Bobbing and Weaving, Ducking and Diving, Picking and Choosing

What feels like a really long time ago I made this tray – for me. There was a second tray, destined for the husband’s lap, which never got altered.

Until now.

Over at Scrapbook Challenges it was my turn this month to post a technique challenge – so, thought I, the perfect opportunity to finish this two-part tray project!

My technique? Paper weaving. I thought about repeating the sunburst effect on his tray, but since good old checkers are really his thing, the paper weaving idea fit much better:

he loves the black and white

It's not finished - I need to add his name, laminate it and varnish the frame, so I'll post a nice picture when I've done all that.

But I liked it so much I did some more on a birthday card for our friend:

the birthday boy's gonna so totally, like, flip over this

If you want to see in-progress pictures of me weaving paper, get onto the Scrapbook Challenges forum!

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In other news, the Gauche Alchemy mamas challenged me in December to make a video showing how to make a scrapbook layout with their mixed media products - for anyone who is stuck in mixed media canvas mode but wants to switch to layout mode and doesn't know where to start. Now, I want to add a little disclaimer here for the video quality: December was a tough month for me – it seems that I ate everything in my path, including all the hours in all the days, and I just couldn’t get to doing anything as properly as I wanted to. This project included. But to go with this GA blog post, here is the video nonetheless – and a promise that next month’s will be altogether more… together!

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Finally, my trusty assistant, DJ the Dog, helped me pick out two winners for the SC blog hop RAKs here on AndHandmadeToo:

Winners, PM me your addresses – there’s a long-awaited trip to the post office I have to make anyway, so I may as well send all the packages in one go!

My Heart Belongs To Daddy

Although I can't claim I ever was a daddy's girl (nor much of a mummy's girl, for that matter), I can say with certainty that as I've grown up my relationship with my dad has also grown. I now see him as full of wisdom, happy to give advice if I ask for it, supportive and then some, relaxed enough to trust my judgement on things, uncomplaining, and accepting of those traits I have which set me apart from the rest, and from him.

I know this post is kind of coming a few days early, but it's because I want to share a little tutorial for the card I made for this month's Scrapbook Challenges card feature and Fathers' Day.

I made a card that combines the fashionable accordion flower with the more old-fashioned rosette.

So, grab your materials: cardstock, concentrically sized circles, and a strip of paper to score into the accordian flower. I embossed the lighter blue cardstock with a woodgrain folder to give the card more masculinity.

 
Ink all the edges of all your shapes, fold the cardstock into a card and stick the embossed part onto the cardbase. Then start to make the flower.

Score the strip of paper (30cm in length; the width should measure half the diameter you want the flower to be) at 1cm intervals and then fold alternately (mountain and valley folds for origamists). Stick together with double-sided tape (this is what you see in the picture above).

Push one edge of the flower in towards the centre. This is really where the magic happened for me - the first time I made one, it all suddenly just popped  into place. Hold it down with one hand, and stick your largest circle on to hold it in place. I'd recommend using a hot glue gun for this.

Then stick on the medium circle and then the small circle. It's a good idea to punch an extra one to stick on the back so it's easy to stick the flower to the card.

Then cut two ribbon-shaped  strips (or, yes, use ribbon!) and stick them onto the back before sticking the flower onto the card (again, with a glue gun).

Finish off by cannibalising some wrapping paper, or using specific scrapbooking fathers' day embellishments.

A quick reminder: remember this page I made recently? Well, it's up for lifting on the True XOXO Girls blog - get your entries in in the next two weeks to be in with a chance of winning some goodies!

Oh, and before I go... check me out for getting featured on Paper Issues!

Let's Have a Little Heart-to-Heart

The February scraplift challenge on the True XOXO Girls blog is up, this month with this fantastic prize sponsored by Candy Shoppe Designs:

For February I decided to make something a little different. I gave you a little sneak here. I was playing around with paper and I thought, hey, since I won't be sending my valentine a card in the post (because I live with him), why not make a card that can absolutely not be posted? This is what I came up with:

 

 

And just because I was feeling like sharing the love, I made a little tutorial for this card so you can have a go yourself.

Step 1: Take a piece of card (not too thick) that is 30cm long and as tall as you wish (I think I went for about 18cm but it depends on how much 'heart' and how much 'flat' you want). Mark as below (in centimetres, at intervals of 7.5, 3.75, 7.5, 3.75 and 7.5).

Step 2: Cut where the dotted lines are and fold where the bold lines are, so you end up with this:

Step 3: Stamp on, or add patterned paper to, the middle part of the card. You will cover most of the pattern, but that's OK:

Step 4: Turn the card over and decorate the 'wings' (I stamped on mine because sticking another layer of paper would make them too bulky when it comes to the manipulation stage) and the sides of the card. The middle part should stay blank as this will be the card base:

Step 5: Roll up the corners:

Step 6: Turn the card back over and strategically position double sided tape, like this:

Peel off the backing tape and stick down, following the direction of the folds.

Step 7: Turn the card back over and add some double sided tape to the patterned edge of the wings, but don't peel off the backing just yet:

Step 8: Start to bend (NOT fold) the two wings, by bringing the edges together up high and then pushing down gently:

Step 9: Open the wings up again, add an a final strip of double sided tape along the inside middle of what is going be the heart:

At this point you'll need to take a little strip of card and roll it into a tight tube. I don't have a photo for this but you'll see why in step 11.

Step 10: Peel off the backing from the tape on the inside middle part of the card. Now fully bend the wings and push them down to make contact with the tape. It should be just enough to hold them in place while you take care of the rest:

Step 11: Peel the backing from the tape on the wings. Holding your little paper tube in place, bend the wings for a final time and stick them to each other, with the tube stuck in the middle. You'll need to reach inside the heart with your fingers and squeeze (ignore the disturbing metaphor there!):

Step 12: Make some hearts (I lost my photos for this). Add a length of floristry wire to each one (for the flat hearts I cut two of each and then stuck them together, thus concealing and holding in place the wire). You can then insert them into the little paper tube 'vase' stuck in the middle of the heart. If they're not too heavy, they'll stand up!

And that's it! If you do make this yourself, let me know because I'd love to see what people come up with. I'll be back on Sunday with more love. Until then, to borrow an apt phrase from a blogging friend of mine, scrap to your heart's desire!

Folds and Feathers

My final assignment for the Mini Book Anonymous DT was to create a mini book on the theme of 'Folds and Feathers'. After 3 months of thinking, thinking, thinking, I finally stumbled across the perfect idea.

An accordion spine book, with...not feathers, but birds. The cards inside each feature a facet of me and fit the mini's title of 'Many a Feather' (like 'many a string to my bow').

I created another video for this mini - and yes, this time I tried to make and talk on film! Check me out! Feedback as always is most welcome. For now, though, I'm going to depart as I've been up ALL NIGHT working and I am a little delirious. I'll just say a big thank you to the MBA team for giving the DT such inspiring challenges and giving me reason to push my boundaries. I would never have done these things without you!

Some Kind of Big Shot

Not usually one to gloat, I have to share the news that I got a Big Shot for Christmas! I hope everyone else had a wonderful Christmas.

About the Big Shot: the first thing my mum said when I opened it was 'I wanted to keep it and give you my Cuttlebug instead' - and having used it quite a bit already, I have to say it seems stronger, is a little bigger, and... I like it. A lot.

A whole new aspect of the craft world has opened up. Here's to 2011!

Tree Inspiration

Today I have a little tutorial to share with you, but it's not my own - it's my mum's.

Last year she made me a tree decoration - a wooden cutout tree, painted or sprayed with Cosmic Shimmer Mist, and then stamped and heat embossed.

This year I gave it a go myself.

After spraying with my Cosmic Shimmer Mist (Peacock Green, which is actually quite tree-y), I stamped some swirls in a copper colour.

I sprinkled holographic white embossing powder over the copper ink and heat treated the trees. Next I stamped some snowflakes on in white, but just left the ink to dry - I didn't heat emboss with powder.

I then stamped on some different snowflakes, but this time I did sprinkle white embossing powder and heat embossed it.

I finished off by tying some twine through the whole in the top of the tree so that it could be hung on our Christmas tree, which is in fact a Christmas branch:

Thanks Mum for leading the way here!

It's Chrrrrriiissssstmaaaaasssss!

Now my fiance's birthday has come and gone, we can officially begin to get into the spirit of Christmas. As if to confirm this, at a music club's Christmas get together on Wednesday he performed an acoustic version of Slade's 'Merry Christmas Everybody', which went down a storm.

About a month ago, he told me a joke, as he does from time to time.

Q. What's the best thing about being an insomniac?
A. Only three sleeps till Christmas!

Back then, it was hilarious. Now I'm kind of wiping the smile from my face as I see Christmas looming and know that I am un(der)prepared. That's not to say I haven't been doing anything. Oh no. I've got a million photos as proof, mostly of the cards and tags I made for a Christmas fair stall I had on Wednesday (I kept that one quiet, didn't I?). Well, it might not have happened, so I didn't want to shout about it. Or, it might've been a flop, so I didn't want to shout about it. I spent some time (I'm not going to disclose how much time) rush-making things to sell, and in the end it turned out quite well, but I'm too exhausted to shout about it. I didn't even get a photo of me in market mode.

I made a whole bunch of small (4 x 4 in) cards using kraft paper. The first two I already posted about, I know. But I love it so much - I only want to make cards with kraft paper now. I can't believe it took me so long to find it. Resourceful as I am, I used the cutouts from these cards to make a topper in themselves. The padded gingham stars speak for themselves.

 

I got really stuck on stars. I cut quite a lot of them, and didn't vary too wildly from the layout above.
Some I stamped with snowflakes, inked the edges, and stuck on with foam pads. I made some into matching gift tags too.

Some I stamped with winter foliage:

That snowman paper from the Basic Grey 'Jovial' collection is so fun! I also made matching gift tags for these stars:

Then I went back to the shop and bought some more gingham stars. I used a little bit of border and a little bit of swiss dot paper to accent these cards.

I got off the star train for a bit to experiment with some stamping. I drew a little pencil circle on white card, and joined up a few wintry stamps in a few colours to make a wreath. I still don't consider myself a 'stamper' so I was quite please with how these came out.

 

I also made some cards I really did not want to part with. I love the cleanness of these ones - there are a few white snowflake stickers on the card which you probably can't see in these photos, but that is it. Nothing fancy. Just a nice cookie of a fallen branch and a little cutout.

 

 

The warmth of the wood against the white card really feels Christmassy. I am going to make some more of these for my own personal collection, because they sold out at the fair!

I had to go back to stars in the end. I went with some more gift tags. I really like that it looks like I've cut the star from patterned paper. In fact, I covered my acrylic block with stamps and made sure it was all too big for the star, and just stamped:

And here is my little basket of gift tags, which also sold out:

If you weren't before, you'll definitely have the Christmas spirit now you've read through this post. Happy penultimate shopping Sunday!

A Snowstorm before Christmas

With all the snow outside there's every excuse to hole up and make, make, make! I've been quite busy with my cards these past two weeks.

First of all, I'm LOVING using kraft card for Christmas this year - it gives that homey, warm feeling of being around a tree and a fire, surrounded by presents and family.

 

I love the gingham fabric stars too - they're lightly padded, which really gives the cards dimension.

Next, I was asked by a friend to make her a few cards for her family, which would feature her daughter. She sent me a cute christmassy photo, and I immediately knew I wanted to put little Rosie in a bauble...

 

 

 

I used a big rectangle mask to make a snowflake border, and - as always with Christmas cards - stamped a few images on the envelopes.

Then, I made some simple gift tags:

 

After that, I turned away from the traditional colours and used the gorgeous Christmas scene stamp from LaBlanche, which I talked about in Tuesday's post.

 

Again, I used a big circle mask to get the snowflake border. Also, I highlighted the snowy parts of the stamp with Stickles (although you can't really see that in the photos). BIG disappointment though - the two products didn't combine well. The ink was Memento (Tuxedo Black) and the Stickles were Ranger (Frosted Lace). I'm not sure which one to blame, but after applying the Stickles to the inked parts, the (black) ink seeped out and into the (white) Stickles, resulting in a pink-tinted snow. I'm really disappointed as the ink is supposed to be fast. And I did let it dry before applying the Stickles. Any recommendations for better inks, anyone?