Flowers for a swap!

Flowers for a swap!!! I made these in February before my SU party with intentions of making a brooch for each person who came. I was not perfectly happy with them then and now that I have rediscovered them I am liking them much better. In the end, they are a bit time consuming and trying to get 20+ done before the party seemed like more than I could handle at the time.

These were created using fabric samples I acquired somewhere along the way. The reddish ones were made using polyester drapery fabric and cut with a flower Sizzix die which cuts three different flowers. Once the shapes were cut I used my heat gun to alter them so they would be wavy and interesting. There are five layers plus a brad. I put an altered circle below the brad, added a small and a large flower then two large daisies offset from each other a bit so they would show all the way around. They can easily be added to projects or made into brooches!!

The others were made using sheer drapery fabric which I shrunk with a heat gun to about half the size before I cut out the circles. Shrinking it with the heat gun really made it bumpy and interesting though you had to be really careful not to burn holes in it. For one set, I cut the medium circles in half and gathered the straight side which made "petals". I layered seven on a large circle leaving a bit of space in the middle, covered them with 5 that met in the middle and then added a decorative brad. These were the ones I was most happy with but they were the most time consuming. The others had medium circles that were folded into a pie shape and glued to the large circle leaving a space in the middle to which I added a flower, a circle and a decorative brad. I used hot glue to glue these together.

I cannot point you to any one website for instructions because I must have perused at least a half dozen websites with tutorials on how to make fabric flowers and used what I liked from each one.

So I am sending these off to new homes where others will include them in their art!! Looking forward to seeing what I get in return and how I can use them in my art.

Therese

Altered tin!

I have been playing!! I do have a to do list of things that need to be done but instead I played with these little tins. My friend, Linda, was going to toss a bunch of these when I was at her house last month so instead, I took them home because I thought they had huge potential for altering!! I will be dropping by tomorrow to pick up my altered book which I forgot there when I was over for our play date. I'm in town picking up my sister - another play date in the works. So tonight I thought I would see what I could come up with using one of these little Making Memories tins that used to hold eyelets!!! I am sure you all have some hanging around your house too!!

We returned from PEI last week and I have some little treasures I collected on the beach while we were there so I decided to make a little treasure box for Linda with a few of my PEI treasures!!

I am so happy!! It turned out great!!!

First off I drilled a small hole in both sides of the cover that line up just above the dip in the tray when it is closed. I will be using them to seal up the treasure box when I am done altering and filling it.

I took the tin apart - just a little pressure will release the tray from the cover. I slowly rubbed paint thinner on the letters on the front cover using only my fingernail to gently scrub until they all lifted off!! Wiped that off and cleaned up the paint thinner with some dish soap - the cover was almost as good as new!! I added "friends" with rub ons and sealed them with acrylic sealer. They went really clear!! Yeah!! I added some yellow, green and blue transparent acrylic paint (homemade) which I used for this project on the outside of the bottom of the tray. It is a bit recessed so the paint, once dry, is perfectly protected from rubbing off or otherwise getting damaged. I put the tray back in the cover once everything was dry. It looks like the sea and sky!! I added a little sand dollar, a little white stone, a piece of white shell, a piece of blue mussel shell, some tiny bits of green, brown and clear sea glass - my PEI treasures - to the tray. To round out the mix I added a little red confetti heart, some multi coloured rhinestones and a few very small pearl white seed beads. I had experimented with sand and tiny holeless beads before altering the tin - they simply drained out of the tray when I suspended it. With the tray closed I added a wire hanger that runs through the little holes I drilled and keeps the treasure box nicely closed. I added curlicues to the ends of the wires!! I am sure there is a much better and prettier option but being very low on jewelery making skills I have decided that it will do the job for this project!!!

I am loving it!! These little boxes have so many surfaces that can be altered - inside and outside of the top and bottom cover - inside and outside of the tray - and are so transparent they would make wonderful little shrines, ornaments, jewelry, magnets, etc!! Alcohol ink and transparencies would be great on them!!

So, I challenge you to dig one out and see what you can do with it!!!! Load your creation to your blog and leave me a comment with the link!! I would so love to see what you created!!!! I think I will bring Linda back one or two so she can play too!!

Have a great weekend!! I am just starting a play date with my sister so I am sure we will have some creative projects to post over the next couple of weeks!!

Therese

Black, brown and cream card!

I have joined a new group - Art for the Creative Mind - and have jumped right in with a swap!! The challenge was to use black, brown and cream to create a card for our partner!!

I started with a brown card base, embossed it with a Tim Holtz embossing folder then added the cream top (punched with a SU border punch) to make it large enough for my envelope. I added some printed text at the top and a black and gold double sided ribbon. The text talks about driving in the early days and was taken from an old typing book. The original was too wide to fit the card so I scanned it, reduced in size a bit and printed it on cream paper - perfect!! The image is one I downloaded from the internet, printed on transparency, sanded the back and applied a colour wash of brown acrylic paint - gives it a vintage feel. I layered the acetate over a stippled cream base using discreetly placed pieces of double sided tape and added a soft knot of the same ribbon using a glue dot. I find that the altered acetate hides tape much more easily than the unaltered version. The laser printed punchie letters are also stippled and added to the card front using 3D foam tape.

Fun!! I am enjoying creating some one of a kind cards. Have been distracting myself from class prep so I need to get on that now!!

Therese

Christmas cards & challenges

Made these Christmas cards and satisfied several challenges along the way!! Sylvia's August challenge was winter, Karen's was tags and Year Round Christmas' was snowflakes. I started by spraying my cardstock with homemade shimmer spray. Once it was dry I stamped my little winter village (Stamp Barn) in brown at the top. I stamped off once before stamping on the card front so it would look snowy and not have too much contrast. I added decorative snowflake paper (Mind's Eye) on the lower section and layered on a brown border punched (SU) strip between the two. I punched a large snowflake (MS) from white shimmer paper, layered on a small blue one (MS) and attached them to the card front with a brown brad. I love this border punch because it leaves little half moon holes which are great to hang tags from. I made the little tag by colour printing the greeting surrounded by a circle large enough so that when I punched it out with my 3/4" punch (SU) I would have a halo of blue all the way around. I layered it onto a 1" punchie of blue and attached the tag with off white crochet thread.

The snowy village stamp has been in my collection for almost a year and just saw ink today!! Nice to have the time to play with new stamps!!

Therese

More trees!!

Needless to say there was a good little stack of "trees" in the baggie on my desk! I bought this top note looking stamp in the spring and decided it would work very nicely for this card. I stamped it on scrap cardstock and worked out where on the 4.25" x 3" rectangle I would need to colour print the words. It only took two tries to get it in the right place so I printed the words in a coordinating green, stamped the top note in red and cut it out. I layered the three trees on the right hand side and punched a hole below the greeting where I inserted the two long ends of the tied ribbon. I brought each end to the sides and glued them to the inside of the card front. The top note piece is attached to the card front with 3D foam tape. The card front is stamped to give it some texture. I used a small stamp for this card but substituted the large "sanded" background stamp (SU) for the others because it was much less time consuming. I made some of these into kits as well.

Therese

Cards with trees

More Christmas cards!! I was rummaging around on my desk and found the little stack of trees and scraps left over from these cards so I decided to create a few more along the same lines. The half triangles created from cutting my trees from a sheet of decorative paper I attached to each other using regular tape on the back. I love how interesting they are because they are made up of two different papers. I added to the mix some large single layer trees and made up these cards. All the same ingredients -the red ones have a red colour printed greeting on ivory on a portrait card and the green ones (artichoke) have theirs printed on white cardstock on a landscape card. I added a little embossed die cut heart and a star punchie!! The card front is embossed with the Swiss dots embossing folder.

I have made up a few kits as well. I will offer them to my group in the fall or will make them up when I am too busy to make Christmas cards - maybe November!!

Very happy with how these turned out!!

Therese

Birthday card

A birthday card for a special little girl!! She is growing up fast!!

I embossed the bottom of the card using a swirl embossing folder, added a rectangle of blue handmade paper from my stash and layered on a strip of embossed vellum that coordinated very nicely!! The greeting is printed, layered on pink and glued to the card front using 3D foam tape. It needed a bit of an accent so I created a flower using the SU five petal punchies - one in blue, one is olive - and embossed both of them. Added a pink punchie and attached it to the card using a clear crystal brad.

Perfect!!

Therese

OSW - a set of cards

One Sheet Wonder!! This technique allows you to create a set of cards that coordinate - great as gifts!! I taught this class to a group of women this week which were all beginner card makers. They enjoyed the class and some got quite creative with their supplies.

I designed this OSW to use a 4" x 12" inch piece of decorative paper - makes the best use of 12" x12" scrapbook paper. By adding 3 sheets of 8.5 x 11 cardstock - 1 neutral and two different colours that coordinate with your decorative paper you can create a set of four cards. These would be perfect packaged in this little card holder for gift giving any time of year.

I created the accents using SU scallop punch, 1 3/8" circle punch and daisy punch. I added some strips and 1/4" punchies cut from the leftover cardstock as well as

some paper piercing using a push pin and mouse pad.

Any decorative paper could be used for making these - gift wrap, all over stamped cardstock, etc. You could also use any manner of accents - either ones you assembled yourself or purchased ones or a small stamped image. So many options!!

The holiday season is coming up and everyone on your list can use handmade cards!! By changing up the colours of your cardstock you can even make sets that look quite different using the same decorative paper!!

So I encourage you to get creative and be ahead of the gift giving curve by making up a few sets of these this week. Challenge yourself to use what you have!!

Here is the cutting diagram you will need as well as the directions for assembling the cards!!

Consider creating some card kits for a friend or family member who has expressed some interest in cardmaking but has yet to take the leap! You might gain a cardmaking buddy!!

Therese

Lighthouse cards

I created a few cards using my seaweed handmade paper and colour printed images of a light house I took while on holidays. After printing the images in colour and grayscale I thought they would look much better with the handmade paper if they were sepia. Having never changed a photo to sepia before, I searched online for a tutorial. I found this one which worked well but because I was not reading and following the directions carefully it took me most of the afternoon to get something decent. A bit of a learning curve there!! This morning I was able to start over and get a better image in a short period of time and managed four cards!!

I glued the handmade paper to the brown card front and used my little sewing machine to pierce holes around edges. Reminds me of the little plover tracks all over the beach in PEI. Printed my greetings onto a label, cut them with wavy scissors, glued them to the accent layer and added some pierced holes to them as well. Layered the greeting and image to the front of my card in several different configurations!!

Just what I need for cards today!!

Taught cardmaking to a new group last night and we had a great time. Will post the samples later!!

Therese

Handmade paper!

Just returned from a fabulous vacation in PEI!!!!!! Wonderful beaches, great food, friendly people and just the most glorious weather!!

I picked up a bit of seaweed off the beach to add to some handmade paper to create a card for the owner of the wonderful little cottage we stayed at!!

I made 18 sheets yesterday which were dry in no time because of the glorious weather we are having here!!

I added the seaweed to handmade paper leftovers. I always save what is left over at the end of a batch of paper by shaping into a ball and drying. The leftovers always reconstitute very quickly and are great for quick batches of paper.

I am off to make some cards!!

Therese

Snowflakes and Santas!

Santas and snowflakes for these cards!!

The laser printed image is outlined in black and layered over a snowflake embossed background (CB). Keeping with the black and white theme I added a double knotted ribbon - tucked one end under the image and the other under the embossed layer on the right. Added a punched colour printed greeting (SU) with 3D foam tape!!

Love the hint of colour added by the greeting!!

Made a landscape version to accommodate the wider ribbon!!

Therese

More Christmas cards!

Still making Christmas cards!!

Am needing a set of Christmas card kits so I am still in Christmas card mode.

Here I layered a colour printed St. Nick over red and glued him to a holly embossed card which was highlighted with white pigment ink. Added a white snowflake punchie (SU) using a silver brad.

Quick and easy!!

Therese