playing at cards with playing cards

Oh, that dollar spot in Target can certainly have fun stuff for altering and crafting! Recently I found some small shaped playing cards with wintry themes. Here are a couple of cards that I made using a couple of the playing cards from the deck that I bought.


The deck that I picked up had a snowman image on it. I embossed it with the Cuttlebug Snow Dots folder, then mounted that on a white cardstock layer embossed using the C'bug Snowflakes folder, then I attached that to a red shimmer-finish paper that I offset Cuttled using the Diamonds in the Rough folder. I used a Tonic ticket punch to cut the corners. The sentiment is a Snag 'Em stamp by Imaginisce. I embellished with Ranger's Liquid Pearls.


I used another playing card to create this card. This time I embossed it with the Diamonds in the Rough and mounted it on glittery DCWV cardstock that I'd cut and embossed in one pass using one of the curved rectangle Mega-Nestabilities dies by Spellbinders. The patterned cardstock is also by Die Cuts with a View. I stamped the sentiment using Archival black ink, and oh, how appropriate that sentiment has been these last couple of days, by the way! Finally I added the faux snow from Cornish Heritage Farms.

Hope everyone is staying warm!

textured Cuttling

I had to carve out some time from the busy-ness of real life to do some crafting. I have a fun announcement to make, but as much as I hate to tease, I don't want to say anything until tomorrow. In the meantime, I have a quickie tutorial using Cuttlebug embossing folders. I'm calling this particular look "textured Cuttling".

In keeping with the season, here's a card that shows off this technique.


I used the D'vine Swirls A2 Cuttlebug embossing folder on sheets of black and white cardstock. The skull and crossbones are a 3 X 3 Cuttlebug combo set. The extra texture that you see is from using mesh inside the Cuttlebug folder when embossing.


Here is a close up so that you can see the impression made by the mesh on the cardstock. The sentiment is by Inkadinkado and stamped using Memento dye ink, and the decorative corners were punched using a Tonic fleur corner punch.

Here are the specifics on using the mesh to add texture.


Here I used a piece of fabric mesh. This is the sort of thing that you see used for bags for laundering lingerie, or gym bags are occasionally made from this stuff as well. Just place it between the cardstock and the front of the embossing folder and roll it on through the machine as you normally would.


And this is how it turned out. I like the D'vine Swirls pattern because it has a nice balance of design and empty space.


You can use other types of mesh as well, as you can see above. Drywall tape will give you a small tight regular pattern. The gold mesh is a wide ribbon that I bought last Christmas. The orange mesh is the type of netting that you sometimes see used to bag produce; some bath sponges are made of a softer version of this stuff, too. What I look for is something that is dense enough to stand up to pressure, but isn't so hard that it will mark up the folder--this lets out metal or wire mesh. No need to mess up a perfectly good folder! But I also like stuff that won't necessarily take the impression of the folder so that I can use it over and over again. That's why those forms of netting up above work so well--they meet all of my criteria. I'm sure that there are more items out there that would work great for textured Cuttling. Hopefully this will give you a few places to start. :-)

Getting punchy

I finally found some time to do some crafting. I had some new toys to try out, so these cards are the result of that playing.

For this first card I used some of the new Basic Grey Sultry line. Then I used the Tonic border punch system to add the floral accents to the patterned cardstock border. A Fiskars corner punch embellished the red layer. The rose frame is a Cuttlebug die and emboss combo. It doesn't show up well in the photo, but I'd chalked the embossed parts of that frame with pink and green shimmery chalks. The stamped images are by Dee Gruenig.


For this next card I used a piece of polished stone that I'd made some time back. I stamped the row of trees three times without reinking. That image is by Cornish Heritage Farms. The sentiment is by Inque Boutique. This time for the border I used my Tonic Regal punch and border system on the yellow textured cardstock. I embellished with Robin's Nest Dew Drops.


Feels good to get back into crafting after a short hiatus. :-)