Tuesday, March 5, 2013

Makin me Smile...

OK, so this card is loud...not my norm.  For this card I decided to go outside of my normal color range.  I'm a HUGE fan of pastels...Spring Colors are my pick..usually, but I absolutely love how it turned out. 

The super adorably cute image is the Futterby Fairy from Meljen's Designs, love her.

I colored this little sweetie pie using my Spectrum Noir Alcohol Marker...I'm still trying to get the hang of them.

Challenge Entries:
Meljens Design - Color Challenge
Spectrum Noir - Bling
Delightful Challenges - 3's a Charm

Spectrum color combos used:
Butterfly:
Wings BT2, 3, 4/OR1, 3/CT1,2,3
Body/Face LG1,2,3
Antennae TN2
Cheeks PP1, 2

Fairy Sweets:
Hair TN3, 5, 7
Dress CR5, 11, DR5 oh and the heart
Belt CR7, 11
Skin FS2, 3, 9
Cheeks FS6
Shoes CR3, DR5

Swirls HB1
Shadow Trace BT1









 The three large flowers are from I Am Roses, bulk package in white that I've colors with alcohol ink (it was my experiment for the day) and the lavender was colored with a homemade mist.  The smaller red flower was also colored with homemade mist and is from Wild Orchid Crafts.
These three little resin roses are from a China haul on ebay. 

Saturday, March 2, 2013

Spring Joy

I have my first Easter card...yes it's another shadow box card...what can i say, i love them.
This is also my first challenge entry.  For now I'm only doing The Paper Shelter "Animal Magic" challenge. 

The image used is from TPS.  I used my spectrum noir and some brads, old brads, from Oriental Trading.
This SBC (shadow box card) has a side hidden pocket verses my previous version of the top loading pocket.  Whit this one the tag is attached and swivels out...love it. 

Wednesday, February 27, 2013

Princess Cinderella Carriage Photo Booth

This puffy tulle carriage was a big hit at my little girls birthday party.  What started off being a photo booth ended up being the center attraction. 

When I decided that this was what I wanted for her party I started to look around online to see if I could find some ideas.  To my surprise I only found one site that had a printed cardboard carriage.  I wanted my carriage to have life, not just flat you know??

I came up with an idea on how to make my own for less than the going rate of the printed cardboard.  AND, because I wanted to use tulle I wanted to be able to take it apart when I was done leaving the tulle useful for another project.  The blue tulle for the body is one continuous piece.  the only pieces I needed to cut out smaller were the wheels (it's a long piece of tulle anyway) and door pieces.  All the tulle is reusable if you want to keep it.

First I needed FREE cardboard.  I work in an office and we recycle our boxes, all sizes.  So it took some time but I collected the biggest thickest boxes we had.  Once I had enough I broke them down and glued two layers together. 

My first layer had the corrugated lines going vertically, my second layer had the corrugated lines going horizontally.  You need this for some stability.  When gluing your pieces together make sure any marking on the box are on the inside so that they don't show.  Also, you should glue your pieces so that they overlap other pieces, they should not match up.  if they do you won't be able to make a large enough piece to cut your image out of.  My piece ended up being about 4 feet tall and 5 feet wide.

After you glue your pieces and it's all dry, draw or sketch your image on the cardboard piece. 
TIP:I drew mine on the front and I didn't cut exactly where my lines where so I was still able to see them.  I did paint over them eventually but it you use a light color you'll still see them.  If you're going to use tulle or another form of fabric to cover up your piece then no need to worry but if you're not using any fabric and just paining like I did on my train you'll want to draw is out on the back side.  Just pay attention to the direction because once you flip your piece back over it will be facing the opposite direction of your initial drawing.

Once your piece is drawn, you cut.  I only did two layers for my base because I knew I would be cutting out by hand.  I would not recommend gluing more than two pieces unless you have the means to use an electric saw…I did not.  This is where elbow grease comes in and you come out with sore arms and legs HAHA. 

I cut my piece on the kitchen floor with a large self-healing mat underneath my cardboard piece.  This was a bit time consuming as I needed to cut slowly.  I used a rotary trimmer for the majority of my cuts but I also used a teeny tiny exacto knife…that's all I had to work with.  I tried using a small non mechanical hand saw but that was no good.

So now all the pieces are cut and now you paint…Because I was using Tulle I knew it would be kind of see through and I also knew I would not actually cover every inch of cardboard.  I painted my pieces with the same color of the tulle so no one would notice the cardboard underneath the tulle.

Your piece is now painted and now it's time to add the tulle…this is the other time consuming part…yay
For this step you'll need Tulle, floral wire, wire cutters and tape, any wide tape, I used packaging tape but with all the playing the tape started to peel off.

I cut a whole bunch of floral wire down to 4 inches and I grabbed my tulle and wire cutters.  My wire cutter were pointy so I was able to pierce a hole is my cardboard with them.  If you don't have pointy wire cutters to pierce the whole you can use anything else you might have like a paper piercer or a screw driver.  the hole has to be big enough to put the wire through.

The first how actually needs to be big enough to pull the tulle through, once that's done you will start making your other holes.  Grab your tulle loosely and wrap the wire around the tulle, don't loop it around the tulle just wrap it so the wire looks like a "U" then slid the ends of the wire through the hole.  On the backside you can twist and bend the wire flat against the cardboard or open up the wire so it stays put.  You'll do this throughout the entire cardboard piece until you've reached your desired puffiness.  as you add wire to your piece you can immediately tape it down in the back so that you don't cut yourself like I did or you can wait until it's all done to add take and still cut yourself like I did…yeah, my hands were kind of beat up after I was done but it was worth it. 

You'd notice that after you cut the part for the door on the carriage your cardboard piece becomes flimsy, if you don't want to actually make the door movable don't cut it out and this will leave your pieces stable.  If you do cut it out you need to place some 2x4 in the back so that it stands straight.  If I wear to do this again I would just cut out the window to the door and not the whole door.

That is pretty much it. 


























Friday, February 22, 2013

Ragged Romance

This is absolutely one of my fav digi images.  Ragged Romeo from Mo's Digital Pencil. 

This was the card I made for my hubby for v-day.  I told him I loved my card soooo much that he wanted to cut it in half to give me back the image...I told him he can just put it in his "LOVE" box...yes ladies, my hubby has a love box. 

I was so excited with how his hair turned out.  It's not flat, it actually looks curly!!!  I tried taking better pictures but my phone has sucky picture taking features. 

I was going to post the colors I used for the image but apparently either I didn't write them down or I misplaced them.  Bummed about that because I really did like these color combos. 

Hasta Next Time!!!

Wednesday, February 20, 2013

Spring Day DT entry...

This is a new twist for shadow boxes.  Ive gotten into a shadow box kick.  My first project was a dual shadow box invitation for my kids birthday.  I took it a spet further and made this shadow box pocket card....I love it!!!  My next project will be to make it into a shadow box slider card... we'll see how that goes...
This SB card is also my entry for The Paper Shelter DT call.  I'm so excited and way to nervous even for me.
I'm still kind of new at this so I'm hoping to get the hang of it quickly...here's hoping.
I do have the color combos used for this image and will update later.
UPDATE
I used my spectrum noir markers
Hair TN6 & 7
Hat TB 3-4-5
Shirt LG 1-2-3
Pant GB1 CT2-3
Pant Patch PP4 IB1
Skin FS2-3
Cheeks Lips FS7
Grass LG 1-2
Fence TN5 & 7
Fence embellies DR2
Eyes IB1



Friday, February 15, 2013

How to make a paper shadow box

Watch "How to make a Shadow Box" on YouTube
In this video I go over how I made the shadow box invitation for my kids.  I had been looking for a tutorial specifically on how to make a shadow box and I was not having any luck.  I did find one that required the use of lots of paper folded accordion style, although it was a good idea it was not going to work for me because I needed to make 60, yes 60 shadow boxes.  As you can see in one of the pictures below my invitations are side by side shadow boxes that open up like a stand up picture frame. 

Now, I was having problems recording the video and had to record 6 times.  So, because it always happens this way (murphy's law) I think I didn't go over some things about the shadow box…like how I used a 3x5 inch hinge to connect my two shadowboxes and how I had to figure out where to score on the hinge so that I had a clean wrap around fold and a center fold to give the shadow boxes a way to open up smoothly…yeah, it was a long two days let me tell ya.

I also didn't go over (but added a blurb) about how if you're not going to make the pocket shadow box you can just glue down your sides, long sides first, and then go on from there.  That should be pretty self-explanatory though. 

OR how I didn't go over painting your rectangular tubes before gluing them on the pocket only if they are chipboard…remember you can't paint regular cardstock without it warping and you don't want that to happen.

Although I may have left out a few bits you can still follow what I'm trying to do…I hope.

If you have any questions let me know. 

HAPPY CRAFTING!!!
 

Monday, February 11, 2013

Sun is Out

Such a great day for a quick walk at lunch while listening to Taylor Swift