Thursday, January 31, 2013

Valentine's Day Cards

Here's a Valentine's Day Card that I designed in the Silhouette Designer Studio.  Did I mention that I L-O-V-E my Cameo????


Wednesday, January 30, 2013

Valentine's day projects

 This is my project for the She's a Sassy Lady design team this month. It's a mini Valentine Cone Wreath with a matching Spin Card. It's really easy to make.
Let's start with the card. I used cardstock from the Martha Stewart Key and Heart paper collection.
  Cut your cardstock 4.5 inches wide and 5.5 inches high (this will be your card front) and cut your ribbon at 4.75 inches.
 The Card
I used my Cameo to cut the card base at 9 inches wide and 5.5  inches high. The hole is 2.5 inches in diameter. At this point you will also want to go ahead an cut out the facing for the card.


Next I cut out 3 hearts at 1.75inches and folded them in half. Then you will glue each folded half to the other. Before you glue the last one, insert your twine. For this card I used twine cut at 4.5 inches. Using the card as a guide, trace a circle onto the front of the card. I used an Xacto knife to cut out the circle.  Don't worry about it being perfect it will be covered up with the facing. Glue the twine down to the backside of the front.
Using my ATG I attached the front to the card base, glued on the facing and embellished with rhinestones.  Finish off you card with a sentiment of your choosing. The card will actually lay flat, you may want to crease the hearts with your fingers a little to help it along.
                                  


The Mini Cone Wreath
 Start out by cutting a 12 x 12 double sided sheet of cardstock into ?? strips. I then cut the strips into 2.5 inch squares.  This will give you 16 squares.

Choose which side you want to show on the outsised then form the squares into cone shapes and glue together.
For this size cone, I decided a 2 inch circle would be best suited for the base. I used a punch, but you can use whatever you wish. Remember, it doesn't have to be perfect as no one will see it. I drew .50 inch and .25 inch circles in the center to help me line up the cones. I think you should use a glue gun on low heat for this project. It is paper but can get a little weighty. Just start gluing the cones down around the circle. Make sure you line them up evenly.
For the next step I glued a .50 inch square of styrofoam in the middle of the cones to support the hearts that I added.  Without the styrofoam, there would be a deep in the middle. You can actually fill this with whatever you like, some people even add more cones to even it out.

On the back side I added a 4.5 x 4.5 inch square and glued on some ribbon for a hanger.


Add the hearts and other embellishments and finished the card  to suit your taste. 

Thank you for looking.

Sunday, January 27, 2013

Modge Podge

I did this canvas design last year at the Michael's Gold Card Event with Plaid Inc. Plaid makes all the Modge Podge products.  I decided to post this on my blog because I always hear people asking "Can you use cardstock on canvas?" Yes you can, just make sure you use a sealer, like Modge Podge.

I took a regular, painted the tree limb on, then painted it with Modge Podge Sparkle.  While the canvas was still wet, I placed the images on the canvas, then let dry. 

 
The Alphabet, blue birds, banner and leaves all came from the Modge Podge Podgeable Papers Pad called Nature. The plastic bird and crown are also Modge Podge products called Podgeable Shapes. Plaid makes several different themes of Podgeable Papers. Once everything was dry, I added Modge Podge demensional on top of the cut of images.  The picture just does do it justice. You can't really see the demensional effect.  I've posted each on the products used below for you to see.


 
 

Monday, January 21, 2013

Valentine's Day Candle and card

Hello everyone. It's Danita from Danitas Designs.  My project this month is something I have always wanted to try my hand at.........designing my own candle with tissue paper. What better time to try it than now, right? It wasn't as hard as I thought it would be.

I used a 5 inch candle, parchment paper, Jolee's Artisan paper(optional) White Tissue Paper, my Cricut Imagine and my heat gun
First I cut  9 x 2 inch strip of the Artisan paper,wrapped it around the candle held it with a straight pin.  Then I cut a piece of tissue paper about 10 inches wide and 5.5 inches high and smooth it out on my Cricut Imagine mat. Make sure your mat it not too tacky or you tissue paper will tear when you try to lift it. 

I used the Cricut Imagine Cartridge "All Wrapped Up" for both the candle and the card. I laid out my sentiments and graphic for 9 inches which is the diameter of the candle. I designed and printed it in Cricut Craft Room (no cut) and then cut it out by hand. You will want to leave about .50 inch ridge around the image. This will melt into the candle.
Next you will wrap your image around the candle. Put a drop of clear drying glue to hold it together, then cut a strip of parchment paper, enough to go completely around the candle. Take you heat gun and began to blow in a circular motion around the candle. You will see the tissue start to melt into the candle. Do not blow in spot too long.  The Artisan paper will also adhere to candle under the heat.

 
               
Back of candle

Decorate the candle with flowers, rhinestones, butterflies, ribbon & etc..

The card was also done with the same cartridge with added embellishments.  The wings are from the Silhouette America Store and cut with my Cameo.



Saturday, January 19, 2013

My Own Design V-day Card

Here's another card I designed myself in the Silhouette Design Studio.

Friday, January 18, 2013

Valentine's Day Cards

My Heart Belongs To You
Here's a Heart V-day card with a floral background that I cut out with my Cameo and a popped-up border. I learned how to die and make my own scrunch (I think that's what it's called) ribbon at a swarm I attended. It' s made with Hug Snug seam binding and alcohol inks. It's been awhile since I made it, so if you want more details, let me know and I will contact my friend who taught me how to do this. I guess you can tell by now that I don't like to use traditional colors. Hmmmm, that may not be a good thing!



Thursday, January 17, 2013

Valentine's Day in 3-D

This is a paper champagne bottle and heart. Here in the crafting world we call it "3-D".  I purchased the SVG for the bottle for SVGCUTS.com.  The heart is a die by Sizzix.

I watched the video on how to assemble the bottle and it looked pretty easy. Yep, she made it look like a kindergartener could it......WRONG!!!!  It took me two days and a lot of curse words to get it done!!! Then I had to embellish it. I wanted a lot more bling, but I did want to overwhelm it. The heart was actually pretty easy this time. I had attempted it last year and that was a disaster. I guess I'm a more seasoned crafter now. (nahhhh, just read the directions this time!)


Here's a collage of the bottle open and close up shots of the bottle bottle and heart.




Wednesday, January 16, 2013

Valentine's Day Birdie Card

Here's another V-day card. As simple as it looks, it really gave me H. E. double hockey sticks!!! I couldn't get it to close with the magnets from Hobby Lobby, they're crap, so don't waste your money!!  I went back to my sewing roots and pulled out a velcro snap!!  Tacky, you say? I know, but it got the job done and it's not going to anyone. I was just playing around.  I think next time I will invest in the Basic Grey magnets. It is my understanding, from what I've heard, that they are so much better and slimmer than the kind you get at Hobby Lobby or Michaels. Sometimes it just doesn't pay to be cheap! Geesh!!! (I like cheap)


Tuesday, January 15, 2013

Valentine's Day Card for Men

Well, it's almost that time of year again, you know, the one where men start panicking about what to buy their sweethearts for Valentine's Day. lol  This is my first attempt at a manly type of Valentine's card.  It is also my first time using washi tape.  I like it, not overly embellished, but I like it.



Saturday, January 12, 2013

Using an altered Cricut blade holder with my Cameo

I decided I wanted to try the altered Cricut blade holder and Cricut blades in my Cameo. Quite a few people have filed the purple embossing blade holder down and, from what I've read, the measurements are the same size as the Cameo blade holder. Here's my filed down blade holder:



Now I filed the bottom rim off before I realized I was filing off the wrong one (duh!!) You only need to file down the rim in the middle of the holder. I didn't sand it to make make it all pretty as I just wanted to to hurry and finish so I could see if it worked before the sale goes off on the Silhouette America website. You know , just in case I wanted to order more blades. (BTW use JESSICA or IHEARTIC for 40% off of everything except subscriptions, download cards and machines

Next I picked a very intricate image and cut it at 2 inches. The butterfly on the left was cut with the standard 30 degree Roland blade, which is equivalent to the Cricut regular blade. I used the setting in the Silhouette software for heavy cardstock as this is Bazzil's white cardstock. I set the Cricut blade on 4. As you can see it did pretty good.  Not great, but pretty good.  The one on the right was cut with the Cameo blade with the same settings in the software and the blade on 4.  To me, the Cameo blade did a better job cutting. I basically just took it off the mat and it was ready to use. On the one cut with the Roland blade, I had to do some fine tuning with my X-acto knife. The were a few frays and incomplete cuts.  Please note, I did not try this with the Cricut Deep Cut Blade and that very well may have made a huge difference in the quality of the cut. The musical note; however, did exceptionally well with the Roland blade. It was just a simple image cut at 1 inch.

My final opinion is.....I will stick with my Cameo blades for the more intricate cuts, but if I get in a pinch, it's nice to know that I now have an alternative with the Cricut blades and the Roland blades. I may change my mind once I can do more experiments with the blades and cut settings.

Wednesday, January 2, 2013

A different type of Charger

Hey all, just popping in for a quick post in the New Year.

I must say that this request proved to be one of of the most challenging ones I've had so far. My dear husband's cousin asked me to make a charger plate for her boss who was retiring.  Not bad huh? Get this, Tomika (love her) wanted his favorite bible verse on there, no problem.  She also wanted his favorite team's logo, hmmmm, strange combo but okay, I can do that.  Then she said "Oh and I need you to add the slogan from our job....We cure Cancer"(Prostate cancer). What the what????  All of this on one charger plate!!!!  Egad woman!!!  Talking about being stressed out!!!  I had no earthly idea where to begin. I had a deadline and no clue!!! I discussed it with my hubby, my co-workers and my other family members and we all agreed, this stuff just doesn't go together and there is no way to get all of that on one charger. It can't be done!!! I almost gave up, then late one night I decided to google Tomika's place of employment to see if I could get some type of vision or inspiration from their website. Well I didn't, but I refused to give up and let her down because she was so excited about me doing this unusual gift for her boss, I kept playing around and this is what I came up with. She loved it and after taking a second look, heck, I think I like it too. (BTW her boss was totally thrilled)