Yes,You Can Do It!

Hi everyone! I took a week off from crafting but am back now. I needed to take a break as I was getting frustrated with my lack of organization of my supplies. Alas I still have not found many of my supplies. So for this card I substituted my pastel chalks to color the basket of tulips instead of my colored pencils. Just felt like I needed to go ahead and do a project.

Back in January over at  the Silhouette Plus forum there was a challenge to create a design in Studio with a letter. I had fun with that challenge and thought it would be neat to have a challenge where people created a card using what they designed. So until the end of the month you can join in the fun at the Silhouette Plus forum.

If you don't have Studio software or even a cutter you can still do some of the things I did with this card. More about that further down.

Without further ado here is my card. Fresh off the crafting table today. Sorry but my camera did not pick up all the sparkle of the cut tulips.

My mat was made using an upper case B with the Lucida Calligraphy font. I just duplicated,rotated,and welded to come up with my mat.

I originally was going to cut out my design but after four tries and the card stock either tearing or not cutting out in places I gave up. I think it is time for a new mat and blade. Since this is also happening with intricate purchased files.

I was surprised at what a difference adding a pattern can give to a design. Compare the design with a pattern and with just the background filled with color and the cut lines made thicker and color changed.

My abstract sun was created using the first part of Debbie's video on creating doilies over at Paper Pulse. LOL! This would also work as a seal on a document or even a flower. I heat embossed it with my Zing gold embossing powder.

The basket of tulips is a free digital stamp. I believe it is by Bird but not sure. I traced it for a Print and Cut in Studio. I went ahead and deleted the places I did not want to have cut out after releasing the compound path. I also went ahead and edited some of the nodes so that when cut out they would look better. I made a  duplicate and set it to just cut edges.

The basket with the cut out was colored with my pastel chalks using Fantastix coloring tools. By the way these are worth the investment if you play with different mediums. The solid basket was heat embossed with once again my Zing embossing powder. LOL! If you duplicate something like this make sure you heat emboss on the correct side. Luckily I caught myself before embossing on the wrong side. Once the two baskets were glued together so they became one I pop dotted them on the front of my card.

So there you have my card and yes you can do something similar to this. Believe me if I can do it anyone can.

If you don't have Studio software or something similar you can still make your own backgrounds with a graphic program like Photoshop or the free program Paint.Net. It may be more work but trust me it can be done because I made a lot of my own backgrounds for my web site and my own crafting. Like any software there is a learning curve but just by playing and following tutorial I have been amazed at what I have created.

If you don't have a cutting machine that allows you to cut out images you can cut out by hand images. I have done this for decades. Do have on hand a good craft knife with a sharp blade and manicure scissors. As well as lots of patience.

 I hope I have inspired you to perhaps try something new or even to dip your toes in the Design pool if you haven't yet.

Thank you for stopping by and Happy Crafting!