International Card Making Day Spirited Scrap

Here is the card this Spirited Scrap will be creating.  It is a delightful card with a hint of a coffee scent to perk up your friend on a blue day.

Supply List:
card stock or patterned paper- at least 4 1/2 x12"
2 small pieces of card stock at least 3x4", one must be a light colour
3x4" transparency or a piece of clear plastic from some packaging.
a 4 1/4x5 1/2" envelope.
adhesive of your choice.
foam adhesive 3/16" wide.. thicker is better.
      You could use a wider one if you cut it in half.. or use a lot of small squares.
      You may also find this in the adhesive section of the hardware/$store for mounting pictures.
Treat yourself to some freshly ground coffee for the day, reserving 1 tsp and 3 whole coffee beans
scissors, printer
embellishments to dress up the card

Step 1:
Print the template on the back of the card stock or patterned paper using a borderless print.  If you only have a 4 ½” wide piece of card stock you may want to print on scrap paper, then tape the card stock over the scrap paper template in proper position using scotch tape and run it through the printer again.  Cut out the card base, score and fold.
If you want to cover it in patterned paper you can use the single layer (at the side of the template provided) as a template.

Step 2:
Print out the quote “A cup of coffee shared with a friend is happiness tasted and time well spent.” onto scrap paper using your favourite font in a 1 ½” column using a font size so that the quote is also about 1 ½” tall.  Set the colour to coordinate with your paper if you like.

Cover it with the 4x3” piece of light coloured card stock, tape it down and run through the printer a second time.

Using your favourite oval cutting tool (or the template in step 1) cut an approximately 3 ¼ x 2 ½” tall oval around the quote.  Cut a second oval from the other piece of cardstock and another oval out of the center so that you end up with a ¼” frame (approximately; it must be wider than the foam adhesive).
Also cut a slightly smaller oval from the transparency or clear plastic.

Step 3:
Glue the transparency oval to the back of the oval frame.

Adhere the foam adhesive all the way around the frame making sure it stays on the oval frame.  (The paper backing will not bend like the foam adhesive and pop off during the process.) 

To add more dimension remove the paper backing from the adhesive and add another layer of foam adhesive. 

Place ¼ tsp of coffee grinds on top of the quote.

Glue the dimensional frame carefully to the quote making sure it lines up. 

You have now created a shadow box. (You can also use individual foam squares making sure the squares butt tightly against each other so that your filler stays inside the shadow box)

Step 4:
Glue this to the front of the card base.

Then glue three coffee beans to the top right hand corner of the shadow box. (I did it the other way around and found it hard to add the glue to the back of the shadow box while the glue on the coffee beans was drying)

Decorate the card further as you wish.
I used two Prima mulberry flowers centered with a coffee bean, surrounded by Martha Stewart twig punch die cuts and a piece of narrow brown satin ribbon tied in a bow.

Spirited Scrap: Joy Fold Card

Supply list:

5x7 ½” card stock sturdy
4x8 card stock sturdy
 3 ¾ x3 ¾ coordinating card stock or patterned paper (any weight)
4 ¾ x4 ¾ coordinating card stock or patterned paper (any weight)
3 ½ x 3 ½  card stock with digital image, stamped image, word art or verse (see suggestions at the bottom of this post)
       (or mount the cut out image on this card stock with dimensional adhesive for affect if you like)
(2) 3 ¾ x3 ¾ light coloured card stock (if you did not print a sentiment/poem on the
       previous piece you may choose to do so on one of these)
(2) 4 ¾ x 2 ¼ card stock or patterned paper (any weight)
5” decorative edge strip ie) using border paper punch, scallop edge, paper frills,
       bazzill edge strips, cut with a die cutting machine, deco scissors… the possibilities are endless
12”ribbon ½ to 1” wide not too thick (so it’s easier to work with)
photo turn with brad
glue of your choice
scoring tool, like a scor pal, or a boning knife, dry embossing stylus, a pen you’re
       absolutely sure is not going to release any ink, butter knife and a ruler and pencil
optional embellishments like ink, pearls, gems, glitter, sewing machine, rub on stitches,
       dimensional glues, flowers, button, metal to add your own touches
8 ½ x 11 or 8 ½ x 12 plain copy paper, card stock, patterned paper for an envelope
envelope template printed ~the envelope template is exactly 11” so all of it will not print
       considering page margins, you will need to extend the lines to the length indicated
       on the template.  Also if you have some creased/stained or otherwise undesirable
       card stock it will make a sturdy reusable template.  Please print and cut out before the Spirited Scrap.
Here is the template: in jpg format and as a pdf
       make sure the distance between the two points as shown in this image is approximately 5 1/4".
       You may need to set your printer to do a borderless print.  It must be bigger than 5"

Optional 1 ½ x 4 piece of sturdy box board… this doesn’t need to look really pretty,
       go ahead and cut it with your kitchen scissors, then cut a 1/2 x 2" slit in the top (I actually cut it on the fold
       of a box so it would be double thickness); or a bow easy

Step 1)

1)      Mark the 5x7 ½” piece of cardstock at 5” (just a very small mark so it’s hardly visible later, on both sides).  Using your ruler and scoring tool score the cardstock at 5” and fold.

2)      Now take the 4x8” piece of cardstock and mark at 4”; score and fold this piece as well.

3)      Ink or distress the edges of the front and inside of your cardstock if desired (the 2 ½” piece will be the front of your card)

4)      Ink or distress the front edges of your remaining cardstock if desired.

Step 2)

1)      Take the 3 ¾ x 3 ¾” piece (the first one listed in the supplies) and adhere it onto the 4x4” card base.  Then take the 3 ½ x3 ½” stamped/embellished piece and adhere it onto the 4x4” base as well.

2)      Open up the 4x4 card base and take the two remaining 3 ¾ x3 ¾” pieces and adhere one to the top and one to the bottom.

Step 3)

1)      Open up the 5x5 cardstock base and adhere the 4 ¾ x 4 ¾” piece of paper to the inside.

2)      Adhere the decorative edge strip along the bottom of the card base (2 ½” side) on the inside of the card.

3)      Take the one of the 4 ¾ x 2 ¼” pieces and adhere it over/along the decorative edge strip.

Step 4)

1)      Open up the 5x5” base with the 2 ½” flap towards you and adhere the 4x4” card base with the fold away from you, to the center of the card.

Step 5)

1)      Open up the 4x4 card, fold the base of the 5x5 card up, and once again close the 4x4” card back up.  Temporarily place the remaining 4 ¾ x 2 ¼” piece of paper onto the half flap.

2)      Place the photo turn to the left of the 4x4 card and mark the hole.  Take the piece of paper out of the card again and fasten the photo turn on the mark.

3)      Adhere the piece to the card.

Step 6)

We are going to tie a bow in the ribbon.  If you have a bow easy and know how to use it go ahead J I’ll give the rest of you direction on how to tie a bow using your slotted boxboard.

1)      Take your slotted pieces of boxboard and lay your ribbon across the front with the length of the desired tail on the left side.  (If you’re a lefty you may want to reverse your left and rights throughout this process.)

2)      We’ll be working with the long length of ribbon on the right hand side.  Take the ribbon and run it along the back of the boxboard.

3)      Bring it back up along the front leaving some slack on the ribbon, and down along the top through the slot.

4)      Bring the ribbon back up through the slot below the ribbon.

5)      Pass your ribbon through the slack piece of ribbon from the top left to the bottom right as shown in the picture, then pull it away from you.

6)      Flip the boxboard over bottom to top. And pull ribbon down and tight.  You may have to adjust the knot a little as you tighten so it’s nicely centered and looks pretty.  If you have printed ribbon make sure the pattern faces the front.

7)      Pull the tail back down towards you and pull the bow off your boxboard.

8)      You may want to tighten adjust the bow a little more, and then trim the tails to the length and shape desired.

9)      Adhere the bow to the top right hand of your card.

WARNING: If you pull on the tails to undo your bow and try again you will end up with a knot in your ribbon; pull apart the knot instead.

 

Step 7)

1)      Take out your envelope paper and trace out your template.  If you are using an 8 ½ x12” piece of paper you could add another 1” to the flap closure of the envelope and then punch the same decorative edge you used on the card.
 2)      Score the fold lines of the envelope and fold the sides in.

3)      Add glue to the back flap.  Lining a ruler along the side flaps makes sure you don’t place glue where it will adhere to the front of the envelope

4)      Decorate the envelope, if you wish, using the patterned paper or stamps used on the card.

Step 8)

      Finish off your card with any details you like to make it your own.

Dressing up punchy or die cut flowers and leaves

Here is a quick tutorial on how to dress up your flat punchie/diecut flowers and leaves to use on a layout or a card. I used this flower on the I'm sorry card, although I have other examples of similar flowers on my blog.

We could just layer the flowers and leaf together like this, and it would be okay, but I'm going to show you how to add some dimension and pizazz.

First of all take a nice shade of ink slightly darker than your flower or leaf or a nice coordinating colour and ink the edges.

Secondly find an object with a nice rounded end (possibly a rounded capped pen, I have a jumbo dry embossing tip).  Lay the first layer of your flower in your palm and press the rounded object into the center and cup your hand to force the petals up.  Repeat the process with the other/remaining layers of your flowers.

(isn't DH a sweetie for modeling this for me )
Take the leaf and bend it from the stem to the tip of the leaf , preferably not in a perfectly straight line.

Take a pearl, jewel, brad or some stickles and add it to the center of the smallest/inner flower.  Glue the layers of the flowers together, offsetting the petals of the layer above it to the spaces of the flower below it. Add a little bit of glue to the stem(s) of the leaf and adhere to the bottom of the finished flower.

Now you're ready to add the flower to your layout or card

Printing text on a diecut in a coordinating colour.

Here is a small tutorial on how printed the text in a coordinating colour on a die cut, like I showed in this card.  First of all I scan whatever it is I am drawing my colour inspiration for the text, and save it to my computer.  I open up the file using my photo editing software, which in my case is GIMP.  I use the colour selection tool and grab the colour from the file I am interested in.  Most software allow you to change the size of the area of the colour selector.  If your source has intricate variation in colour it is best to set the size small so you do not pick up the neighbouring colours as well.  If the area is large then setting a larger size will blend together all the shades within the field that the scanner picks up giving you the colour your eye perceives.

Open up a new document and set up your sentiment using a favourite font.  Adjust the size of the text so it will fit inside the dimensions of your die cut.  It is aesthetically pleasing to leave some white space all around the sentiment as long as the text is still in a legible size.  Print this out on a piece of scrap printer paper.  Double check that you are satisfied with the colour and size of the text relative to the die cut.   Add a few small dabs of (temporary) adhesive to the back of your die cut and center it over the text on your scrap paper.  Next take another another small strip of scrap paper and place it over the top edge of the die cut without interfering with the printed sentiment.  Place a piece of scotch tape over the top of the scrap strip.  Doing this will prevent the die cut from jamming in your printer instead giving it a smooth line to feed in.  Place the scrap paper back into your printer in the same direction you originally had it and print the sentiment again.  This should give you a perfectly placed sentiment in a coordinating colour on your die cut.  You can go ahead and remove it from the scrap paper.  If you didn't use temporary adhesive, because the scrap paper is much lighter it will rip more easily than your card stock and you should have no problems.

Covering Foam Stickers with paper using the Silhouette.

Image 2

Image 1

I'm going to give you a quick tutorial on covering foam stickers or chipboard with paper using your Silhouette.  I'm going to presume you are comfortable using your photo editing software.  First of all you need to take the items you want to cover and scan them at 300 dpi (this is important because it will allow you to cut your paper at the exact same size as the material you are covering).  It is best if there is good contrast between the background and the items being scanned.  Import this into your photo editing software and remove the background. For this example (Image 1), even though I used a white alphabet, I scanned a black version because it has great contrast to the background they are mounted on.  If you only have white/light colour you may need to  create the contrast by temporarily adhering it to some clear plastic and use black card stock behind that in your scan.

Image 3

Image 5

Image 4

Image 6

Image7

Because I have great contrast here I could simply play with the contrast of the colours to change it to this pure black and white image (Image 2).  You may need to manually erase some of the edges paying a bit of attention to any shadows cast in the scan as well.  Convert this to a black and white image to get the maximum contrast which will make it easier for Robomaster to detect the edges when you get the outline.   One way to achieve this is to remove the white background and then selecting what is left behind. If you then create a new transparent layer you can use black bucket fill to fill the letters.  Then add a new white layer below this and flatten it to get a pure black and white image.  Since I scanned the entire sticker sheet I then cut and pasted the letters I needed (the r was on a second sheet I didn't show for brevity).   Save this file (Image 3).

Open up the Robomaster software and create a new file.  Click on the 'Get Outline' button (Image 4).  Select File, then 'Load Image' and open the saved image which should look like image 5.  Select 'Convert to Outline'  and it will look like Image 6.  If the outline is not as smooth  as you'd like you can select 'Edit Image' and adjust the threshold.  If you only have an occasional 'blip' where it's not as smooth as you'd like you can play with the Delete/Add Break Point functions.  When you're finished editing select 'Paste then Exit' button and click on your document where you'd like to place it (Image 7).  DO NOTadjust the size.  Finally cut this out using your Silhouette and you will get perfectly sized paper to cover your chipboard or foam alphabet stickers.

You can see the finished product I used on this Layout.