A rose for Gloria

My friend Gloria from the Crafty Card Creators yahoo group has this lovely card on her blog, Gingerbread and Pansies I fell in love with the shape of the card and decided to copy the shape. Well, first let me tell you it wasn't as easy as I thought it was going to be to get the shape right! By the time I did get the shape right I was ready to quit! 

Rather than waste the time I had already spent on it I decided to use a digi image I already had colored, a rose from Fred She Said, forgetting completely that I hadn't used the rose on another card because I didn't have the right shade of red cardstock! I had already cut out the rose when I remembered this so I was determined to use it and went with a green card base instead of red. I had no suitable DP to put behind the rose so I used a scalloped oval Nestie to scallop the bottom of the white panel and embossed it using the Cuttlebug Textile Textures folder.

For such a simple card it sure took a lot of time and it is not nearly as pretty as Gloria's!

Daisies

This is another image I found by doing an image search. I used the same stencil as yesterday but did not cut it out around the outside. I trimmed the white layer, put designer paper behind the cut-outs and added another strip on the left side and then mounted it on a pink card base. 

Poppy

I found this image by doing a search for 'coloring pages flowers'. If you are short on stamps, or short on funds for your crafting try doing an image search. You will be surprised at what is out there! 

Embossing/Cutting Tutorial

I have had a few people ask how I do the embossing and what tools are need so rather than keep replying to emails with the same info I thought I would do a short tutorial here.

The first thing you need are the tools. These are the few tools you will need:

1. Double sided removable tape to hold your stencil securely to the paper.

2. A mechanical pencil with the finest lead you can find. A pencil with .05 lead can be found in the art dept. If you can find one with .03 lead even better!

3. A ball stylus. If you can find one with a double ball with a small ball on one end and a medium ball on the other so much the better.

4. I prefer a knife with a swivel blade as the blade is smaller and also finer but some people use a regular craft knife. A swivel blade knife can be found where the craft knives are.

5. Magic Rub eraser. Magic Rub is a brand name but it erases the pencil marks without scuffing up the paper.

6. You can use any kind of paper or card stock that is light enough to
see through. The heavier the cardstock the more pressure needed. Light weight papers need a gentler touch or they will tear.Waxed paper rubbed over the paper where you are going to emboss will help the stylus to glide over the paper more easily.


7. You will need stencils. Most of the stencils I use are from Marianne Designs, a Dutch company.
There are a few places online that carry them. Some in England and some in the US. I am in the US but I order stencils from England HERE as they work out to be cheaper for the same thing even with the rate of exchange and the shipping. They also arrive faster most of the time!

You can also find some at A Touch of Grace - Paper Boutique but the
best selection is at Kamya Craft Supplies

8. You will also need a light source. after taping the stencil to the
paper you could then tape your paper to a window. Another
way is to put a lamp under a glass topped table....or you can buy
a light box. There are many light boxes on the market but the one I recommend is the one on the right. There is a small one that you can find in craft stores for around $10 but the light is a small incandescent light bulb that gives off uneven light and also gets very hot. The light box pictures has a retail price of $47.99. At Sam's Club it is $44.13 but at Madison Art Shop you can get it for $29.99


METHOD

Using the repositional double sided tape, tape the stencil to your paper. Make sure that the tape is not where you want to trace your cut-outs. With a mechanical pencil trace around the spaces you will be cutting out later. (The pencil marks will be on the right side of the paper).

Turn the paper over on the light box so that the stencil is underneath the paper. With the stylus trace the embossing spaces. Use light pressure at first to break down the fibers in the paper and then gradually use more pressure. I usually go over each space about a dozen times to get a good impression but it will depend on the thickness of your paper.

Remove the stencil and tape from your paper and with a knife cut on the lines you traced earlier. It does take practice so be patient! Start by pushing the point of the blade into the paper and then slowly and steadily follow the lines like you are tracing with a pencil. Turn your paper if you need to!

Use the Magic Rub eraser to remove any pencil marks. It is a good idea to erase around all the cut outs to make sure all the pencil marks are removed.

I have been asked if the stencils can be used in a Cuttlebug or other embossing machine. They can...but there are some buts. My Cuttlebug bends the stencils. It might just be my machine so you can try it at your own risk I guess. The other but is that when you use an embossing machine you will get all the outlines of the stencil...the edges, which you might not want. Also you will be embossing the spaces you want to cut out and if you don't cut perfectly you will have a bend around your cutting.

I hope this answers some of the questions you may have but please feel free to email me if you have other questions and I will be glad to answer them if I can.

More Hibiscus

I have learned a lesson. When you get a digi image the right size.....SAVE IT! I now have a ton of Hibiscus images printed in different sizes trying to replicate the size I made the first one so that fit perfectly in the embossed frame. In the end I gave up and made a frame to fit the image instead of the other way around.
This Hibiscus is bigger than the original and overwhelmed the embossed frame. I was trying to duplicate the first card I made using the Luxe Label stencil as my daughter wanted one for a friend's birthday but I wanted to keep the original. I made this frame using 2 different sizes of Nestablilities Labels 4.
This image is the same size as the one above but I used only a part of the same Luxe Labels stencil as the original. These stencils really are very versatile if you use just parts of them and mix and match with other stencils. Both flowers are colored with pencils and OMS.

Cute, cute, cute!

As you know I don't do cute very often but I couldn't resist this cute digi stamp from Clearly Delightful. I bought this image but she has some freebies too!

The background paper on this card is from last year's the spring matstack from DCWV. The image is colored with pencils and OMS.

I used the same image for this card with different text that comes with the images. The background paper on this card is from another DCWV stack Holiday Collection.

From polka dots to purple

It seems like I have gone from polka dots to purple! I wasn't intentional but there it is.
For this card I used the lacy fence stencil on the right hand side and then just a part of the stencil on the left. The CS is a pale lavender although the color doesn't show up well in the picture. The image is from Hampton Art Stamps colored with pencils and OMS.

The African Violets on this card is a digital image that I printed and colored with pencils and OMS. You can download the image HERE

Still dotty!

When I started this card I really didn't know where I was going with it. It really started out as an experiment using the corner stencil to see how it would fit on an A2 card.


I used one corner of this Embossing Romance stencil to do the corners on the card and then tried to figure out what to add to it. The dotted paper was on my desk so I added that. Then the question was what else to use? I chose an image from Dover and colored it with pencils but looking at the picture the embossed corners overpower the image. Now why didn't I see that before!? I think what would have been better would have been a single large flower. Ah well it is what it is.....an experiment. LOL

Tiger Lily

More experimenting here. This time the challenge was to make the lily look like a lily! I used pencils and OMS again. I can't say that I am pleased with the card itself but I am quite happy with the lily!

Pansies in a cup

The pansies in a cup image is a digital image from Fred She Said. I colored it using pencils and OMS. Nothing special here just playing really.

Dotty about Hibiscus

Where has the week gone! The weather here in San Antonio has been glorious, spring is in the air, but that also means that the oak trees in my yard are loosing their leaves and making a big mess! This particular kind of oak loose some of their old leaves while the new ones are budding so they are never naked. The high wind we have had has helped the leaves to drop and make a big mess on my driveway and patio. Yesterday I picked up eight 33 gallon bags of leaves and there are still more to be picked up but they are dropping nearly as fast as I can get them picked up!

My crafting time this week has been spent trying different ways of coloring. Some worked and some didn't but in the next few days I will be posting the cards I have made with the colored images that I was happy with.



My love affair with black and white continues! For this card I colored the Hibiscus with pencils and OMS and then used a stencil to make a frame around it.



Another Hibiscus and polka dots but this time I used a Mattie's Luxe Labels stencil, embossed and cut out to make a frame then I cut out the hibiscus and attached it to the frame. I used the stencil to trace around on the black dotted paper, cut it out and attached the frame with dimensional tape.

Hibiscus

Yes I am back to flowers but still coloring! I have colored quite a few images but haven't made cards as I am having a hard time coming up with a layout so I am waiting for inspiration! I did manage to come up with layouts for these pretty Hibiscus and the image is a digi image you can find HERE

I actually printed out the pictures a little close together ( more about printing at the end of this post) so I was limited as to how I could use them but after taking the time to color them I was determined that I was going to do something with them!




I used the largest and next to largest Nesties labels 2 to cut and emboss the frame and then the next smallest to cut and emboss around the flower which was colored with pencils and OMS. Then using the largest die again I cut a piece of vellum stamped with a script background stamp from Stampendous. I glued the vellum to the back of the frame and used dimensional tape to raise it up. I used the tape again to raise the flower panel.


For this card I used the cut out left from the center of the frame.

About printing digital images. In the past I have used my photo editing program, Paint Shop Pro to print digital images. Many of the digital images you find on the web, whether they be free or for sale are larger or smaller than you want. I found that re-sizing in PSP was not always satisfactory as if the size of the image was changed too much you didn't get a good print.

The solution is to use Word! Open a new Word document and on the menu at the top click on Insert/Picture/From File. Browse for the image you want to use, click on it and then click on Insert. Your image will come up. Click on it and there will be a box around it. Hover your cursor over a corner node until you get a slanted arrow, click and pull the image to the size you want. Perfect prints every time!

More skinny legs!

These are some more digi images from Squigglefly.com I don't do cute very often, as you have probably noticed I am a flower person.... but I am having a lot of fun with these digi stamps and bright colors! These images were both colored with pencils and OMS.



Back to printing and coloring!

Sassy!

I have been doing more coloring with both pencils and Copics. For both these cards I used the same digi image from Squigglefly.

For this card I used pencils and OMS to color the image.

Don't you just love those skinny little legs!

This image I reversed and colored with Copics. I will have more cards with digi images from Squigglefly in the next few days. I still need a lot of practice with Copics but I am determined to master them!