Easy Frames - Gypsy or Design Studio

 A quick and easy way to make a decorative frame for a scrapbook page or a card is to use a border from one of the many cartridges with prewelded border designs.  Some of the borders will work better than other so just experiment with some of your favorites.

 This screen shot shows the border I used for the daisy frame.  This border is one of the many lovely borders on the Gypsy Wanderings cartridge.  Below is a screen shot of the border as it appears directly from the cartridge proportionately sized to 11 inches wide.

The height is too tall for the frame effect I wanted so I adjusted the height to 2 inches, as shown below.

 

On the Gypsy you need to deselect the "chain" between the words height and width (yellow when "on" to preserve the proportions and black and white when "off"). This enables you to set the exact height and width you want.  In Design Studio, you use the "handle"  in the lower right corner of the selection box to proportionally size the border.  If you want to set specific width and height just enter the numbers in the Shape Properties box and press "enter" on your keyboard or click on the mat.

This screen shot shows the two together so you can easily see the difference.

Once you have the border adjusted to your preferred size, simply copy and paste (or duplicate) three times, rotate the three additional borders 90, 180 and 270 degrees (which will appear as -90 in both Design Studio and on the Gypsy) and fit them together into a nice frame.

 Here is another example, also using a border from Gypsy Wanderings.

For this frame I used the border design highlighted on the keypad above.

The design at eleven inches wide with no alteration is just over 5 inches tall - much too wide for a frame.

I adjusted the height to 1.5 inches, copied and  pasted (in Design Studio) or duplicated (on the Gypsy), rotated and welded and created a simple and fast frame for a 12 x 12 page.

Here is another view of the same frame - I cut it from double sided paper which gave me two different "looks" to choose between.

To make a similar frame for a card you would simply use sizes that would fit your intended card size.  A few other cartridges with border designs you might want to try are Storybook, Life is a Beach, Celebrations, Doodlecharms, Mickey and Friends, Paper Pups, Sports Mania, and Stand and Salute.

(The drive home went well but I am exhausted with a bit of a sore throat and stuffy nose so it will be early to bed for me...)

Sneak peek at another card

I'll be heading back to Massachusetts tomorrow - it was nice to have a few days with my Dad.  He will be 85 next month so I'll be back for the party!  We will have a reunion with all of my siblings (four of us from four states).

I designed and cut this card before I left - I thought I might have a chance to do a video explaining it while I was away but we had too many other things to do (including a lively backgammon session - Dad won hands down!).

The card was made with the Gypsy and the Gypsy Wanderings cartridge but you can apply the same idea to another card form and pumpkin/jack o'lantern combination.

Whether you use Design Studio or the Gypsy, you will be able to cut all of your card pieces and layers at once as you can see on this photo of the mat - before cutting (above) and after ""weeding" (below).

I added a couple of extra pumpkins and tags to fill the space and use up the paper - they will be used in other projects.

Here is a picture of the open card - I did not add any embellishing before I left (I wanted to think it over a bit...).

Once I get home tomorrow I will be staying in one place for a while - I am really looking forward to that!  My apologies if you have sent a question or comment and haven't had an answer yet - I do intend to catch up once I get back into a normal routine.

(Now I have to get some sleep before the long drive tomorrow)

Hope Card

Once again, I am on my way out the door for a quick trip.  Our son was home for a short visit and I am taking him back to New Jersey and then going on to visit my Dad.  I am not sure how long the trip will take so I wanted to get my blog post up before I go in case I get to Dad's very late.

I do not have the Pink Journey cartridge that comes with the Pink Expression at Michael's - I just couldn't justify buying yet another machine to get the exclusive cartridge.  I am hoping that this cartridge will be released for general sale at some time in the future.

Here is an idea for a card with a similar theme that I made with the Gypsy.  The Gypsy Wanderings cartridge has a word art feature with lots of beautiful combinations of words and shapes.  I used two corners from this cartridge to create the frame and then welded the word art with them for a simple card topper.  The cut was then adhered to an A2 card base (half of an 8 1/2 x 11 piece of cardstock).

If you don't have the Gypsy, you could create something similar in Design Studio using cartridges you have to created your own word art and frame.  I will try to put together a file that I can share for a card like this.  I hope that soon we will have the ability to share Gypsy files - I have quite a few of them "trapped" in my Gypsy right now(!)

I hope you all are having a nice long weekend (if you have a Columbus Day holiday).  Here is one more photo of this card - of course there were Stickles involved!