"tweet" - Patterned Paper Passion - DCM

It's been ages since I've participated in the daring cardmakers challenge. I decided it was time to get back into it. This week's challenge is patterned paper passion, and the details are as follows: I want to see 3 different patterned papers on your card. And to be extra daring, why not see if you can use 3 different lines of paper!

Okay! Here's my card:


The patterned papers that I used are by Me and My Big Ideas--the big background, Basic Grey Boxer--the green swirly layer, and Die Cuts with a View Green Stack--birds and branches. The stamped images are by Hero Arts and stamped using Memento dye inks. The decorative border of the green layer was made using the Fiskars Effervescence border punch, and I used the plain and scalloped circles Nestabilities dies by Spellbinders to make the top of the card. The partial Nesties technique let me cut out just part of the circle at the top fold so that it would stick out.

I wouldn't have tried this dare on my own, but it was fun to find out that three patterned papers, all by different companies, can really come together and look nice on one card.

partial Nesties cards

When my muse deserted me last week, I looked at some stamping magazines to see if I could find some inspiration. It came from an unexpected quarter. I saw a top fold card with a half circle sticking out of the top that had originally been part of the card front. I know that's not a great description, but here are a couple of cards that I made, working along those lines. I think you'll understand what I was trying to describe after you see them.


This is my version with a Spellbinders oval Nestabilities shape cut out instead. I actually would have tried a circle, but the oval Nesties were closer. I cut it out using the partial Nesties technique that I posted quite a while back now. I then embossed the card front using a Sizzix textured impressions folder. The decorative border was made using the Fiskars Apron Lace border punch. The stamps were all Hero Arts and stamped using Memento inks. The decorative card stock is by DCWV.


For this card I decided to see what a Spellbinders Labels 1 cut out would look like. Okay, yeah, and it was closer than the circle Nesties, too. The card front embossing was made using the Textile Cuttlebug A2 embossing folder. The punched images were made using Martha Stewart punches. For the decorative border I used the Fiskars Upper Crest border punch. (Don't you love the names of their border punches?!) The stamped sentiment is by Hero Arts. The added bling are tiny hot fix crystals.

a few cards

This is the busy time of year with the school year winding down. I hadn't really had much time to make cards, but here are a few that I managed to finish this week.

This first one is creatively Cuttled. I used a door hanger to leave the unembossed opening where I then used a modified small Cuttlebug embossing folder to add the zigzag circle with the Hero Arts sentiment stamped inside it. I used Fiskars corner edgers to embellish the layers and then added some bling.


This next card was first stamped with Hero Arts flowers and Versamark ink, then embossed using the Cuttlebug Bloom Dots embossing folder. I scalloped the bottom edge by partially running it through one of the long scalloped rectangle Megabilities dies. The other layers were made using scalloped Nestabilities dies. The sentiment is by Studio G and the penguin is by Imaginisce, colored with Prismacolor colored pencils and blended with the Goo Gone Mess-free pen. The scoring accents were made using my Scor-It.


This last card was also creatively Cuttled, again using a wooden door hanger to leave a round opening in the embossing. I used the Cuttlebug A2 Spots and Dots embossing folder. The stamped images are a mini set by Inkadinkado and stamped using Brilliance ink. The diaper was colored with the Ranger Inkssentials opaque white pen.


Can't believe that this is the first time I've posted since Monday. Feels good to get back in the swing of blogging.

My mega-scalloped card

For some reason, I got it into my head last night that I should see how big a scalloped edge card I could make using the Spellbinders long scalloped rectangle Megabilities dies. Of course it's been a day of constant interruptions. LOL! I've discovered that you can make a fairly big card though, and I do mean scalloped on three sides, not just the one edge that I've done previously.

Here's an example....

The sentiment is by Inkadinkado. The patterned paper is by K & Company and was embossed using the Cuttlebug Floral Fantasy embossing folder. The tag die cut was made using a Cuttlebug die.

I used the largest of the long scalloped rectangle megabilities dies and a piece of cardstock cut to 6 1/2" wide and the usual 11" length. My original plan had been to put this through my Big Shot in partial Nestie fashion, but OOPS! I forgot that this largest die will not fit through the opening of the Big Shot sideways. This threw a temporary wrench in my plan. Then I realized that I could put those long narrow Sizzix cutting plates to work for me again. I was back in business!

The following is a re-enactment. You can tell because the scallops have already been cut. I decided after the fact that photos might be a good idea. I really did do this using my Big Shot, too, not my Scor-It. The Scor-It background just makes it so much easier to see what's going on, and I did use it to make my card fold.

I scored and folded my cardstock so that I had a card that was 5 1/2" X 6 1/2". I then ran my folded card through my Big Shot three times to cut the scalloped edges.

First like this....

That gave me one finished edge and the two corners. I did have the clear plate lined up properly when I ran it through, by the way. It was just easier to see that edge with the plate out of the way.

Then like this....


This put more scallops across the top and the bottom. Notice that I avoided catching either of those two long edges of the die in my clear plate sandwich so that I wouldn't cut into the card elsewhere.

And finally, like this....


This pass finished top and bottom of the card and left the folded edge untouched. Now I had a mega scalloped card measuring 5 1/2" X 6 1/4", and it really took minimal effort.

You do have to take some care to line up the scallops each time you move the die, but it wasn't too bad. Makes for a big fun card, too!


Just wanted to give you an idea of the actual size. I wasn't kidding when I said it was big. So, that's my mega-scalloped card--mega-scalloped not because it has big scallops, but because it's big, it does have scallops, and it was made using those great Megabilities dies. I just love tools that are so versatile! :-)

Shaking Things Up

Maybe it was because of the earthquake that startled me awake this morning at about 4:40am, or maybe it was because I'd read a comment on a stamping forum that said that scalloped Nestabilities and shape dies are overused and boring, but I decided to shake things up a little and make a card that's not my typical style, and I wanted to use some Nestabilities in a way other than just layering on a cardfront. I've always thought that if something has become boring, it's probably because it's not being used creatively enough. So instead of complaining--do something about it! :-)

Here's what I came up with.


This is an accordian card. I used the spiral clips to hold it closed for now. The stamped images are by Inque Boutique and stamped using chalk inks. The flowers and leaves are Primas. The patterned paper is by K & Company. And yes, I'm using more Robin's Nest dew drops.


This is the card unclipped. I'd used my scalloped rectangle Nestabilities dies to make those parts that stick out from the fold. They're still attached because I only ran them through my die machine part of the way. I described that here a while back: partial Nesties. I did layer a smaller scalloped rectangle on top of both to add color and interest. I'd used my Scor-It to make all of the score lines and folds for this card.


That's a view of the card completely open. The sentiment is by Hero Arts.

I hope that this may have started some creative wheels turning. Nestabilities dies are like Cuttlebug embossing folders, shaped punches, clear stamps, and any of the other tools that are popular in crafting. You can use them the usual way and make gorgeous works of art, but you can also use them creatively to give them a new twist and sometimes a new lease on life. :-)

Milestone and a Recap

This morning I noticed that the counter on this blog ticked over 18000 hits. There have actually been more than that since I didn't have a counter when I started and since I've had to reset it at least once along the way. LOL! But still, it's a milestone of sorts. I also noticed a few old posts that have been racking up some hits lately. These are posts from some time back. It's neat to see that people must be getting something useful out of them. When I get into crafting and come across ideas that seem like they might be helpful, I try to include them here. I thought I'd do a recap of sorts. Yeah, and I also don't have any new cards to post yet today. I could just say, "Hey, be sure to click over on the Mini-Tutorial & Tips menu over on my sidebar," but that'd be too easy. I'll just recap some of the more informative type posts.

So, here goes....

• Using The Font Thing - I love this application for managing my fonts. I have over 1400 of them at last count. Really, I do know that there are a lot of folks out there who have more! TFT saves me a lot of time when I'm searching for a particular look.
• Using the Big Shot to emboss with brass stencils - this goes for the Cuttlebug, too, but I don't know what the specific sandwich combos are since it has the various plates and I just use the multipurpose platform. The principle is the same for both machines, and I showed how to emboss so that the edges of the brass stencil won't show if you don't want them to.
• The Bind It All - I posted quite a bit of info about this when it first came out. There's a post describing how the machine works. There's a chart that summarizes the approximate coil size that would be needed to bind a certain number of pages. There is also a work-around for those small 1/4" coils--this was before Zutter came out with their plastic gizmo, the space bar add on. You know, that thing that you get for free but it costs $2.99. LOL! Just strikes me as funny. I realize that S/H costs money, but really--folks had come up with work-arounds and for cheaper. Crafters are so creative.
  
• Manual die cutters - all sorts of questions came up about these when the Cuttlebug was released. Everyone wanted to know which dies could be used in which machines and with what materials. I tried to summarize the info that I found in various forums and those are in a couple of charts. I tried to include all of the major die cutters and dies, so there's info about which dies you can use whether you have a Sizzix, Cuttlebug, Big Shot, Big Kick, Wizard, Bosskut, Sidekick, Tag-along, Zip 'e mate, or Quickutz. I also tried to include info in another chart about what sorts of materials each type of die could cut, and I included acetate, cardstock, chipboard, cork, fabric, felt, fun foam, foil, HVAC tape, magnet paper, shrink plastic, transparency, vellum, and velveteen paper.
  
• Those Cuttlebug embossing folders and those Nestabilities dies! Both are so much fun! They're great to use as is, but I made a couple of posts about partial Cuttling and partial Nesties, using these folders and dies in slightly different ways. I think that the partial technique is probably something that can be applied to any of the die machines that use a "sandwich". The idea is to take some of the guesswork out of it when you want to emboss or cut only so far. Instead of rolling your sandwich combo in and then backing out, a method that's rather imprecise since you have to guess when you've rolled it far enough, you set it up so that you just roll the combo through and leave the part that you want to leave unembossed outside of the sandwich. Voila! No pressure applied means no embossing.
• Info about the Scor-It - scoring boards have become very popular and it seems like there is an ongoing dialogue about the Scor-It vs the Scor-pal and which is better and so forth. I've had the Scor-It for a couple of years and have been satisfied and not inclined to buy yet another board, so I'm not taking sides on this one. I'd read about people having trouble making accurate scores with the Scor-It though, so I compiled info that I'd found about troubleshooting that particular issue with the Scor-It.
  

I hope this will sort of act as a refresher about some of what can be found here. Also, the labels in my sidebar can be useful for finding relevant posts. Blogger seems to arrange them by frequency first, so the ones referenced most often are at the top, then alphabetical after that.

Another use for partial Nesties

A couple of weeks ago I made a scalloped edge background layer by cutting cardstock only partway with a Nestabilities die. I was trying to think of other ways to use this "partial nesties" technique. Here's a card that I made using a similar partial cut, but in a slightly different way.


This time I used a scalloped rectangle die and only put one corner of it through the machine between the cutting plates. I scored and then folded the cardstock back to make a window of sorts. I liked the effect of using this with double-sided cardstock. The stamped images are by Danelle Johnson/Art Warehouse and the sentiment by Hero Arts. I used a Quickutz Curlz Goosebumpz folder to emboss the strip of cardstock across the front.

Partial Nesties

The partial Cuttling that I talked about below got me thinking about Nestabilities dies and whether those could be used in a similar fashion. Guess what! They can.


Up above is some cardstock that I'd like to put a scalloped edge on. I've pulled out my largest Nestabilities scalloped oval die.


Here I've again placed my layers so that the trailing edge, the one that I want to have remain unchanged, is hanging off the edge. This time I've flipped my layers and have that well-loved cutting plate on the bottom so that I could better position my die.


Once I was satisfied, I covered it with the other clear plate.


With the two clear plates holding everything in place, I simply flipped that "sandwich" and placed it on the Big Shot's multipurpose platform that I had open to the appropriate layer. Again, that trailing bit was just left hanging over the edge.


Here you can see that I now have a nice scalloped edge on this piece of cardstock.


And here is a card that I made using that partially scalloped cardstock as the bottom layer. I think it adds some fun visual interest and is a change from the usual layered scalloped shapes or straight-edged card layers.