Trophy Card: Large

Today is Monday, November 21, 2010, and I have been officially busted. So...way back a couple of summers ago, when I first started creating my Vee-dios, I promised to post the measurements for my large Trophy Card and the small one too. I never did. Please forgive me.

I had a viewer emailing saying that she'd tried to find that post and it was NO-WHERE to be found. When I went to look in unpublished posts, it was not there. Yikes.

I promised that I would get that information to her and here it is. Thanks, you know who you are, for asking. You can watch the Trophy Card Vee-dio at the end of this post. So here goes. You will need cardstock, Scor-Pal or trimmer that has a scorer, craft knife, glue and embellishments. Let's go have some fun.

To begin you will need a sheet of cardstock cut to 6x12. Make sure that you cut your sheet so that your folds will go with the grain. See my Vee-dio on paper cutting for more help: Learning Lab Episode 11 Technique: Paper Cutting.






Place your sheet on your scoring device and make the following score lines. 1 1/2"--- 3"--- 4 1/2"---6"---(6" will be a cut line leaving 1/2" to 3/4" uncut on both ends)---7 1/2"---9"---10 1/2"

Prior to creasing your folds you need to make your slit at the 6" mark leaving 1/2 inch to 3/4 inch on both ends. This will allow the slit to accommodate a 4x6 inch card.

Once you have scored all of your lines, make valley folds beginning with the the score line closest to the 6" cut line.

This will allow your creases to be made much easier and the paper is working with you and not against you as you make your way to the last fold line.

Turn to the other side and repeat. Your final scoring will look like this.

To ensure that your card is nicely lubricated, roll in the fold lines and your card should easily fold together. This is the bottom. The photo to the right is the top--the one with the slit. You have pretty much constructed your card at this point. If you want to decorate it, let's keep going.

 

Ok, call me a bit overzealous if you like, but I truly believe in waste not want not. Now this next part might be something that you already do or it never occurred to you. To minimize paper waste and extra cutting, I know that I want a 1/4" border all around my matting so I will cut my paper to size.  

I removed 1/4" from the long side of the paper. Since I started with a 6x12" sheet, this leaves me with a piece that is 5 3/4" x 12".

Now, I am ready to make three cuts. I want to remove 2 3/4 x 5 3/4" from that piece--this will cover the top panel, also cut two 1 1/4" x 5 3/4" pieces--these will fit the side panels. Since I have precut my paper to 5 3/4" I only need to foucs on the 2 3/4" cut and the two 1 1/4" cuts. 

Once all pieces have been cut you should have enough paper remaining in the correct dimensions to make another card.

I put this piece of Bazzill bling cardstock through with a cuttlebug folder and then used my brayer to ink the raised portions.  Adhere all of your decorative pieces to the three faces.


















Next, you will need to reopen the slit at the top of the base. Turn it over and use your craft knife to do this.

Take your piece of 4x6 card and deocrate it as you please but leaving at least a 1 1/2" undecorated border. That leaves you a decorating space of 4 x 4 1/2". 

Now you are ready to place your card into the base.

Slide your card into the slit and place glue on the bottom inch only. Fasten it to the base and then repeat on the other side. Remember not to glue beyond 1 1/2 inches otherwise your adhesive will be exposed and cause the card to stick to itself. Fold down the flap and adhere. Repeat on the other side.

Once you have done this last step squeeze the base together and run your bone folder inside if necessary to make sure that the card is firmly attached to the base. Your results should be one of the cutest cards you have ever seen.

If you plan to use these for Christmas cards start with a collection of cardstock that complements each other.  The Holiday kit by Echo Park and available at CropChocolate.com is fabulous. Just make an assembly line for yourself. Decide which sheets will be cards and cut to 6x12 and then cut each strip into three pieces. Use one side for a typed or handwritten greeting and the other to showcase a small holiday photo of you and your family.They will be completed before you know it. Since everything starts out at 6x12" mix and mingle to your heart's desire.


I can guarantee that this one will have a permanent place on the mantle and will be brought out every year so don't forget to add the date.


Have loads of inky fun. Oh, by the way I do have a trophy card reloaded, so stay tuned.
Until then.

Lyn's October Challenge

First let me begin by saying that I usually put things off until the last minute. Well, this challenge was no different. The cut off time is midnight of the challenge month. You guessed it. There I was on Halloween trying to put my card together. So what happened to the other 30 days? Ummm..it's all a blur. Remember the teaser I posted yesterday? Here it is again in case you missed it.

Well once I got this idea in my head, I could not stop.
I was really shocked that I was able to bang this out in about an hour, hour and a half. This was my mock up piece so that I could work out the glitches for the final scene. Yes, you guessed it, Ms. Procrastinator waited too late to start working on it so for now this is the final. The other one is in progress. If I can settle down, I will finish it.

I love this silhoutte stamp that I got at JoAnn's. Ideal for so many uses. There were several techniques used in creating this scene that I could not write out all of them if I had the desire, which right now I don't. My eyelids are closing down on me.

Suffice it to say that I used my brayer and several shades of Adirondack Dye ink pads along with my Sakura pens, eclipse tape and several stamps. The sentiment is Hero Arts. I will most likely show on a Vee-dio how I did the title.


While this was drying my son stuck his lovely fingers into the matte and glossy accents. He wanted to know if they were dry. They were not.

I thought I would play around by covering the boy (gloss) and girl (matte) in it to see if they looked any different. They really did not.

Always thinking and inking in the Name of Love.
Until then.

Happy Hour Challenge: #3

Well as promised I am back to share with you what I did with the sheet of stamped images. Challenge #3 was to use our stamp in a way that it would not look like our stamp. Wow, that was a mouthful. I stamped a white piece of card using the Hero Arts Flower Cluster Sketch, again using just the petals. 

  

The stamp pads used were both Big and Juicy: Vibrant Primary and Hydrangea. I stamped both sides of the paper.

It is no big deal that there is white remaining because I am going to select the portions of the paper that I am going to use.

As a helpful hint. While working with the pads, I stamped the front and back at the same time using Vibrant Primary. That way I would not have to keep cleaning my stamp switching between the two pads. This was a definite time saver.

Ok. I won't make you wait any longer. Here is what I made!!!

Isn't this incredibly striking? I loved it and it was also my first foray into flower making. Bridget got me started when she included some in my October swap items. Look for the YouTube Vee-dio of all of my goodies.

You have probably seen something like this done before with the Spellbinders Scalloped Circles Nestabilities.

So how did I do it? Here we go:

Step 1: As stated above I stamped both sides of a piece of white card using the Big and Juicy pads and the Flower stamp.

Step 2: I then cut my paper into strips and laid out the Spellbinder scalloped circles on select locations on the paper. Each was put through the Cuttlebug to cut only.

Step 3: After cutting them I used a Spellbinder Classic Circle die to draw a centered circle on the back. This would prevent me from cutting too far into the die cut.

 



Step 4: I then used my Cutterbee Scissors and cut between each scallop; stopping at the pencil drawn circle

Step 5: After all of the dies were cut I spritzed them with Tattered Angels Glacier Mist, and Radiant Rain Coral. I love RR because it is a shimmery acrylic paint.

Step 6: While the die cut was still wet I placed it in my palm and curled my fingers around the petals. Then I cautiously hit it a few times with the heat gun. WARNING!!!! the heating tool gets VERY HOT--USE with caution. 

Step 7: This helped to get my cuts ready for curling. This can also be done on your craft sheet. They will need to be held in place to keep from blowing around.

Step 8: I then used a variety of cylindrical objects to curl the petals. Go carefully. For most of them I was able to use the red paint brush as it is tapered and perfect for the two smallest die cuts.

Step 9: Once they were all cut, I used various colors of Memories Direct inks to enhance the edges of the petals.

Now for the Assembling.

Step 10: Confession time. I have an addiction to a few adhesives on the market. If you have not heard Glossy Accents is my all time fave. A close second is this Scotch Quick Dry liquid glue. I placed a large dot inside of the drawn circle and started stacking the flowers. As you can see in the second picture the buds are very tight. Not to worry you want it this way.

 Step 10: I selected a Making Memories rhinestone for the center of the smallest flower.

After adhering the center piece, I gently pressed on the flower to loosen the buds.










Step 11: Enjoy your creation

This is not the end of Challenge 3. Sadly I will have to do another post on how I put together the card. Which means a bit longer wait for Challenge 4. Will tell you what that was on the next post.

All will be definitely inked with love.

Until then.

Cuttlebug Holiday Folders: Ornaments

Welcome back. This post was to have gone up mid December. Life does not always go as planned. Santa did not bring a new camera for me so I will have to get my own. Until then no photos, sorry.


So let me begin by saying Merry Christmas, Happy Hannukah, and Happy New Year. This is going to be your best year yet.


 I know you thought I had forgotten about the remaining holiday folders. NO WAY. I have just been having a great time playing with a lot of my tools and ordering new stuff like crazy. In this post I would like to share some of the things which resulted from the ornaments Cuttlebug folder.


There is much talk about using glossy cardstock and so I tried it with this folder and here are the results. (at some point a photo will appear here)




I wanted to create a resist technique but the angel nor the greeting showed as well as I had hoped, so I resorted to stamping, embossing, and cutting her out. I then mounted her to the card front using foam pads. The green paper background is a floral swirl that I overstamped with a red swirl. It turned out darker than I wanted, but again it is part of why I do the Learning Lab Vee-dios...to learn. I added the Christmas Skittles collection to the hanger of each ornament.


I played with a lot of my Sakura pens to test how each would perform on the card. Although the opague pens were different, the stardust pens gave the sparkly glitter results befitting the season. At Christmas everything needs to sparkle and shine. I cut a larger ornament from acetate using the Cricut Very Merry Tags mini cart and decorated it using the same Sakura stardust pen and stamped my greeting in the center with StazOn black.


From my playing around, I realized that I liked the black and white look from the sample card and decided to use my brayer to cover an entire card and make it black/white, with a silver accent.


Finally, I cut apart the ornament strips to use them as borders on a scrapbook page.




These folders are extremely versatile once you start looking at them as tools. When deciding on a purchase I have to immediately think of at least three different ways to use it or I do not buy it. This allows for a lot of variety in my crafting. 


My main staple is pure white cardstock. I can turn it into whatever I desire. I have thought up hundreds of ways to use it and pick up some whenever I am out.


I know that sometimes looking at that large blank canvass can be overwhelming, but for me it is a challenge to think outside of the box.


Thanks again for visiting my blog and if you have not checked out the latest Vee-dio it is the first one at the top of the Videos list.


As you get ready to prepare your Christmas cards, tags, or place settings, throw on a bit of ink and your guest will praise your handiwork. Why? Because it will be in the name of love.


Until then.