VASES FOR PAPER FLOWERS

REPURPOSED JARS - TWINE VASES

The papercraft aspect if this project are the flowers in the vase - the lilies that have featured previously, and the little text flowers that were made by stacking up three layers of two sizes of retro flower punched book pages.  The layers are secured with wire threaded through a button and twisted underneath to form stems.

Actually the flowers are a bit of a pretext to share these little vases (made from an empty jam jar and herb container).  I was feeling a bit overly tired and wanted something that involved a minimal amount of brainpower (since I'm not very good at sitting in front of the TV and doing nothing with my hands) and saw these in a craft book from the 1970s - all the go back them, and making a revival now, I think.  Just pick a jar, get some string, and wind, coating the jar with a thin layer of tacky craft glue as you go.  I had some hessian trim in a contrasting colour to add as a feature but this is optional.  If you like to fold paper flowers or want a container for pens and pencils these are ideal - very low cost and even lower brain power required.

CORK STAMPING AS DIGITAL PAPER

I haven't done any digital bits for a while so I thought it was about time.  I keep some examples of things that I really don't like as well as ones that I do (although not as many of them!).  It sometimes helps to try and work out what it is that you don't like, so that you can produce more work that you do.  (If that makes sense).  My start image was this rather horrible concoction of stuck together papers and brown paint stamped on with a cork so.......what don't I like?  Well, for starters the colours are foul, the white panel is too stark and the cork stamping just looks like muddy blodges.  so can it be saved??

I opened up the picture in Elements and started with the colours which just don't work together.  I played around with variations adding lots of blue and green until it looked a bit better.  The cork stamping still looked a bit splodgy and messy to I went into the filters gallery and from the Pixelate section selected and applied "Pointillise" which introduced a little order to the "blodges".  Last of all I just used the elements cookie cutter tool to cut out a butterfly and there you are...!!
Truthfully, I probably won't ever use this background again, but I had fun trying to make it at least semi-presentable!!

ACCORDION FEATURE FOR CARD

TIE WITH A RIBBON

I really like little accordion books, and there's no reason you can't adapt them for cards as well.  This little book ties closed and features Darkroom Door stamps, but the format is handy if you're making a card that lots of people want to sign - just make the book a bit bigger if they want to add their "best wishes" as well.
Just an aside....the feather is a Couture Creations die that I've chopped up a bit to make a bit more "feathery" and I've tied two together with wire - white card on the bottom and  velum on top. I've added just a teeny spray of water to the vellum to make it curl slightly - again, it just gives a little more body to the die cut.

ACCORDION FEATURE FOR CARD

DIE CUT WITH FABRIC

DIE CUT WITH FABRIc

Thin cotton fabric stuck to thick packaging card with double sided Jac paper, then die-cut looks good, and is an alternative to paper or paint/ink.

If you cut with the fabric face down on the die, the edges bend over slightly and you can get away without having to ink the sides.

You might have to experiment to find out which of your dies are up to the task as the ones designed for thin paper won't have enough cutting power.  I haven't tried a doiley die, but suspect the more intricate cutters wouldn't work very well either.  This is a thick Sizzix die, but I expect most of the nesting dies and the old silver Cuttlebug ones would work too.
As long as the stack you use is not too thick for your machine, it won't hurt to experiment!

DISTRESS INK EMBOSSING

DISTRESS INK EMBOSSING

I was going to put this little example in the bin about three times but something stopped me.

It was created by swooshing a few different colours of distress ink, straight from the cubes onto the plastic surface of an embossing folder,( whilst talking to a room full of people, although that bit is optional)  then running it through the Cuttlebug.

Distress inks are very watery . (They are supposed to be), this means that they tend to bead on plastic and smoosh together more than a lot of other inks, when this technique is used.

I kind of like the random nature of the result.  If I was doing it again with a bit more thought I'd choose colours closer on the colour wheel (perhaps yellow-orange-red) and maybe even add a little spray of water to encourage the inks to spread a little bit more.

There's a l lot of potential to play here and, for those who stress about such things, the ink came straight off the embossing folder with a baby wipe!!

EMBOSSING WITH ALUMINIUM FOIL

ALFOIL EMBOSSING

This is a simple technique that just involves wrapping some stiff cardboard (I used packaging) with a two or three layers of aluminium cooking foil, and embossing with your Cuttlebug (or whatever machine you have).

I just secured the foil with a bit of tape at the back but some double-sided Jac would be a more stable way to fix it.

This was a quick snap taken under a fluorescent light but I'm quite taken with the photographic applications of a really shiny embossed surface, as well as its obvious craft uses.  (If you look closely there's a little bit of me in this shot!).

Colour could be added in a variety of ways.....perhaps for future posts????

THE ''PRE-JOURNAL' JOURNAL

PRE-JOURNAL 

PRE-JOURNAL PAGE EXAMPLES

Not exactly a technique this week, but........
Popping photos up on a blog is one way to keep a track of various papercraft techniques but nothing quite beats the real thing......so I've finally started to organize all my little examples by sticking them into a sketch book and adding captions, to remind me what they actually are.

Its not a fabulous art journal.....more a scrapbook in the old-school sense of the word, full of bits and pieces to provide inspiration for when I do get the time to make something fabulous....sort of a pre-journal journal if you like.

Its turning out to be quite a fun activity in itself.  I don't aim to "finish" a page......just stick things here and there until there's no more room left.  No rules, even about which way is up, a great way to pretend all those little scraps of paper that used to live here there and everywhere, were always destined for greater things than the rubbish bin!!!!

ALL SORTS EMBOSSING

ALL-SORTS EMBOSSING

Following on from last week's theme of using what you already have, is this week's example of some of the things you can use to emboss in your Cuttlebug/Bigshot etc.
The possibilities are endless but from the few things I tried, I'd suggest that best results are obtained with low, stiff items such as the mesh, second best with low stretchy things like the rubber bands, and less successfully higher things like the paper clips and coins.  The latter tend to tear the paper.  I used 200g card, but imagine that if you used a softer handmade paper and perhaps made it just a little damp (not wet) you'd probably have less tearing.
To emboss "all sorts" in the Cuttlebug you need a rubber embossing mat, which goes on top of the paper.  The items go underneath.  You'll also need at least one plate (probably your white A plate), if not two (B or C plate) on the very bottom of the stack, and ideally another plate (B) on the top.  Its a matter of juggling the plates (possibly with the addition of cardboard shims) to make the right combo that is thick enough to have the desired embossing effect without endangering your machine in any way.  Cuttlebugs are tough little machines but they will break if you force things through so proceed with caution!!
I've also used white card for these examples actually didn't think this would work anywhere near as well as it did.  As I'm a bit overly busy at the moment I don't have time to repeat using a core colour paper and sanding or even inking over the design, but I think both would enhance the effect. Mind you, this does give me something else to post when I do have more time to play!!

PAPER LEAVES

DIY LEAVES

Now that we have access to all those lovely dies and hole punches its often easy to overlook things that are right in front of us.  This is an example of one thing I did manage to notice.......

The leaf at the top blew in through the door at work.  The leaf at the bottom is some of our packing card with under 5 minutes "work".

I used the real leaf as a template, and cut out the other with scissors (yes...they're still useful).  After scrunching it up a bit, I added some "veins" with a coloured pencil (there was only one brown one in the cupboard so I didn't really chose the shade), then dabbed a bit of distress ink here and there.  A little bit more scrunching added extra shape.

A bit more time, and more careful selection of colours would do wonders!!!  In the meantime I'm waiting for summer so I can acquire a new range of "leaf templates"!!

PARTIAL DIE CUTTING

PARTIAL DIE-CUT

 You might have noticed that I'm having a bit of a Cuttlebug thing happening at the moment.  It is work-related, but even so, I've been discovering and rediscovering lots of techniques that I either haven't tried or had all but forgotten.  The trouble is, Cuttlebugs are just so useful without even trying to do tricky things, its easy just to stick to straightforward die-cutting and embossing.

TAGS FEATURING PARTIAL DIE-CUTTING

This week's technique is simple but I hadn't really played around much with it until recently, and I've added "play more soon" to my "To Do" list.  Dies obviously only cut where the cutting ridge is in contact with the paper/card, so by threading the paper (or in this case a thick tag) through the die, a decorative edge is added using a bracket square die.  I've also done some partial cutting with the little Marianne bird die into the bottom of other tags, and then used the cut-puts as extra decoration.

I'm now starting to look at my dies in a whole new way, when I consider all the different sections that could be used in different ways.

TORN PACKAGING FOR BACKGROUNDS AND TEXTURE

TORN PACKAGING FOR BACKGROUNDS

People are ripping packing card apart all over the internet at the moment.  More talented folk than me are even ripping patterns and complicated designs.  I thought at the very least I should give it a go.  As I don't do a lot of grunge style work I wasn't anticipating it being very useful for my cardmaking but the effect is kind of compelling and may yet find its way to a sample card or two in the future.

It did, however, occur to me that a scan or photo of the torn card would make a terrific texture to add to some of my photos.  The two I've played with aren't "quite there" but, as you can see, its worked well enough to justify a bit of playing around.  Just drag the torn card photo on top of another picture and play with blending modes in Elements, if you'd like to try for yourself.

SUPER-SATURATED AUTUMN LEAVES
+ TEXTURE

SEPIA + TEXTURE

CUT A RECTANGLE WITH A SQUARE DIE

RECTANGLE FROM A SQUARE DIE

This is one of those simple techniques that seems almost self-evident after someone has shown you how to do it!!

Position your die and paper in your Cuttlebug, roll through almost, but not quite to the end, then roll backwards.  Reposition the die so that the scallops align, at the end.  (You might want to use some removable tape to make sure it stays in place).  Roll through to complete your cut.

That's all there is to it!!  I'm not sure how it would work in other die-cutting machines but expect the same principle would probably apply.

SLIGHTLY MORE THAN SIMPLE FANS

THE FINISHED FAN

 A couple of techniques to share with this folded fan.  We all made them when we were kids, didn't we - even without the benefits of scoring boards, and bone scorers.  I think we used to secure the bottom either by folding it over a couple of times or stapling it together!!

Here are three folded fan ideas.

FOLDED AND PUNCHED LOWER EDGE

1.  Use a border punch to add a decorative edge to both sides of the strip.
2.  Bend the bottom up so that the reverse colour (in this case white) makes a contrasting section at the base of the fan.  (After posting this I realize I probably should have used a less subtle contrast in my example - but give it a try if you want to see for  yourself how much it adds to the "basic" fan.)
3.  Staples are a bit ugly (unless you're going for a grunge or industrial look) and are a bit hard to get through lots of layers, and glue can be messy and hard to apply in all those pleats, so an alternative way of securing the bottom is to punch along the (in this case, folded) bottom edge with a small circle handpunch, then thread thin white-coated wire in and out of the holes.  Fold up the paper, pull the wire tight and twist the edges together to secure.

Happy fan making!!!!

ENGRAVING WITH A DIE

ENGRAVING WITH A DIE

Another simple little Cuttlebug idea that came about as a happy accident.  I needed to shim a die, and for reasons I won't bore you with, put a sheet of thick packing card under the top cutting plate to do the job.  The die (which is from Couture Creations), cut through the paper I wanted cut, but then cut into the thick packing shim without cutting right through, leaving a debossed/engraved image which actually looks much better in real life than the photo would indicate.
I think experimenting with using extra-thick card (or a couple of pieces of card) with the intention of NOT cutting the shape out  of one is worthwhile.  (Do adjust the stack accordingly, though, and never force anything through, as tough as they are Cuttlebugs and Bigshots are breakable if you overdo it.
A bit of inking over the top would add interest.  I think with a little effort I could probably get a nice engraved leather look.........but that will have to wait.  So much I want to do, so little time!!!!!!!!!!

STAMPED BABY WIPES

Stuck to card with Jac paper

Cut shell with babywipe background

Alcohol-free baby wipes make stamp-cleaning easy, especially if you're crafting away from home.

These really thick, soft ones from a well-known chain store (oh, OK, from Target) also make brilliant backgrounds.  No need to be too fussy - just avoid cleaning colours opposite each other on the colour wheel on the same cloth unless you want a bit of a murky mess (even that might have applications).

The next step of this "non-technique" came about when I left a recently (over) inked shell stamp face down on a cloth and found that it had left a very clear impression, even given a bit of bleeding of the ink.  Stuck to cardboard with double sided Jac paper, and then cut out with scissors, leaving just a little border all around, the shell makes a really interesting embellishment, with a great soft furry texture.