Sunday, February 22, 2015

Using Scraps for Paper Piecing

So, I've made great efforts to use up scraps this year. So far, I've done ribbon tails, inlaid embossing, and patchwork cards. Here's one more way to use scraps: Paper Piecing.  Anytime you need just a small area, go to your scraps first!

Paper piecing means stamping an image several times on different papers and then fussy cutting out different parts of the image. Then, you assemble all the cut out pieces on to a full stamped image of the item.

Here's one I did with Froggy Gift by High Hopes Rubber Stamps, which I am entering in their February month long Challenge #152, Anything High Hopes Goes:
For this one, I cut out the boy's hat and overalls from two different green patterned papers. I coloured the rest of the image with my alcohol markers.  For a more masculine feel, I crimped some paper to look like corrugated paper and I added some hemp twine under the sentiment. You might be able to see the details better if you click on the close up picture.


Here's another version of paper piecing that I did with an Annabelle Stamps image:
For the monster, I paper pieced his shirt and the balloon. The rest I coloured with my alcohol markers. The sentiment here came with the stamp set. I tried to make this one more like a polaroid, or a yearbook picture. I think he turned out cute. I like the pattern on his shirt!

Sunday, February 15, 2015

Monster Valentine Card 2015

Just a short post today to show you the Valentine's Day card I made for my husband this year. I think it turned out pretty cute. I originally envisioned a big speech bubble on the front. I tried it but I didn't like how it looked. So, I decided to just hand-write, going for a bit of a comic strip type look for the writing.


I like my little peeking monster. It's of my own die cut designs. The inside has another of my own die cut monsters. I made the front monster from pink polka dots (cuz it's me, the girl) and the inside one is grey polka dots (for my hubby).
He thought it was cute. :)

Friday, February 6, 2015

Best Wishes Birthday Boy - Give a Poem a Home

A short time ago, my nephew celebrated his 9th birthday. This year, it was a Star Wars Rebels theme. Well, I wasn't able to produce anything Star Wars, but I did manage an "outer space" theme.

Since I was off the mark on the theme, I wanted something different for the card. I've been meaning to try a card in a box for a while. Here's what I came up with:

This one is an A2 card (4.25 x 5.5 inches). I think it might be easier to work with an A7 (5x7) in the future. I popped up my elements on clear acetate to give the floating effect. These are just stickers I bought at the dollar store one year. I mounted them on white card stock and cut them out first.

The sentiment hides on the back, straight piece. I printed it on card stock with my laser printer. It reads:

It’s your birthday.
Jump for joy!
What should we give
The birthday boy?

A pail full of hugs
And some presents too
And only the BEST
Birthday wishes for you!


Even the men at the party said it was a neat card. I was happy with it! There's a tutorial on Splitcoast Stampers and plenty of other tutorials on the web. The Splitcoast Stampers one makes a huge card, so I modified the measurements to make it an A2. It's pretty easy: Score the height in half and then make 4 equidistant score lines along the width + a half inch on the end for the glue tab. I've even seen a tutorial for a nicely shaped horizontal one (much better than the Splitcoast Stampers dimensions). I plan to try that out too! (one day)