Christmas Shadow Box Card

I have been working on the shadow box card. I decided to tie it with ribbon . There are other ways that the box could be closed. When using ribbon I find it works best if a Zot dot is used to adhere the ribbon on the back so it doesn't fall off when the person receiving the card unties it. Although you could use glue which is messier.

My shadow box card isn't finished as I haven't found where I put my Christmas sentiment stamps to do the inside.  Between glitter and the transparency panel it was hard to get a good picture but I hope this gives you an idea of what it looks like inside.

The box card I saw in a book only had one cut out panel. A box template rubber stamp was modified for the card. I however wanted double cut out panels to give it more of a dimension. This is what my file ended up looking like on my work space in Studio. Just in case you would like to try your hand at making your own card. ;)

I didn't have any heavy card stock in white and for something like this a heavy card stock is needed. So I painted the card stock with white DecoArt Patio paint left over from years ago when I was painting outdoor containers. After it dried I painted DecoArt crystal Twinkle paint on it. I don't  know if  DecoArt still makes the Twinkle paint as I couldn't find it recently in a craft store. The panel behind the tree is gray card stock. I painted with the Patio paint on it to look like snow and sprinkled crystal glitter in the paint while it was still wet. The tree is a free Studio file. For the tree I used brown ink for the trunk applying it with a bristle brush. The tree is painted with Peridot Folk Art Extreme Glitter paint. I only used one coat but more coats could be used. The star gems were a recent find at a dollar store. LOL! I sort of went crazy using them.

This type of card could be made for any occasion and if a person wanted it larger it could be cut using 12x12. Also remember if you don't have card stock a color you would like or if for whatever reason your card stock is discolored you can always use paint. I especially like to use the glitter paint on card stock after cutting out my shapes as it is not as hard on the blade of the cutting machine as cutting glitter paper is.

That's all folks for now. Thanks for stopping by and commenting. Happy Frugal Crafting till we meet again!

Flourish Border Gate Card

I have been playing with designing my own cutting file. Beth over at Sunflower and Dragonflies had a border which inspired me to make my own. The link can be found HERE


Here is the gate fold card I designed using the border panel which I created with some welding and mirroring. The flourish is a free one in the library which I modified and put two together. I would love to share the file but alas since I did use a silhouette shape even though modified I don't dare. My card isn't perfect but I like how the design has turned out and like always it is a learning experience.

One side of the Velcro showed. ARGH! I was able to carefully peel up that edge and trim it. Next time I am going to use a button or other embellishment and a loop. I was looking for my purple glass buttons but couldn't find them but I did find these Martha Stewart acrylic stickers which I have had in my stash..

Originally I was going to cut the base out of dark purple but in my playing I got the fold lines in the wrong place. I also discovered that the card stock with purples is really flimsy. So I went with the gray heavy card stock which I accidentally bought instead of white.

On the gate front of the base I heat embossed silver just in the center of the panels. As I wanted only the flourishes to show the silver. I could have just as easily cut out a copy and used that as a stencil using embossing ink and embossing powder.

Cameron didn't like the purple card stock so it took me five times cutting before I got two decent ones. I will have to remember and only use the card stock for simple shapes. I know it is the card stock as it cut the panel with no problems with the gray when I was playing.

I was going to weave light purple ribbon through the open scallops but it looked too blah so I went with my narrow teal ribbon.

The border was easy to design. It was the gate card which was a little more trickier. I spent several hours and a few test cuts before I could get it right.  The other tricky part was to glue the purple panels on the card-base. Lining everything up just so. Now that the base is saved I may just glue on next time the flourish. LOL! And forget about adding the cutout panels.

What do you think? Have I inspired you to try your hand at a gate card? Or perhaps to heat emboss under a cutout design.

That's all folks. Thank you for stopping by and do come back. I'm still trying to decide how I want to do my box card and alas I accidentally shut down my computer so it is back to the drawing board for some panels and embellishments. Hopefully my next post will be on that so do come back.

Wishing you Happy Frugal Crafting till we meet again.

Flying By

Moxie Fab World had a couple of lessons on their blog about focal point and movement. Also Debbie at Paper Pulse posted a card with faux embossing using Photo Shop. She gave a link for instruction on how to do it. I decided to play around with my antique elements program to see what I could do. LOL! It is so old that it doesn't even qualify for an upgrade. Anyway this is what I ended up with as a background and  my card using it. (click on image to enlarge)

It took me longer to do the background and to cut out than to design the card. Especially since I couldn't remember how to do things like make custom brushes. It has only been about ten years since I've really played with Photo Shop.LOL! I never did find a bevel option but I am sure it is there somewhere.

 First time although registration marks were read correctly it cut way off. The next three times it started cutting correctly but halfway through the mat would start slipping. Finally changed the mat. LOL! I was ready to give Cameron away I was getting so frustrated. 

The bird is a Silhouette free print file. I opened it up in Studio and using the snip tool saved it as a png. Then opened up Photo Shop and started playing. When I went to emboss the background changed to gray and the  bird ended up having yellow and blue colors in it. I went and filled in the background after playing around trying to figure out what I wanted. Since I had turned the bird png into a brush I went and brushed over the original bird with white offsetting slightly. 

I drew a rectangle in Studio and filled in with the bird pattern made in Photo Shop. I used the scale and pan options since the original was a single bird.. I did a text to path right on my rectangle and filled it with color. 

I design right on the work space so I played around with the placement of the text as well as the size of bird to cut out. I did have to do an internal offset for the bird as the cut lines are off in the original file. I discovered that last year when I first went to use it. At the time I didn't know how to fix it.

Since Cameron was messing up on the cutting I decided to play around with my printer options. Now I have a better idea of what the different photo effect options do. Once it was printed and cut it took all of a minute to put it together. The cut out bird is pop dotted on the card. I had to cut a couple of dots so they wouldn't show.

O.K. So did I get a passing grade on focal point and movement? What do you think?

Thank you for stopping by and for leaving comments. Do come back as I've been working on a file for making a box card. I have a little more tweaking to do and want to do some experimenting with stamping. At least the ones Cameron didn't cut right or fold lines were off a little bit will get used as test material. LOL! Nothing is wasted.

Happy Frugal Crafting till we meet again!

Christmas In August

Weather is hot and in fact triple digits so I thought perhaps I could cool off by thinking of Christmas. Also my sister e-mailed me wanting some Christmas ideas for cards. While looking through my files I found this tree which I had traced from a template in a library book. Here is my first Christmas card. One down and fifty to go. LOL! (click to enlarge)

Except for the pre-scored card base and the pink double sided card stock everything else was cut out of scraps. I found the pink double sided card stock at a dollar store recently. The panel I embossed with a Sizzix stencil type embossing folder I found on sale a few months back. Then I painted Twinkles crystal glitter paint on the card stock. The embossing became really subtle. The joy is a free Studio file. I replaced the dot for the j with a star from a free Christmas tree file. It was a real pain gluing the rhinestones on the tree. The tree is pop dotted.  It would be fairly easy to duplicate the tree. Just need to cut upside down v's to fold down. I did an internal offset for the backing piece.

That's all folks. Off to pack to see if I can escape this heat for a couple of days. Thanks for stopping by and do come back.

Wishing you Happy Frugal Crafting till we meet again!

Sneak Peek

This is what I have been working on lately. This is my attempt at using my Silhouette and Embossing Enamel to make jewelry. I need to buy findings and add Dimensional Magic to the bottle caps. Just want to make sure the Twinkles is totally dry first. This is what I have done so far.(Click to enlarge photo)

The monogram I designed in Studio using Lucida Calligraphy. I love how the M and W form what looks like a lightening bolt. They were coated with silver nail polish.  I took a fishing flasher and coated it with bronze embossing enamel. It was rather worn looking like the gold one here. Then glued the monogram down. I then coated with clear embossing powder. This will be on a necklace. I"m not sure if I want to string beads to put it on or what yet. I'm kind of leaning towards using some wooden beads. The smaller monograms are on card stock which has been heat embossed also. I had a hard time getting the two layers to stick together but thought that they might need more substance since they will be earrings. I ended up putting wax paper down in a book and putting the ovals in the book. I think it would be better to glue the card stock shapes together and then emboss with the enamel. Next time I will use some kind of a clear coat instead of clear embossing because a little bit of the bronze melted onto the letters. The image on the bottle caps is a jpg. I was going to cut the letter itself out but ran into problems. I made the letter a print and cut and had Cameron cut out circles. I found my Twinkles while cleaning and decided instead of using Mod Podge to coat the bottle cap with that instead and use it as a glue. I poured a little bit in the bottle cap and rotated it. Then I put my circle in the middle lightly brushing more over the letter. I used the paint brush to center the image where I wanted it. It is hard to get a good picture of it. Not sure whether I will use these for earrings or glue them on pony tail holders. I have a couple of months before Christmas. If anyone has other ideas I would love to hear them.

The bottle caps would make nice magnets. I've seen bracelets made using them. I can see all kinds of uses to re-purpose them.

Have I inspired you to try your hand at making some jewelry or to re-purpose what you might throw out? What projects have you been working on? Have you tried something new?

That's all folks! Oh and for those on the Silhouette Plus forum I didn't raid my roommate's tackle box he gave me the worn flashers. If you don't have access to fishing tackle go hit the yard sales and thrift stores if you wish to make some funky jewelry. The possibilities are endless.

Thank you for stopping by and do come back. Wishing you Happy Frugal Crafting till we meet again.

Sketch Challenge

Over at the Silhouette Plus Forum there is a sketch challenge for the month of August. Since I am a co-host I thought I had better do a card.  This is the card I just finished today. I had the pieces cut out but wasn't totally sure how I wanted to do the card. There were a few things I didn't like while I was playing around so it was thinking and coming up with alternatives. Here is the card:

This is the sketch layout:

I accidentally bought gray card stock instead of white so need to be using it and saving the white for print and cut. I used thinned gold acrylic paint on the scallop piece but did not like the way it turned out. So I painted white pearl paint over it and it turned a silver color. I also painted the sentiment tag. The crotchet thread is wrapped around fiberglass mesh net which I colored with StazOn teal ink. I decided to add a button instead of tying bows. I figured gold is in the yellow family so went that route with a G Studio button.. The pattern paper is from The Mariposa  matstack. I fell in love with the printed card stock and so when I found it for half price several months later splurged and bought it.  The band was colored with the teal ink  which was dabbed on a cotton ball and applied in a circular motion to the tag. The diamond is card stock covered in foil. Next time I will spray adhesive on the foil before wrapping the card stock with it as it is not as tight as I would have liked it. Then I embossed it with a Sizzix texture plate. I rubbed Butterscotch alcohol ink on it using a cotton ball. Then I went and pounced the cotton ball over it to give it  the darker texture. The sentiment was stamped with the teal ink. I am not sure what company it is from but I think it is a discontinued Hero Arts stamp from a friendship collection.

Although I got the sentiment too far left and was afraid of ripping the foil by re-positioning it I am for the most part happy at the way this card turned out. I was happy to see how nicely StazOn Ink stamps over acrylic paint.  Especially since I bought several colors at a craft yard sale over the weekend. The teal being one of them.

This was the first time I used a card layout sketch and although it may save some people time when it comes to card making it actually took me more time. It was fun though and I hope I have inspired you to try your hand at using a card sketch layout.

That is all for now. I have some Christmas gifts in the works. Some using paper and some not. Some of my ideas are not working out and it is too hot in the craft room to spend much time. Do come back though as I should have some interesting projects to share with you.

Thank you for stopping by and leaving a little bit of love. Wishing you Happy Frugal Crafting till we meet again!