I did the bottom label first and then the top label using the closed spline tool. If anyone is interested I will give a small (all i know) tutorial on that marvelous tool. The cutting file is listed at the right under Cutting Files & Tutorials.

Eggplant, Artichoke and Suede

2010-08-13T13:51:00.001-07:00

Those are the beautiful colors in the Color Throwdown Challenge this week and I love those colors.

Those are also the color of Stampin’ Up! papers of which I don’t have but I do have something (as close as i can get it) in dusty purple and a brown inked (it looks almost like suede, just a little darker) paper background and a green that comes near the artichoke green on the leaves of the stamped design. So I thought I could enter this in the challenge.

This has been sitting around for a couple of months waiting for something to pull it together and i love it with the purple.

The design was stamped on paper from the Paper Temptress (Cryogen White – Text weight) then painted with Yasutomo’s Pearlescent paints which took to the paper really well. The stamp from Impression Obsession (Victorian Rose by Leigh Hannon)is one of my favorites.

The Making of a Box

2010-08-13T09:59:00.001-07:00

The subject today is making a box ala Silhouette SD and digital paper! I would like to point you to the right hand column that has several places where you can get lovely printable papers; I am using Pink Petticoat’s ‘Grannies Wallpaper’ and ‘A Bit washed Out’ for my box in ‘Lovely’. The program I am using for printing out my digital paper is Serif DrawPlus Se Pro which is upgraded (for $9.99) from Serif DrawPlus SE which is a free program.

This paper set (Grannie’s Wallpaper) is a little on the overly large size for my little box so I need to resize it. The basic instructions are here and the size to make the paper is 4.964w. x 7.0016h. Special handling for this paper is copy, paste the re-sized paper and pull it to the right to line up with the edge of the first paper, then flip horizontally and align top edges and click on the group button to keep them together. Keeping both papers selected, copy and paste and pull down to line up the edges. Now, if you are suing the same paper, you will notice that the bottom edges are not lining up and you will have to do some pattern matching. So move slowly up to where the pattern matches and let go. Drag a line around both papers and now the left edges and enlarge the screen so you can see if you match is correct or needs a little adjusting. Now you are ready to print that out; remember to have the proper setting for printing borderless on your printer driver. I am using ‘Grannie’ for the lid, and the washed out paper for the bottom. The only change i made to the ‘Washed Out’ paper file was to make sure that it was 8 1/2 inches wide since the European paper sizes are different from ours.

The first thing i do after bringing the file i want use into the Robo Master is to delete the dotted/dashed lines that serve as the score marks. You can change these to sketching only lines if you want to, but they will show unless you line the box. I do not have the pens or the holder for a pen yet. For you guys I will go the the steps of changing the lines to sketch them onto the paper and make a lining.

The first step is to un-group the file (the box bottom) by clicking on the 2nd double box on the tool bar along the top. The tool tip will tell you when you hover over the icon which action will be performed so you can make sure you have the correct one.

then you need to click on the background to de-select the box bottom. Next click on the Edit Point tool along the left side of the software and holding down the shift key select all the dashed lines and right click for the menu. Here you will need line settings.

All I did here was change the color. This particular file had a double set of score lines and after i had changed the color I grouped them and moved them out of the way for the moment and deleted the extra lines. If you don’t you will have Robo Master cutting those lines. You need to repeat this with the lid.

Because this is a 2 piece box, it is always best to check the size of the base of the lid to the base of the box (which is marked by the score lines) to make sure that after you cut and glued the lid it will slip down nice and easy on the box bottom. To do this you need both files open in separate windows and move the one file so that you can easily click on the border of the other window to pull it forward and still get to the other file when you need it. Use the Window menu and click on cascade and re-size the windows to fit.

Next you want to copy the box lid and go back to the box bottom and paste the lid over the box bottom matching up the score lines (the dashed lines).

You can see that there is a little bit of difference but it will not be enough for the box lid to slide down onto the box bottom like we want it to, so you will need to grab the upper right hand corner and drag it just a little bit and the lower left corner and drag it about the same till you get a margin around the score line of the box bottom; such as this is…

The exact measurement for this lid is w:6.104x h:5.401 inches. The box bottoms is w: 7.574 x h: 6.900 inches.

I have found that if you want a liner it is 1/16th inch smaller measuring the base of the box and if you are using 80# cardstock. you can do that with this program by doing the same procedure just making the second box bottom smaller. If you try putting in a 1/16th inch more in the position dialog box you will still come up short. You would need the measurements of the base and add 1/16th inch to the height and width of that. To find out the exact measurement of the box base from this file (assuming you have not cut it out yet) would be to use the rectangle tool and draw out a rectangle the exact size of the base (using the score lines) and use the position dialog box to find the measurements. Add 1/16th to the measurements you have and re-size the bottom to those rectangle. Delete the rectangle.

Please don’t ask me how to do a octagonal box this far above my learning. I would just print it out onto copy paper and go from there.

My finished box, ready for decorating is here…

I hope that this was helpful. Will post a .pdf file of this for you also.

Working on Christmas…

2010-08-11T17:53:00.001-07:00

Cardvaarks is having a challenge to make Christmas tags and/or minis. Those on the design team that are participating this month came up with just lovely ideas and I liked the tag set with the old fashioned rocking horse the most. The sponsor this month is JustRite with a prize of your choice of 5 Christmas stamp sets. Oh wouldn't that be lovely!

My tag idea is this:

I’d been planning on using this stamp this year anyway and now seemed such a good time to put it into reality. Besides if i make them now I will be that much ahead of the need. A closer shot shows up the glitter edge a little better.

I cut the postage stamp square and the secondary background on the silhouette. I used distress inks entirely and Gelly Roll Clear Star glitter pen. A little tip when using the glitter pen:

I used crosshatching strokes on background because the strokes of the pen show up when covering a large area as opposed to just making marks of show or star and shading something to give a bit of glitz. I went over this border area (only wide enough to to catch the dips in the secondary layer) and did 3 layers of glitter.

I made the tie string of DMC Metallic Gold Embroidery Thread. I made six tags with one sheet of 8 1/2 x 11 inch paper. Size of the tags are2 1/4 inches square. Stamp is by Inkadinkado – no name on it. Now where do I put these So i don’t lose them by the time i really need them?!

Sorry my photos don’t show the glitter up better is is so lovely.

Flower in video

2010-08-10T10:36:00.000-07:00

Thought, since i don't have the right stuff to do a video tutorial of my rose, I would post this little video that shows the procedure for making the rose and other flowers. This is not the only way, but is one way to make lovely flowers.

And Fred She Says has the Rose/Poppy digital file on sale this week if anyone is interested. Of course you can always have mine...it's listed int he right hand coloumn and it is free.

The Card from the Tutorial

2010-08-05T13:10:00.001-07:00

Cassie’s Brocade makes such a beautiful background and the with the distress inks (Dusty Concord and Antique Linen), I really liked the look. After removing my shapes from the mat i used Old Paper first, the Antique Linen on both pieces to my liking. the scalloped circle for the mat was painted with Yasutomo’s Pearlescent paints along the edge.

The butterfly is done with the same paints on both layers. It doesn’t show up like I would like it to; the card is really very pretty. The fern that you see was cut on the silhouette but when I went back to check on the website it was no longer there. The rose leaves and the fern were both colored with distress ink Peeled Paint and a cotton ball before taking off the mat (carrier sheet). The rose was colored with Victorian Velvet.

The cutting files used:

3_flower_sprig_with_butterfly_C00480_19210
my rose file listed at right under cutting files
circle_scallop_MED_1181 altered

Changing a Shape in Silhouette

2010-08-05T12:43:00.001-07:00

I wanted to make a copy of this lovely card on Fred She Said’s site. It is a beautiful card and I wanted to make it about the same. There are some minor change in my version. So I picked my shape and brought into the Robo Master software and you see it here the exact size it domes in from the library.

This is nice – you can use as is for any scrapbook page or make it smaller to fit a card. What i didn’t like was the overly rounded edge. I wanted my scallops not quite so deep. The image is selected and I will click on the last icon inthe tool bar at top whic brings up this screen or input box…

The blue hi-lighted value is changed to 0.060 and the miter is 2.0 – i have not touched that. Click ok and this is what you get.

I liked this just the way it was so i went ahead with the next step. I had to change the .png scripture file to a .jpg which i did in Photoshop Elements (I have version 6 but any version will do this job) then imported the .jpg file into Robo Master and sized for cutting. Robo Master does not have an alignment function you have to use the grid. Lining up a file to the cutting lines is not the best (if your are good enough you can line up the arrows, somedays i need the lines to help) so you can turn on the grid (view/view grid) and turn off the mesh (which are lines of your mat and is in the same menu); the last item. Now you can line up your arrows so that they co-inside with the grid lines …

Then do the same with the cutting lines (the blue lines here).

Since I am cutting on Cardstock this time (Neenah) I want to make a duplicate of the scalloped circle which is easy here, just copy and paste – the new lines will line up exactly on top of the other. Then somewhere on the mat close to the image but far enough away you have not selected anything, click and drag till you have all items selected (this time it is the set of 2 cutting lines and the graphic) and group them together. Next move the group where you want the cut to be made on your paper.

I have already checked to see if the cutting lines were fitting well inside the other large scalloped shape (that will be the mat layer behind the scripture/sentiment. I wouldn’t always be cutting the mat from the same piece of cardstock but this time I am. So i loaded my cardstock into the printer and clicked on the printer icon which brought up the printer dialog box and clicked on okay (you will notice that the printing will be at the bottom of the page). Then I placed the paper on the mat so that is lined up between the ‘L’ brackets and the line along the bottom of the carrier mat, placed it in the machine and let it cut. My setting for cutting this was Tag 100 lbs and thickness 33 with the red blade adjustment cap. I cut Neenah, Bazzill, Prism and AC cardstock at this setting. If I am cutting Dick Blick’s Sulphite Drawing paper (the package says premium weight; that means 80lb.

The final result for the printing and cutting is this…

ready to take off the mat and for the next step.

P.S. I save my files! I name them so that I can relate to what is in the file (scalloped circle_mine; that means i altered the original file) This is important because when you go back to cutting that file you may be needing the exact size that was in the file and not something that you have to guess at. this is especially true with flowers. I like the flowers in different sizes so have them in small, med and large sizes. And I try to fill up a whole sheet (8 /12 x 11) for cutting them out. For Flourishes and special borders I don’t, but i do save the file so that when i go back i will have a record of what size i last cut them at. Then if I need a different size I copy and paste it into a different file just like flowers and basic shapes. Robo Master have a viewer for looking at you .gsd file. That viewer will not read any other file but you .gsd files. You can look into any file folder on you computer system.

Cutting a Stamped Image in .pdf file

2010-08-03T10:53:00.000-07:00

I linked up a copy in Acrobat Reader form for you if you want it, of the turtorial on cutting an already stamped image in the Silhouette.It has been corrected also.

Forgot to mention

2010-08-02T16:56:00.001-07:00

Please don’t shoot me. I forgot to mention how to tell if your mat is centered in the Silhouette when you feed it in. There is a really nice easy way. Those little ridges long the front platform are an uneven number and the center one (#7) is center. The arrow on your mat is center. So when you feed your mat into the machine just line it up with the center ridge on the platform. I have mine marked with black marker.

On the backside of my machine i have a book i keep there for the mat to rest on as the machine goes about it’s duties. I found that the cutting was more stable if there was something to keep the mat more level. On the front side i have my keyboard that is about the right height for the mat.

Blessed is the Man..,

2010-08-01T16:11:00.000-07:00

Blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord,

and whose hope is in Him.

For he shall be like a tree planted by the waters,

that spreads out its roots by the stream,

and it shall not be afraid when heat comes,

but its leaves shall be green;

and shall not be afraid in the year of drought

neither shall cease from yielding fruit.

Jeremiah 17: 7&8 (Lamsa translation)

Cutting a Stamped Image

2010-07-31T10:24:00.001-07:00

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

2010-07-26T14:20:00.001-07:00

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

2010-07-24T09:20:00.001-07:00

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

2010-07-21T17:38:00.001-07:00

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

Ta - Daahhh…

The background papers are :

Basic Grey’s ‘Sugar Rush’ : the backside of the paisley background
The beautiful blue is From Bazzill’s Winter Collection cardstock and served as mats for the next 2 backgrounds.
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.
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?

2010-07-20T17:53:00.001-07:00

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

2010-07-15T06:09:00.001-07:00

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

2010-07-14T10:21:00.001-07:00

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

2010-07-07T13:32:00.001-07:00

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!

2010-07-02T15:34:00.001-07:00

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.

My little Birdie

2010-06-29T16:42:00.001-07:00

I have this new stamp I saw that was just so cute and cheery I just had to buy him.

and i worked on this card for Mel of Mel Stampz who has not put anything up on her blog for a while so I thought she needed some cheerin’ up; so here it is and if she emails me i will mail it to her.

background paper is Mel’s ‘dream definition’ I downloaded from her blog and printed out. I used 2/3 of it for the front and the other 1/3 inside covered with some white acrylic paint for the sentiment area. Card stock is Stampin’ Up!’s and the flower is from Fred She Said. I printed the flowers out on Dick Blick’s Sulphite drawing paper and colored directly with water color crayons then went over them with water and brush. This paper works very well as a general purpose craft paper as it accepts water colors better than most papers if you don’t use too wet a brush and shapes so well when water is applied to paper for flowers (although I did not do any ore than jut color the flower and leaves and shape with paper styluses. The Bird is painted with yasutomo’s pearlescent paints. I added some painted accent to the tail and top knot feathers also.

Font used is ‘factory’.

Chair Box

2010-06-25T11:48:00.001-07:00

PCP (Paper Craft Planet) has a 3-D challenge this week with a free cutting file for the 2x2 1/4x5 1/4-inch chair box that I thought was so cute. I downloaded the file (which you can get if you are a member of PCP) and decided to make the little box. I didn’t do too bad…the bottom doesn’t lay quite flat which is due to the score being off 1 micro-mm and the top of the box keeps popping up 1/8th inch but otherwise it came out all right. With yesterday’s post I printed up a 2-sided paper for this project making sure that the leaf paper was going in the right direction for the chair.

The flowers were cut from the leftover pieces; 3 sets of McGill’s Petite Petals punch. The little pointy flower has stamens of embroidery thread that I cut a doubled length of (2 1/2 inches – which is folded in half) and tied a knot in the center with the help of a crochet hook. Then spread the threads out with a pin, needle or similar, and glued to the center with monomulti by Tombow. This glue dries quickly and clear, going on white so that you can see where it goes; a benefit for those with ’failing’ eyesight. The flower in the center front of the box is 3 layers of the rounded petal flower, shaped and Mill Hill beads glued to the flower for the center. The leaves are a Martha Stewart punch and I had taken a bit of Dick Blick’s drawing paper and laid it into a bath of Shabby Shutters some time ago.
The Ribbon bow would not cooperate (with one loop sticking forward stubbornly) and so i will not give it any credit. I really don’t know where it came from anyway; i inherited it from another lady's collection.

Using Software and Digital files to make DP!

2010-06-24T17:11:00.001-07:00

I’m finally doing a tutorial…I am assuming you know how to use your printer driver to set up paper information. Every Printer is different anyway. But I am using a software program that may not be well known and is great for printing out digital files for paper, otherwise know as DP, and accents for cards and pages that are not going to be used in the Robomaster for Silhouette ‘Cut-n-Print’ feature.

I wanted to make some for a couple of projects (cootie catcher or fortune teller and a chair box) and this little program I am tutoiarl-ing today is the easiest way to do this. If you have Photoshop or Photoshop Elements it takes a couple more little steps but will do the same thing. This neat little program, though, costs nothing to try out and only $9.99 usd to buy with options to upgrade. With that and a couple of files from someone selling digital paper you can make your own 1 or 2-sided decorative paper for special projects. The program is Serif’s “Draw Plus SE Pro” and will do files for cutting on digital die cut machines as well.

To do this i have Windows explorer right handy next to the open program which opens with a piece of ‘paper’ ready for drawing on. With Windows explorer on top, i picked a paper and drug it into the other program.

You can then click on the paper and drag it into position with matching top right corners.

Next…I change the size of the paper to fit the width of the paper backboard. I do this in the lower right hand corner with the little properties box (Transform) by clicking on the lock to make sure it changes both width (input box ‘W’) and height (input box ‘H’) of the paper and changing the size to 8.5 in. You only have to change the one box because you clicked on the lock (and show those little blue lines) changes the length to match and keep the aspect ration of the original size.

Down below the Arrange/Transform/align box is the place to size the view so that you can zoom in or out according to need. Make sure that you still have your initial paper file selected and that it is lined up with the top left corner then copy (ctrl + c) and paste (ctrl+ v) on top of the file and pull the copy down to line up with the bottom of the first file. This is where you might want to zoom in and make sure that the paper lined up with the first.

The program squawks lightly about have you print paper that is off the backboard but just click okay; it prints just fine. Make sure that your printer settings are set up for borderless printing if your printer has that option; my printer dialog box will make sure that my paper is set to photo paper too. To make your paper 2-sided DP make another file and print separately from the program or printing by page numbers. Just make sure to put your paper with the printed side down (the printers print on the top side of the paper) for the second side. My printer (Canon Pixma MP210) does not print 2-sided (pauses with a dialog box so you can turn and re-insert your paper) with photograph paper and borderless setting.

My paper came out perfectly borderless and beautiful! Not that my photo show it as nice as it really is but I figured I ought to show something.

Paper printed on was Neenah Cardstock but Hero Arts layering paper (or similar) can also be used. Nice quality Inkjet paper can be used for the fortune teller. In either case the best results will be with absolute white paper or the colors may not come out as you expect.
Digital papers used was ‘Susie Q’ from Tracy Ann Digital Art
Program used id Serif’s DrawPlus SE

New Header for Blog

2010-06-18T15:51:00.000-07:00

Hellloooo! I decided to make a header for my blog. I keep looking around at all that is available and did not find anything i liked. They are all beautiful; it just doesn't seem to find that spot in me that says "This is it! This is the one to use."And as I was playing around this morning this is what I did (referring to the header image). And I loved the colors, the way the blended, so decided to scan it.

~~I know it doesn't fit with the newly added background, which i really like but now does not fit with the header, so this page may look a little mis-matched till i get a background done.~~ Edited to say I have my new background in place but I think it needs a little editing still. The Stamp is from Impression Obssesion and is an absolute favorite of mine. and i used the Yasutomo pearlescent color/paint box with an aqua brush by Niji. One of these days I am going to get a beautiful water brush with real bristle from Blue Heron but can't quite seem to fit it in my immediate list of wants with the amount of money i have to work with. This is a never ending problem it seems. I keep hoping to get caught up! I'm not doing too bad, though.

Fred She Said challenge

2010-06-11T12:23:00.001-07:00

Well is it really not April anymore but the page is still accepting applicants and while my little card is not very much her it is! So I will be entering that challenge.

I have had a very difficult time with this, not making the card, but getting a photo of it and it still is not very good.

I used Prism Herbal green that i love for the first background, and Neenah for the dotted swiss with faux eyelet edging at the bottom. This was actually re-claimed from a card I was trying to make but didn’t come out of the machine cut correctly; it was a little off for some reason. And while the silhouette store has a scalloped square i could have used, I made my own and then made the card. That is another story though.

Pansies are one of my most favorite flowers and I had just a tiny amount of money to spend so I bought the colored set; both the blue and purple. I just love it! I put this through the Silhouette machine software (which is Craft Robo) printing it out on Neenah Cardstock and then running it through the machine to cut the circle. I had also set in a couple of extra pansies to make this a Paper Tole Project. I made sure that the little pansies were going to be all the same size by sizing a single pansy over the main pansy. Then copy/pasted another image after moving it to the side. My circle was drawn first then the print of the pansy cup was place in the sircle and sized to fit nicley.

Guess i need to get an new camera because mine is not taking a good enough photo of the card and it is hard to see that it is layered. But here it is. I thank you Fred, for the lovely little pansies and all the delightful little flowers on your site.

A Little Tattered Angels Glimmer Mist

2010-06-11T09:50:00.001-07:00

on a plastic work surface of some sort and a ‘die cut’ from my Silhouette machine and i came up with this…

Tattered Angels Mists are rather expensive but they have a shimmer that is so lovely. And i had bought Meadow Green and Burnt Red (this one mostly for Christmas stuff) and so decided to try something so I squirted a squirt of the red and a squirt of green on either side close to each other and laid the die cut into the little color bath and the result is this! The color is much more intense than just spraying directly on paper and looked so lovely for this little motif.

Then i cut another of this pattern and sprayed the glimmer mist directly on it and it looks like this…

Both are just beautiful! but it is easier to control where you want the color if you dip into a bath of color. I used the same colors and just love how they blended into each other.

My new Computer

2010-06-07T19:41:00.001-07:00

sure took a long time to get here and when it did I was in for a few shocks. (It arrived today)

My new computer, i made sure, had the 4 USB ports in the back plus the one in front. But is does no longer have the little round tailor made serial ports for the keyboard and mouse. This i didn’t know. It wasn’t mentioned on the web page i ordered from, but i thought they would never change that anyway. Well, the keyboard and mouse now come as USB port plug-ins. That is fine for some people but i have a digital tablet, extra hard drive, camera, Silhouette die cutting machine, printer/scanner (that used to have it’s own serial port and is now USB) and a super Logitech mouse with those side buttons that make it indispensible and uses USB instead of a serial port). Not only that but it does not look like my spiffy little computer that i love. This just is never going to work! Not only that but it has Windows 7 and I don’t think I am going to like missing my side bar that has a clock, calendar (so I don’t forget what day it is), memo pad (for short little notes i can’t live without)a little gadget that give me my daily Bible Verse, weather and Norton (so I know I am secure or i need to fix something to keep protected) and a meter (that shows me how much CPU or Ram is being used at any given moment)

I don’t know How Linda Duke is doing with her new computer…she went to The Other brand (Not Linux).

MY daughter is also having computer problems and is going to college on the internet so it is even more important that she have a computer that works (mine is purely emotional (if i can’t get certain things cut Silhouette does require a computer at all times) or info and photos put up on my blog or Flickr I will have a withdrawal problem. Also if i can’t check up on what everybody else is doing…the same). So I must have a computer..but not this one; i gave it to my daughter. (She is finally working so maybe we can get caught up on bill and other things) My little computer is hanging in though things have been pretty rough. It (The software) did manage to finally come up with it needed to check one of my disks…. On its own too!

new computer on the way!

2010-05-27T17:30:00.000-07:00

I'll be getting a new computer tomorrow hopefully (thanks to a friend loaning me the money)! Then it will be a while (3 days?) before i can post anything i think. I have been trying to figure out how to get the information i need and which is to be first onto the new computer. It's so funny....a new computer (just the brains) costs less than when i got my first one in '92. Unfortunately i cannot get windows Vista...I hope i like Windows 7 or i may be giving Microsoft a piece of my mind. I am one of those that love Vista! in spite of the constant getting an okay to move files. And it is 64 bit as opposed to 32 bit; hope it all works together for the transfer okay.

My Computer is acting up

2010-05-22T18:52:00.001-07:00

So… if nobody hears from me it is because it went down and I won’t be able to replace it for a few months. I’m saying this just in case I can’t resuscitate it. Everybody have a good Sunday tomorrow. I will probably have something to post this next week/

Card on Shoestring Budget

2010-05-05T13:42:00.001-07:00

I found some of the cutest digital paper @ Tracy Ann Digital Art

The set of 12 papers was just so sweet and cute I just had to get it. I found this spot after looking for some paper that Mel Stamps was using for a recent post and will be getting that as well as others.

I did re-size the papers as they are for 12x12 inch scrapbook paper and I was using 8.5 x 11 paper and besides the scale of the design usually comes out better for card making if scaled down some. I used a $9.99 program from Serif to size the papers and print them out.

The cute image came from Sassy Cheryl’s who has some freebie images on Paper Craft Planet.

The scalloped oval behind the digi-stamp is color matched to the paper with a freebie color picker then cut on the Silhouette (both done in the Craft Robo program that comes with the Silhouette). The the embellishemnt (flower trio) was also silhouette sd cut and colored with a q-tip before taking apart from the rest of the paper with VersaMagic Dew Drop “Malted Mauve” and Distress “Shabby Shutters”.

Little box

2010-05-03T20:09:00.001-07:00

I had this little flower -

It’s been sitting on my desk waiting for me to make something with it. So i decided, finally, on a box with the flower on top. This is what came of that.

Materials

match box template that I had downloaded from Mel Stampz blog but you can also get one from Mirkwood Designs.
26 gauge brass jewelry wire (Wal-Mart)
beads (dollar tree jewelry kit – butterfly knob and bead feet)
glue I used for attaching things was Monomulti except the butterfly knob which is stuck onto the drawer with a 3D Dot square.
The flower was cut from Blick’s Sulphite Drawing paper and colored with Distress ink and the flower center is embroidery floss.

The box is very fragile due to the lightweight paper but the paper was so pretty and it will not be doing any heavy duty work, I figured I could live with it like that.

Waltzing Mouse Challenge

2010-04-29T09:54:00.001-07:00

There’s a neat little spot on the web called Waltzing Mouse who will be putting out another new set of stamps I drool over. And iwth it comes a little challenge that inspired me right away.
The challenge is this sketch…
Here is my interpretation of the sketch.
Stamps used (since i don’t have any Waltzing Mouse stamps yet) JustRite, Penny black and Impression Obsession "’Cover-A-Card’ Thick n Thin Stripes
Watercolor pencils and blending solution in a water brush was used on Neenah paper for the daisy and mouse.
Glossy Cardstock was used on the background.
I used the Silhouette SD for cutting my circles and hand cut the daisies.

Mother’s Day

2010-04-28T17:50:00.001-07:00

I love Crafty Secrets; She has all these neat little vintage, antique stamps and paper pieces to put together to make lovely little creations. She also, from time-to-time, has little freebies on her site. This time there was a page from a catalog or magazine and a poem for Mothers day. She also has contests like this one.

I made an easel card from these 3 graphics and thought i would share it here.

I covered the catalog page with tissue paper that is from a pattern leaving the wrinkles in but not adding any more. I made up a cutting file for the card including the stand or brace for the back and cut it out and placed the elements together. The leaves were cut from a file in the Silhouette store and then drew vein lines with an embossing tool the applied some ColorBox fluid Chalk in Dark Moss to the edges.

There is one signature on the card already with 2 more to go…

Cutting File for the Rose

2010-04-26T08:38:00.000-07:00

The cutting file for the Rose can be found here : flower_1rose1.GSD
For those having to do this the ancient way I have a pattern for you here...

You can size this any size to make any size rose you want.

Silhouette again

2010-04-24T17:04:00.001-07:00

I have great enjoyment in sitting at my desk watching the Silhouette do my cutting for me. Every wavy line comes out just like it was drawn. It is superb. I took a photo of a flower and let the software trace it and though some of the lines did do some editing (removing of anchor points and lengthening the dip between petals) it wasn’t all that much effort. I did a little cutting, colored my little rose in the making with distress ink (tattered Rose) and cotton ball. Glued the layers together and let dry (as long as I could stand it) then spritzed with water, scrunched and shaped till I got what i wanted. -

I was so tickled that i went ahead and plastered a whole screen of flower petals for my rose. And there was a background to make as i didn’t have any paper the right color, but i had this lovely shade of blue (VersaMagic Agean Blue) and Impression Obsession’s Thick and Thin Striped background stamp and so this happened….

This is not finished but I figure that with Mother’s Day coming. Then I thought this would look nice as a box. So now i need to get busy.

I used:

Tim Holtz’s Glossy Cardstock for background
Dick Blick’s Sulphite Drawing paper
Neenah Cardstock for label
AC Cardstock pastels for the leaf and stem
the cutting file for the leaves is at the silhouuette store: 3_flower_sprig_with_butterfly_C00480_19210
The other cutting files are my designs and you can email me for them.

Birthday Today!

2010-04-20T18:37:00.001-07:00

My oldest Granddaughter is 21 today and so, of course, festivities are ensuing. Must have a birthday card !!! That goes without saying. I grabbed a little stamped and painted image of mice having a blowing out the candle ritual that has been lying around for about a month. So glad that i have some things done ahead of time needed. Had cut out a little doily (a Samantha Walker design for Silhouette) just a little while ago and thought it would be real cute behind the image so that was the next piece. I used distress ink to do the background behind the ice and silhouetted the mice, used 3D-DOTS for them and everything was going good at this point. The background paper came next; that was easy! Bittersweet from basic gray had just the perfect paper for this. But then come the sentiment and I had’ to cut that on the Silhouette…I thought it would look just great so I cut that out and the top half of the ‘B” didn’t cut correctly. But i cut another one and that worked out.Now I had to figure out, without a lot of supplies I used to have, i feel a bit hampered. But i had a roll of ‘cheap’ low tack dollar store cellophane tape and thought that would work so i laid out the lettering on my crafty acrylic craft thingy that i lay on top of the Olfa rotary cutting mat that has lines on it for this kind of thing. Adjusted the letters so that they were as straight as i could get them and and carefully laid the cellophane tape over them and lightly pressed it down so i got all the letters on the tape. Whew! i did it. only the exclamation point went haywire but i can do that after i lay down the sentiment on the card.

Then i carefully turned the lettering over and applied mono-multi to the backside of the letters. Now, my eyes are not as good as they used to be i cannot see some details like white glue on white paper, i used too. So some spots got more glue than they should but at least the glue dries clear! The dot to the ‘i’ is somewhere on my table, ah! there it is. So I grabbed my handy-dandy Quick Kutz quicker-picker-upper and picked up the dot and laid a bit of glue on the exposed side and let that sit so that the glue would dry to tacky and placed it in it’s spot and now i have to get everybody to sign the card…Bye! :)

Flourishes Challenge

2010-04-12T20:20:00.001-07:00

Flourishes is having a challenge! They are offering, as a prize, the whole set of new stamps set she is releasing this Friday. I can hardly stand it! I would love to have that. I entered this card even though I wasn’t sure that it was really good enough.

I think if i had spritzed the paper first a little, then layed the mask onto the paper and finished spritzing i would have liked it better. I love the flourish, just didn’t want it to be so startlingly white with the other pieces on the card. But two very kind people made a comment about what they liked about the card; so i cheered up. One was on the background.

The challenge was for a twinchy; a little 2-inch square work of art that like to take center stage. I just loved the way she worded that. And I even had a Flourish Stamp set to work with!

So now i am biting my nails…..till Friday. Just joking; I’m not really biting my nails. But i would sure love to win the drawing.

JustRite Part 2

2010-04-07T14:03:00.001-07:00

I had a scrap of Basic Grey paper from the Bittersweet collection that when I was playing around with the Tattered angel spray and a silhouette cut pattern i was using for a mask came out so pretty that kept it out on my desk.

And when I was putting this card together I tried it with the image and stamped image it worked so well I went ahead and put it together even though it is not my normal color scheme.

But trying to photo graph it was a problem. I did finally manage to get a good shot finally so here it is. A little on the grey side but both the stamp and my pretty paper shoe up nicely anyway and lightening it up did not do it any favors.

Butterfly_floral_lace_square_C00500_19210 was used as a stencil through which the Iridescent glimmer spray showed up really nice. The lace border is a take off on the one in the silhouette store; it was not quite what i wanted, though i do have it in my collection, so using the closed spline tool i did the lace. If anyone want the cutting file I can email it to them.

Daisy ala Just Rite

2010-04-06T10:28:00.001-07:00

I was recently given a set of Just Rite stamps; a gift that is treasured (gifts usually are) and received it this last Saturday. When Monday came i got out my stamps and , wanting to do all of them at once, chose to do this one for the the ones who gave me the stamps.

dragonfly – punch by McGill
shapes cut with Silhouette
paper – Basic Grey Porcelain 6x6 collection; Neenah for stamped design
Stamp – Just Rite My Garden Set colored with water color pencils and dove blending solution

NOTES:

dragonfly was a happy accident; i brushed some green onto the dragonfly lightly then made one squirt of Tattered angels burnt Red which was off center but i liked the affect.

the silhouette pattern for the scalloped edge is nested_lollipop_flower_C00090_21585. I had cut the circle a few days ago and opened the lollipop file, made my circle the same size as needed, deleted the other shapes, matched them up making the flower a little lager than the circle and cut. That’s not a tutorial but just to show how easy it was to do to get the shape (I just love my Silhouette).

Joyous Easter Everyone!

2010-04-04T08:30:00.001-07:00

I am so glad that Jesus came and died for me. Then rose and took the keys of hell away from the devil! We have a Life in Christ that is so good! No matter what I go through I know that I have a place in heaven with my Savior.

I didn’t have a Lily or a pattern for a lily so i used a blossom from the Nostalgia set by Inkadinkado. Silhouette had a couple of Lillies but I ran out of cash to get them…oh well. Next year.

baskets

2010-04-01T10:59:00.001-07:00

Easter is this Sunday and I was lagging behind thinking i had another week. So, being that we had nothing in the house going, i started with the baskets. Then, when someone went to the store to get the other items necessary, they forgot the grass. !!!! Now, who in this world, would forget the grass! Oh, well. “I will make my own”, i said and did with tissue paper from last Christmas and handy scissors!

First basket

Second basket

Third basket

Birdies Singin’

2010-03-29T15:49:00.001-07:00

I think of an enclosed patio filled with ferns, a ficus tree or two and white Victorian wicker furniture with this little stamped image. The stamp is Impression Obsession’s Birdcages stamp. It shows up better if you click on the photo and get the larger view.

I was trying this out to see if I was going to like it the way I had it in my head. Sometimes those things don’t turn out so good and other times they turn out wonderfully better than expected. So I was using a scrap of Neenah paper and that wonderful flourish stamp of Time Holtz’s with old paper distress ink and so far so good. The next step was to add the little birdcages that delights me much. And these were going to be stamped and embossed with white embossing powder. So I got out the trusty heat gun and dried the distress ink (or so I thought) and proceeded. Well when i added the embossing powder I noticed that some of the flourish had picked up some of the embossing powder. I applied the heat gun to it anyway and kinda liked what i had on the paper. So then I went ahead and lightly smashed it face down into a bath of distress inks (shabby shutters and tattered roses) and this is what came out.

Neenah paper doesn’t do so well this way but water color paper has a bit of a raised grain to it and when stamping images sometimes ends up with gaps where ink should be. So I went ahead with the Neenah paper and dried it immediately. It didn’t turn out too badly.

This went really well with a piece of Prism Cardstock in Sring Willow Dark and put this on a piece of paper from the Porcelain Collection of basic grey’s. The fancy lattice border is a Silhouette file cut on Dick Blick sulphite drawing paper.

Silhouette Tip

2010-03-27T20:17:00.001-07:00

I have some cutting files now that are the basic shapes used in making cards (circles, squares, and ovals; plain and fancy) and this is presenting a bit of a problem as to which one to use with whatever stamp I am using at the time. So…i thought, why not cut a sample size for matching to a stamp, that I should make a set of these and then i can try them behind the stamp to make sure that i have the right size shape for the stamp.

I also have the mat for this circle that fits perfectly. Then I marked them with the size and file name. Then after cutting out the shape i realize i could use this negative shape for doing the same thing for paper mats that go behind the decorative stamped shapes.

I could move it around on the decorative paper to find the right spot on the decorative paper before cutting. I also decided to save a sample with the file name on it so that I got the right file the first time with minimum searching for it. The paper I found to be just great for this is Blick’s 60 or 80 lb sulphite drawing paper. It has a very nice crisp strong feel to it and cuts just fine. This would also work out for trying out designs as it is very inexpensive paper.

I also try to make the file name fit the shape and size of the shape being cut. There is also the Thumbnail browser To see what is in each file which comes in very handy.

Need a Hug?

2010-03-24T16:15:00.001-07:00

No matter what you are going through, maybe you are needing a hug today. Here is one for you from me. I can make that many cards and mail them out to you but you can save the photo and remember every time you look at it that God has a hug for you.

I learned a couple of things this morning. The first is my lovely Canon MP210 (printer) has a setting that can speed up or slow down the drying time of the ink. that makes it nice for embossing digi-stamps.

The other one is really a no-brainer but i messed up. I printed the sentiment onto sticker paper (Avery 4383) and besides the fact that i should have made it a little bit smaller I cut to shape and i should have just pressed it onto the white layer of the tag and trimmed to match the tag. Instead i shape cut it ( ;) )and the edges are showing, but it isn’t too bad. I did a neat little trick of 2 layers on the ‘hug?’ the bottom layer is gold with an upper layer sized just a little smaller and in colors to match the paper.

Materials

Card size is 4 1/4 x 5 1/2 inches. the Shape for the images (with mat cut a little larger) I cut on the silhouette from a shape scanned then imported onto the Robo Master software and then an outline was made from that. After the outline was pasted onto the image I un-grouped it and deleted the background image. I cut the white layer at 2 5/8” and the mat at 2 7/8”.
The sentiment tag is an SEI file (nameplates_C00011_27011 – keyword: tags, nameplate, label) Silhouette file of 4.
The scroll is a pair of scrolls (rough_swashes_C00138_23067 – keyword: flourish) not joined, done by hero Arts for Silhouette
The leaf stem is branch (branch_C00022_23851 – keyword: leaves) by Donna Downey and would be great for Sunflowers. I cut mine just a smidgeon over 2 inches long or tall on some Dick Blick student drawing paper and did a Tim Holtz technique for coloring with peeled paint Distress Ink. I was trying for a mottled look and did get it on one branch but not this one.
The flower centre is Puffy Velvet and i painted it yellow with water color pencils and used just pain water (I didn’t know how it would react to the dove blending solution)

embellishing

2010-03-12T15:54:00.001-08:00

this little trick will make your silhouette cut labels look a little ‘nicer’. I have an old Letraset burnisher for that i put to use for this. turning the flat shape over, laid it on a washcloth and running the burnisher around the edges I now have a raised edge to my flat shape

My burnisher looks like this:

I cannot afford one of those delightful little ‘machines’ that use the $25.00 dies. So when Silhouette came up with an offer for time payment I really jumped. I paid more for the machine and it will not do the embossing so i can do it this way and it looks just as good if not better.

And then, I went and did this little project. I don’t know how I will use this yet, but it is not going to be a card.

It would make a cute little album cover maybe….

Birthday

2010-03-05T09:20:00.001-08:00

My daughter is having her birthday in a few days and so i made up this little card.

…and, just for the fun of it, since Paper Gardens Project is having their birthday i can enter this into the challenge. So, Happy Birthday Paper Gardens and Cathy.

Recipe

Stamp – Penny Black’s Piece of my Heart stamps set birthday sentiment from the Flourishes Sweet Violet stamp set
Paper – Basic Grey’s Urban Prairie 6x6-inch pad and Neenah Solar White
handmade flowers
Dove Blender and water colors pencils Faber-Castell’s Albrecht Dürer in the following colors
Dk Naples Ochre #184 undertones cat & optional
Burnt Ochre #187 - cat
Dk Flesh #130 - roses
May Green # 170 – leaves

Paper Gardens carries water color pencils also they are right here

2 challenges

2010-03-02T10:25:00.001-08:00

This is a new one to me….entering 2 challenges. Even entering a challenge is new this year for me. Challenges are fun ways to spark your creativity and to share new ideas however large or small they may be. And since getting my latest paper pad (Basic Grey’s Porcelain) i was ready for doing something.

I ran across this TESC102 challenge after messing up a card for Paper Garden's challenge so now i will enter this one.

For the image I used Inkadinkado’s Nostalgia clear stamp set With 2 shades of pink and 1 green chalk ink pads. I won’t give the color names as 2 of them are discontinued (at least from 1 supplier) colors and it really doesn’t matter as long as the color are compatible with each other and the paper. And i used a scrap of white cardstock, so i do not know which one i used for sure, however it works so…..

Then i took that scrap and cut out 1 of the labels from the Cosmo Cricket’s journaling label set (journaling_boxes_C00048_26102) for the Silhouette. I did trim the end to fit into the design and added a strip of the lace from one of the sheets in the pad in place of the bling.

I was really nervy on this little scrap. Usually it is best to have the paper wide enough to fit under the 2 ’feet’ on the roller bar, but i didn’t do that this time. I just lined it up with the edge, pressed the paper down (making sure that it was sticking appropriately), and let the machine cut the label. What i didn’t realize is that this particular label set uses the pencils to do the inside line so my label has two line of cutting.

Flowers on Silhouette

2010-02-24T19:39:00.001-08:00

I love those little flowers that help add something to a card. And i saw some by prima that i wanted really bad but couldn’t afford. So i did my own!
I took a sheet of lighter than 80 lb. card stock and some Paper Plus Decoupage Finish and used the handy scraper tool (like Tim Holtz’s) to spread the decoupage glue over the cardstock and then placed a piece of paper from a Godey’s Ladie’s Magazine on top smoothing into place before laying books on top to dry. I hope somebody out there will not be too upset with me. I only used a page from a silly story (they were almost all too silly) and the print is very small. The flower is just a smidge over 1 1/2 inches diameter. The petals (i drew 3 and copied and pasted them around, rotating to fit nicely) were just placed around an imaginary center over which a circle was placed to from the flower center and these were joined. Then i noticed a couple of overlapping petals not covered by the center so i took another little circle and joined that to the flower over those cuts so they would disappear.
It was trial and error as the first one i did did not cut all the way through. The next time I put on all the ‘stops’ i could. I set the paper for 100 lb. tag, used the pink blade spacer, speed at 7 and thickness all the way up to 33.
My flower center was some embroidery thread snipped really fine over Mono Multi glue in the center of the flower.

the card is finished and looks even nicer than the photo, really. I used Distress inks for the background in dusty concord, milled lavender, peeled paint and shabby shutters on Neenah cardstock. Then I stamped the butterflies in Memento's Rich Cocoa ink, placed the flourish on this and sprayed a little Tattered Angels Iridescent Gold over that. the flower went on last but could have been included in the gold spray. This was placed onto some white paper from the Bittersweet (6x6) Collection which has very nice green grungy tones and then onto a piece of frosted amethyst Prism Cardstock which is not frosted, it’s just the name for the lighter tone.
The flourish is in the Silhouette online store as well as other flowers. I do have the cutting file that i used for this flower and if anyone wants a copy of the file they can email me and i will send a copy. I can only do .gsd file format at this time.
Have you ever wondered what the coloring is of a real Hedge hog? You can check it out here : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hedgehog

Just Playin’

2010-02-24T10:29:00.001-08:00

I have a cute little granddaughter having a birthday soon and was working on a card for her – I came up with this….

Well, things don’t always go just like you want them to – and after doing the little hedgehog and finding the paper i wanted to go with it i think this will do just great for my Son, who also has a birthday soon.

Materials

Basic Grey’s Porcelain 6x6 collection
Penny Black’s valentine critters
Prism green card stock
Sentiment from Flourish’s Violet stamp set
Neenah Solar Crest 80# cardstock
Dove Blender
Albrecht Durer Water Color Pencils in the following colors
Caput Mortum Violet #169 (for roses)
Indian Red, #192 (hedgie’s body)
Burnt Umber #280 (hedgie’s quills)
Sanguine #188 (flower pot)
Permanent Green ( i think) #266, you can use a better green than this was.

Most of these i can be bought at a lot of places, but i find that is is not easy to find Prism Cardstock which I like better than the popular brands which i buy also. And the water color pencils I bought at Dick Blick Art Supplies and they can be bought open stock. They and the Lyra brand are the best water color pencils ever!

When I did the coloring on this little critter, I had just done the green on the flowers and had wiped the blender off. However there was still some green on the pen tip and when I pre-wet the hedge hog for coloring there was a hint of green, then I laid in the color for the hedge hog with Indian Red #192 and I think it looks just fine. Green is a natural toner for reds anyway. And there was so very little green but just enough to shade the red a little and I think that made the hedge hog!

Valentines Projects

2010-02-13T19:52:00.001-08:00

have several little 3x3 cards and bags to show off. If you are in a rush and need something more for Valentines day PC Crafters & D.A.I.S.I.E. Company are two great places to visit. I used graphics from both these places for the following projects as well as Basic Grey’s Bittersweet 6x6 collection which i just love, and Hero Arts “Hero Hues” Layering paper in Snow or Water Color paper.

Since my audience, however small, is not all familiar with making cards, I will give a quick run-through. Base of the card is 80 lb. cardstock cut 3 x 6 inches and scored at 3 inches Then i chose 2 co-ordinating patterns from the Bittersweet collection (any patterned paper may be used though) and used a glue for the purpose of scrapbooking/cardmaking. I like to use the tape runners which is glue laid out on a narrow paper and in a plastic holder so that you can just lay it down on the paper and “run” it the length needed. The second glue is Tobow’s Mono Multi which is the next best. Tombow has a fine point for tiny things and a wide point at the bottom for spreading larger areas quickly. It also works as a permanent or repositionable glue. I measure the decorative papers and cut them to fit the card front and glued them into place.
I stamped the main image on water color paper but other paper can be used, and, thought it doesn’t show here, I used embossing tinsel which is embossing powder with glitter mixed into it. So the design is nice an sparkly. I wish it would show up that way but it is not; sorry. I handwrote the sentiment in mettallic gold to go with the design. After cutting with deckle edged scissors I used 3-d dots to keep the image in place. In years past i have used small pieces of egg carton and glue, now i have the ritzy stuff.
Card base on this card is the same as the other but orientation is tent fold. Bittersweet Dark red was used for the matting or background for the hear which is a combination fo graphics from 2 different set from PC Crafter’s web site. PC Crafter’s has their own little viewer for their files and when you pay for the file (which has several images and is usually only $4.95usd each) and when you drag the file into your editing program hold down the shift key as you drag and that automatically make the background transparent for layering. Since my very expensive program crashed and I have not been able to repair or replace it I have been using Serif’s Page Plus which you can get fro free and upgrade reasonably. It works rather well for this; i printed out several graphics on the Hero Arts paper and they turned out beautifully. Cut them out and pasted into place. This one is flat on the card, the next one is ‘popped’ up with 3D dots again.

The 2 sets of graphics are “My Funny Valentine” and “Flights of Fancy II”
Then from D.A.I.S.I.E. Company I used the little Valentine Treat Sacks and since they gave me a couple of plain bags I placed PC Crafters graphics on them to personalize as I had several to make this came in real nice.

This particular graphic set can be found HERE. The files come as .PDF and .JPG. I just loaded the jpg file and sized it to fit the whole page and when i printed i checked borderless in the printer dialog box.

Was playing around…

2010-02-10T19:21:00.001-08:00

with some of the distress colors on white cardstock and came up with this. Just loved the way the colors went on this and the rest just fell into place.

The ‘Love’ sentiment/flourish is from Silhouette and cut 3 inches at widest points. The flourish in the background is that beautiful one from Stamper’s Anonymous and can be gotten from just about anyone selling rubber stamps. Then i had a little posy stamp that is in the background. Kinda silly but it’s okay. Then also spritzed the background with Tattered Angels Irridescent gold Glimmer Mist before i glued the sentiment on.

I cut 3 of these with some other pieces and one was a little smaller and i placed it on this heart from a card for one of my granddaughters for valentines day…

The heart was also cut on my Silhouette machine.

I’m Cryin’

2010-01-15T10:33:00.001-08:00

My darling little valentine is ruined and I haven’t another ready at the moment!

The little 3x3 card was going just fine till

the flourish broke
the heart didn’t stamp perfectly
and the sentiment is too thick and the embossing powder looks coagulated

But

the flourish broke in the right place for the design envisioned so I can live with that. I cut it on Silhouette SD and used 24 lb. white inkjet paper.
the heart stamp looked okay anyway
but the sentiment ruined the whole card! I did not want cut-out letters or cut out phrases look and i don’t have a white ink pen at the moment.

So, I am crying but the basic idea is nice and in case i can’t get one up now before Valentines' day, I am posting it anyway.

The background is a ‘vignetted’ inking of my Hero Arts ‘Old Letter Writing’ stamp in sepia ink . The heart is embossed in white opaque detail embossing powder. the flourish I glued with Sailor’s Rolling ball glue pen. And since my embossing ink pen is too heavy a point I used the glue pen for embossing the sentiment, but it still came out too heavy.

New Years 2010

2009-12-31T13:25:00.001-08:00

Have a happy and prosperous New Year

I almost didn’t make it for putting up a New Year’s card this year I had trouble coming up with an idea; the color scheme was easy. I thought balloons would be nice but i didn’t have a stamp that fit that them…gonna have to get one or two.

Rummaging around in my stamp collection the idea surfaced. I found the star stamp i bought a few years ago and used some embossing powder that I mixed myself from a pinch of gold glitter in a bunch of white opaque. I store it in an old lip gloss container. I should have use more glitter, there wasn’t quite enough and it doesn’t show as well. Then I had to figure out how to do my lettering; decided to use Kingsthings Willow font @ 36 pt and green to go with the card background ‘Ornate Textured Background that is from Stampendous. Next, because I am out of dots at this time, i decided to curl the paper a little and glued only the ends to the card front.

Let it Snow!

2009-12-21T14:23:00.001-08:00

It has already snowed around here but there is no snow on the ground today and Christmas is Friday! It has been to warm and all we have had is rain. I am grateful for the rain but really love the snow. This is one of the dreariest seasons of the year and God took the liberty of showing mankind how to make a party anyway! It is not good to call one miracle better than another so I won’t but, this is so neat! It sparkles, it crunches, it rolls up into balls to make snow people, it’s great for skiing (though i don’t ski) and dresses up the earth in a grand beauty man cannot come up with on their own (same is true for flowers and trees, etc).

Inspired some by the sketch in the PaperCraftPlanet’s sketch challenge, so I made a card to fit that fits this theme; it just ‘sorta fell inta’ place.

Bazzill cardstock from the winter collection for the card
other papers from Dollar tree a couple of years ago
some unwanted paper turned backwards to use the plain white background for the snow flakes and snowman (don’t have any Neenah cardstock).
Snowman is from Inkadinkado and is from a set of Christmas images
Ink from clearsnap – prussian blue chalk ; matched just perfectly with the paper.
Snowflakes from a set for tags by Delta and Rubber Stampede years ago

Tags for Gifts

2009-12-16T07:26:00.000-08:00

I had been looking at all the lovely machines for cutting shapes and embossing for quite some time, drooling over them and what i could do if I had one and the high price (for me) they all are. So i am left with drooling. And then i looked at the other machines; the ones that do not take dies to cut and emboss but do not emboss. Oh well, you trade one thing for another. I thought it would really be neat to make my own shape as well as the ones that are available. I am that kind of person that loves to dabble. So when i found the Silhouette that offered a time payment and a tryout period i went for it.

When it finally got here (too bad not all things can go by e-mail) i set down to play. Well here it was cutting just beautifully and I thought of all the lovely things i could do with it. Being the time of the year it is snow flakes come to mind. So, I cut a few of those from the patterns i could get on the silhouette site. What fun!

Then i had to have some tags! so i pulled up the software and fixed up my own tags. Wonderful, right at my fingertips, just like i like it to be. I also fixed them to line up side by side, and it worked!! I am so thrilled. Here they are…

If anyone wants a copy of the cutting file you are welcome to email me and i will gladly send you a copy.

Most Holy Day

2009-12-15T11:07:00.001-08:00

I could not pass this stamp up without buying it. It is the most beautiful Nativity stamp I think i have seen. and this is the card that I made with it.

I stamped it with sepia ink on Bazzill card stock and matted with Bazzill cardstock form the Bazzill Basics Winter collection

Poinsettia 1

2009-12-09T12:09:00.000-08:00

I haven't posted much of anything here yet. I am really trying to gather up some supplies that will make a something (card or box or something) but most of my supplies are kinda on the old side and the inks are suffering the most. They are drying out. And trying to find some stuff at this time of the year can be difficult. While most supplies are in stock sufficiently I could not find an ink pad in sepia (where I was shopping) so am making do with a re-inker at the moment and using a makeup sponge to dab the color on the stamp.
Then there is the problem of the little kid in the candy shop! I want it all! I have been out of this for too long and everything is so tantalizing! Where do I start? Well i did manage to choose a couple of stamps and now i am on my way!
I had none of the new clear stamps and so had to get a block and being limited in the amount of money i had I got the largest block I could find (7 x 4 3/4")! It is beautiful! Heavy! but it works wonderfully!

Here is the card:

Supplies:

card stock (some i had on hand that is really nice)
Water color paper (for the poinsettia)
Sepia ink by clearsnap
water color pencils

Stamps:

Peddlar's Pack Stampworks - Poinsettia background
Penny Black - Banner of Joy

The One Poinsettia from "Banner of Joy" I stamped onto watercolor paper and colored with watercolor pencils. Then cut it out and pasted it to the front of the stamped card. I'm sure you could have figured that out but in case someone didn't i mentioned it.

2009-11-07T15:46:00.000-08:00

The start of a new project.

I bought a couple of new stamps and just had to try them out, of course. So i got out the little ink pad of black and inked up a couple of stamps and stamped on water color paper. Then proceeded to color them with water colors pencils.

I have never done that much with rubber stamps; usually crochet gets the upper hand, and trying to get enough to make up whole projects but end up with about half for the amount of money i can spend. Then a long time goes by before i can spend anymore and I always have to get a few more stamps. This makes it sound like i have a huge collection. Actually I don't. But i do have some cards in a box somewhere and the water color pencils, i purchased earlier this year, are ready and my ink pad in need of being replaced as there is not that much ink on the card. But then this lends to some nice color effects you cannot do with a fresh pad. I chose a shade of rose and yellow-green and laid int he color then brushed over it with a nice brush that is half natural and half synthetic sable by Silver (from Jerry's Artarama). And the water color paper is 95 lb paper by Canson. And the stamp is by Inkadinkado.

A new Group; A new blog

2009-10-25T13:04:00.000-07:00

As if I hadn't anything to do I need to start another blog? The creative person has more than one outlet to creativity anyway. there is only a main interest because it is a main passion. Right, of course right! I could, of course, show all my craft works and artworks on my other blog, Crochet Bits, but that seems to me to be a detraction from the main focus and i don't like to mix things up. So, i finally decided to put up another blog. I may not post as often here but there should be some interesting stuff from time-to-time.

The first is that i have joined an interesting group called Paper Craft Planet. This is for all those things like rubber stamping and scrap booking. I will fit in okay. And there was a contest, right away 2 days after i joined so I entered. I don't expect to win but enjoyed doing something with a couple of things i gathered off the internet of blogs i visit regularly. It is not fancy but it will work out okay i think.

I had to borrow some ink from my daughter whose cartridge was almost empty as well as mine. So the pretty background did not turn out green like it was supposed to, but i guess it will have to do. And I couldn't think of anything I could add to it till after I turned it in; I could have tied a little bit of gold cord to the watch. But the watch and the paper came from the Graphics Fairy. These are all scans from antique books and publications of different sorts and she generously gives them out free.

I do plan on having some little freebies on this site as I am able to. so do come back from time-to-time and check things out here.