Simple Fabric Cards (from long ago)

I have discovered all sorts of things while working on moving back into the parts of our house that were under construction.  I have a big collection of baskets and some of them are usually on the top of the kitchen cabinets.  These were all moved for the floor refinishing in an attempt to avoid the dust of sanding.  It turns out some of them have been up there so long that I forgot what was in them!

When we lived in England, I was in a couple of women's clubs.  When we were there, the usual situation for ex-pats was that they were overseas for the job of one spouse and the other spouse was not given permission to work.  So, there were many formerly busy professional people who suddenly had lots of free time.  I enjoyed these clubs and all of the subgroups - including a few craft groups.

One group put on a small fair for handcrafts and a friend and I participated.  I need to look for the photos (pre-digital) of our displays - I remember we were quite proud of our booth!  I had totally forgotten that I made some cards for one of these fairs.  I found some lovely fabric at John Lewis (a large department store) that had small rectangles depicting each of the twelve days of Christmas.  The fabric had some metallic gold highlights.  I might still have a bit of it somewhere in the attic...but that's another project!

I decided to put "Wonder Under" (a type of fusible web) on the fabric and then I cut it up carefully to feature each of the days separately.  When I had all of my rectangles ready, I simply ironed them to plain white cards - easy peasy!  Fabric can be difficult to adhere with liquid adhesives which often leave marks but the fusible webbing ("Heat 'n Bond" is another brand) was great for adhering the fabric to cardstock.

I no longer have the complete series, I must have sold them unevenly or there may have been more of the panels for certain days in the section of fabric I used.  Looking at them now, I think about all of the pretty frames I could cut and add to the cards.

The other thing that was interesting about this fabric was the listing of the gifts.  I grew up learning this carol with the drummers on the twelfth day but in England, the common version has "nine drummers drumming" instead of "nine ladies dancing" (US), "ten pipers piping" instead of "ten lords-a-leaping" (US), "eleven ladies dancing" instead of "eleven pipers piping" (US), and "twelve lords-a-leaping" instead of "twelve drummers drumming" (US).  If you have the Cricut cartridge "Joys of the Season" you will see that the carol is written in the English version.  Fortunately, the numbers and words are separate so you can easily return the list to the order you are familiar with singing.

I also made some cards with pre-cut card blanks that had an opening in the front - some round and some rectangular.  For these I "fussy cut" a piece of fabric so a cute section would show in the opening.  For some of the cards I also added a bit of quilt batting to puff up the fabric.

 

It would be very easy to cut these type of card blank by creating a file for a three panel card with an opening in the middle panel (the third panel is adhered to the front to hold the insert in place.

You could also make these card blanks with thin dies like Spellbinders and they would give you the thin embossed line around the circle.

I used the same method to make this metallic tree card.  The fabric was from IKEA and I used the webbing to fuse the shapes to the card.  This was traced from an old cookie cutter and the ornaments were free cut with scissors.  At the time I made these cards I had no idea that there would eventually be electronic die-cutting machines...


I wonder if any of you actually made the apple pie from yesterday's post - I hope you enjoyed it.  We have lots more work to do to get resettled but things are starting to come together.  We might even get the furniture back into our room today - after many months of sleeping in the guest room!

If I have a chance, I'll try to finish up a few of the projects I want to share - I just need more hours in the day...

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Pink and Blue Snowflake card

This card is in rather untraditional colors for a holiday card.  I actually did not set out to make a card today - I just wanted to test cut a few more snowflake files so I could post them.  But one thing led to another and...

First, I test cut the snowflake design at the original large size.  I used some pale blue cardstock - the inexpensive kind that comes in value packs at the large craft stores.  This type of cardstock generally is on the thin side with a hard finish and it cuts easily in the Cricut.

I decided to adapt the cut and make it smaller so it could be used on a card.  Here are the two test cuts side by side.  This snowflake was designed with elements from the Reminisce Accents cartridge.

Then I started to get some ideas (always dangerous!) and began to make the plain test cut into something a bit fancier.  I got out some Versamark watermark ink in the "Frost" dazzle color and some sparkly embossing powder called "kaleidoscope."

 

I put the snowflake on some scrap paper and used the ink pad to generously cover the cardstock with ink.

Here you can see the inked up snowflake.

Then I put the snowflake in a plastic sandwich container and poured the embossing powder all over it.

I carefully tapped off the excess powder and checked to be sure the snowflake was evenly covered.

I applied heat with my embossing gun and watched the transformation from powdery and dull to smooth and shiny.  Whenever I do heat embossing it seems like magic to me!

The plain blue base color now has a wonderful iridescent and shimmery finish making a magical snowflake.  The heat gun tends to make the cardstock curl up a bit but it will flatten down easily.

I used my Creative Memories Precision Point Adhesive generously on the back to make sure the cut would adhere nicely to the embossed mat.  My original idea was to make an A2 card so I cut a mat layer from white cardstock at 4 x 5 1/4 inches and embossed it with the "Snow Dots" embossing folder.

I decided to make a 5 x 7 card instead and chose a pale pink card base from a pack of premade cards.  I cut a blue mat layer at 4 1/2 x 6 1/2 inches which left a space to add a sentiment below the matted snowflake.  I used some "Zing" glitter embossing powder in pink on the sentiment I stamped with a Martha Stewart holiday greeting set.

I didn't like the look of the mat layer ending abruptly above the sentiment so I added a thin white ribbon and adhered it to the back of the blue mat before assembling the card.

I tied a tiny piece of ribbon around the base ribbon and added a gem sticker in pink on the knot.

Here is the card flat on the table.  It is very hard to get a good photograph to show the effect of the embossed snowflake and the glittered sentiment but I hope you can imagine the sparkle.

Here is one more close view so you can see the iridescent effect on the snowflake and the embossed background.  This technique allows you to turn a plain piece of inexpensive cardstock into a specialty paper for a beautiful snowflake.

 

I used this same technique a couple of years ago for this card.  It is a great way to have a specialty cardstock effect for a very low cost - a little embossing powder goes a long way! If you'd like to see details about the pine cone card here is a LINK to the post from a couple of years ago.  The file for this card is also available at the post - it uses Joys of the Season and Graphically Speaking (two of my favorite older cartridges).

The file for this snowflake has both large and small versions on two different pages.  The small version is the size I used for this card.  You can adapt the snowflake to fit the size you need for your project.  I'd love to see what you make if you download the file.

Snowflake with points

I have some fun projects coming up using the ProMarkers and I also have been spending some "quality time" with Martha for a new series that I will tell you about next week.  Have a great weekend!

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Birthday Candle Border

I have been using my seasonal cartridges a lot lately.  One of my favorites is Joys of the Season.  This was a new cartridge when I first got my Cricut.  I "had to have it" and I paid more than I am willing to pay now that I am older and wiser about cartridge pricing.  I don't regret it at all - there is so much on this cartridge and I keep finding new ways to use the images.

If you read my blog regularly, you know that I like using border punches and have accumulated quite a collection of them.  I know there are several available that punch birthday candle borders but I don't have any of these.  My shelves are starting to run out of room.  I found a way to make a quick candle border by using the Hanukkah menorah on Joys of the Season.

I used three menorahs and moved them into position so the candles were evenly spaced. The menorahs are not welded to each other but are welded to a rectangle.  I used a 6.5 inch wide rectangle and a guideline rectangle for a 5 x 7 card to create a card topper.  I didn't want to make the candles much smaller so I did not make a topper to fit an A2 card.  You could use only two menorahs to make a topper to fit nicely on the A2 size but I just have this thing about odd numbers!

There are a few extra pages in the file so you can play with the colors in preview.  The actual topper is cut from the first page and the "happy birthday" sentiment from A Child's Year is cut from the second page of the file.  If you don't have A Child's Year you could use another cartridge with the phrase or weld your own sentiment to fit the card.

I cut the "happy birthday" from glitter cardstock using multi cut 2 for a clean cut.  I also decided to cut an extra layer for contrast to form the "cake" on the card.  This optional layer is not in the file - just cut a piece of paper or cardstock to 6.5 x 3.75 inches.  I made the card base from a piece of yellow cardstock cut to 7 x 10 inches, scored and folded in half.

 

A tiny bit of yellow Stickles glitter glue lights up the candles.  When you add the Stickles you should work on a scrap paper and then lift the cut and check to be sure that the glitter is only on the flame area.  Let it dry on a non stick surface like a craft mat if possible.

I inked the edges of the "cake" with brown ink to hide any white core that might show.  The colors are not my usual choices and for some reason they did not photograph very well but the card is bright and sparkly in person!

Thanks to all of you who left comments or emailed me about my 500th post - I really appreciate hearing from you and I am blushing from some of the lovely messages and compliments (and yes, the housecleaning often does lose in the competition for my time!)


Birthday Candle Border

Adjustable Snowflakes in Circles (a step by step tutorial)

I keep getting questions from readers on how to weld the snowflakes inside circles and make them adjustable. Today, I finally had a chance to do a step by step picture tutorial for all of you visual learners!

In this example, I used the silhouetted circle from Mini Monograms and a snowflake from Joys of the Season. Earlier this week I posted a list of carts that have some sort of silhouetted circle - here is a LINK to that post. You can put any element inside the circle by following these steps but since everyone liked the snowflakes I used one again for this lesson.




You can see the highlighted keys above showing how to select the silhouetted circle on Mini Monograms. Since this circle is intended to be used as a layer for the shapes on the lower right corner of the keypad I recommend checking "real dial size" which will make the circle the actual size you select on the slider bar. Since you are only using two elements you can choose a large size which makes it easier to see the details as you work.



Above you see the 4 1/2 inch circle on the mat - notice the "handles" and the light gray line connecting them - this is your "selection box."




Above you can see the keypad showing the snowflake I selected from the Joys of the Season cartridge. You could use many of the other designs as well - I did the menorah, Star of David and dreidel for a friend.




You can start off by clicking somewhere on the mat to deselect the circle and then choosing the snowflake at the same size. You can probably tell at a glance that this is too large to fit in the circle.



Using the handle on the center left you can slide the snowflake over to the side to place it on top of the circle - it is clearly too large to fit (but I think this also would be a pretty design to cut!).



Making a guess, you can try a smaller size - here I "auditioned" a 3 1/2 inch snowflake. Preview this design, making sure that the weld box in the Shape properties box is checked for both the circle and the snowflake.



If you look carefully at the image below, you can see that the dark lines which indicate the cutting lines show that there is not enough overlap of the shapes for a weld to work using this size for the snowflake.



So, try the next size up on the slider bar - 3 5/8 inches. It is important to use the slider bar to set the size because you will not be able to adjust the snowflake you want to weld by the handles since it will be in a combined design box.



Above you can see that the test preview of the 3 5/8 inch snowflake shows that there will be a good weld - the six points all overlap into the circle enough to connect the elements.



Now that you know what size snowflake you need, you are ready to make the design. Leave the trial snowflake in place and click anywhere on the circle to select it.



Then, make sure that the slider bar is set at 3 5/8 and add the snowflake. You will have one large box surrounding these two elements as you can see above. Double check to be sure you have the "weld" function checked (you should still have it on from previewing the circle and snowflake welded as independent elements).



Now, use the "nudge" arrows (shown above) to move the snowflake into position.



Click on the left nudge arrow repeatedly to move the snowflake over to the left. You can hold down the arrow key and make the snowflake move continuously but there is a tendency for the arrow to "stick" which means that the snowflake will become unstoppable! If this happens, click somewhere else on the mat, save your file and then close the Design Studio program. You will need to wait for it to reload, but then you can reopen the file and pick up where you left off.



Once you have nudged the snowflake into position horizontally it will look like this - now you just need to use the "up" arrow to place the snowflake into the final position.



By leaving the "trial" snowflake in position, you have a guide for the final placement - above you can see the snowflake completely nudged into position (it has almost disappeared on top of the trial snowflake).



Using the handle at the center left of the selection box, you can slide the circled snowflake to the right. The circle and snowflake will move as one unit, leaving the trial snowflake where it was placed on the mat earlier.



Above you can see the completed design after hitting the preview key - you can tell by the dark lines that the shape will cut correctly.



Now, you can delete the trial snowflake from the mat.



Next, while the new design is selected, click the copy button in the left column,



and then click the paste button.




A second snowflake will be pasted directly on top of the design. You can see that the lines are a bit darker, showing you that there are now multiple snowflake designs.



Using the left center handle, slide the newly copied and pasted design to the left



Then using the handle in the lower right corner you can resize this design.



Copy and paste as many times as you like and change the sizes to whatever you want - you can now make your own blizzard of matching snowflake designs in various sizes.

Let me know if this explanation helps you make this type of design using the cartridges that you own. Once you have mastered this simple design, you can apply the same principles to make adjustable designs containing many elements. Have fun and let me see what you are making!