Make your own Patterned Paper

I thought I'd show you another experiment with the gelly pens. If you read my blog regularly, you know that I love to make mesh designs using a motif from a Cricut cartridge and the Design Studio software. Many people wanted to know how I make these and we have a new class on Let me Show you How to Do that for Full Page Designs (click the link to go to the LMSYHTDT blog for details on registering).



I tend to take these designs to the limit and sometimes I find that I can't successfully cut a design because it is just too intricate. Sometimes it will cut well but be nearly impossible to lift from the mat. So I thought I could try using the pens to draw one of these extremely intricate meshes.

I started with the element highlighted on the screen shot of the keypad above.



Here is the element in preview (it is one of the "tiny icon" images on the Storybook cartridge so I am sure you couldn't tell what it looked like from the screen shot - I just wanted to show you the key location).



Here is a screen shot of the preview - you can see how dense it is!



I loaded up the mat with pale green paper and put the dark green gelly pen in the holder. Once again, I don't really understand how the software directs the cutting/drawing process - first the outline is drawn and then the design is filled in but there is some skipping around until the design is complete. This one took a long time to finish - but it finished!



Here is the final drawing on the mat - there were just a few tiny spots where the line was not continuous but they will be easy to fill in. I certainly would not want to try to lift a cut of this design from the mat!



Here is a close view of the drawing. I have created a simple piece of custom patterned paper. I have a plan in mind for this paper, however, you will have to wait a day or two to see what I am going to do with it since I am away from home and my Cricuts (no room in the car to bring one along!).

If you want to see some other gelly pen projects you can click HERE for the prior posts about these pens.

Here is a link to the US site where you can purchase a set of pens and the holder:

Scrappy-Go-Lucky


What a hot and muggy day it was today - we had some torrential rain (catching the edges of a near hurricane). It took a long time to get the car loaded for the trip to NJ and we were all dripping! The trip went smoothly and we are relaxing at my sister's house before the college move-in tomorrow.

Elegant Gift Card

I made this card for yet another swap - and now I am finished with swaps for a while! This one was for a 3 x 3 card folded gift card with a quote inside. Once again I was working in a fairly small size.



I chose my basic card shape from A Child's Year - there are so many great cards and tags of this cartridge. It is the third from the left on the bottom row - highlighted in the screen shot above.



I could cut only four cards on a 12 x 12 mat. I made sure to hide all of the score marks for folding (if you have taken the Basic Cards class with me you know that these are a pet peeve of mine - I think the cuts make the card very untidy). The design of this card includes cut out areas along the fold and the card is very easy to fold without any scoring at this size.



The medallion for the front of the card is found on the Storybook cartridge - the key is highlighted in this screen shot of the keypad.



I didn't want the medallion to be quite so lacy, so I used "hide selected contour" to eliminate the middle row of cuts. In the screen shot above the medallion on the right is the cut as it appears on the cartridge and the medallion on the left is the one I cut after hiding the contours.



I set up the mat to cut 14 medallions. Unfortunately, since the contours do not stay hidden when you copy and paste an element in Design Studio, I had to do a lot of contour hiding!



I punched 1 1/4 inch circles from the scrap cardstock and adhered them to the backs of the medallions with the solid side of the double-sided paper showing through the center cuts



Next, I added a large pearl embellishment to the center of each medallion. These came from the Martha Stewart line and are larger than most that I have seen.



I used foam squares to adhere the medallions to the fronts of the cards.



Here you can see the raised effect - I like the dimension you get when using the foam squares. I dotted Stickles in the "cinnamon" color around the edges of the front of the cards.



Our hostess insists that we sign our work (and rightly so!). I added my signature along the fold on the back, as discretely as possible using a pen that nearly matched reddish brown color in the paper.



I punched 39 little flowers with my Creative Memories "Meadow Micro-Maker" punch (here is a LINK to more info about this punch). The punch cuts four small shapes, frog, flower, fish and butterfly and the size was perfect for these cards. I punched these from some of the scraps of the two sided paper I used for the card base.



Here is the inside of the card - the quote says, "The only way to have a friend is to be one" Ralph Waldo Emerson. I stamped it with brown ink.



Here are all of the finished cards just before I packed them up for mailing.



These are not colors I frequently choose, but I do think that the colors worked well together and they certainly have an autumn look.



Can you believe that I found this leaf on the deck today? I don't know how we could be so close to the end of the summer. I love it when the leaves turn but I am not ready for Fall to start yet! I hope you enjoy the last few weeks of vacation - back to school will be here far too soon!

(Jen and I are teaching just a couple of classes next week - it is a busy time with school starting for many people. We are thinking about making some changes in our scheduling of classes and possibly offering some classes on tape since we have had many requests for classes that can be viewed by the student whenever the time is convenient for them. We may be asking for some feedback in a poll or survey on the Let me Show you How to Do that blog soon - in the meanwhile, if you want more information about the classes, here is a LINK).)

Another "Leftover" Card

You may remember the cards I made a couple of weeks ago. I added some frames made with different cartridges to cards cut from the Life is a Beach cartridge.



I was impatiently waiting for the new cartridges to be added to Design Studio so I tried creating some additions to customize the cards.



When I cut this frame (adapted from the Storybook cartridge), there was an interestingly shaped piece left from the center of the cut. So, I thought I'd use it on another card...



I added some ribbon on the left side, making a slit in the top fold of the card and adhering the ribbon to both sides of the card. Some flowers and a gem cover the overlap of the ribbon.



Then I used a cupcake stamp and sentiment using a purple ink.



The plain stamping seemed a bit too dull - so I added Stickles to the flowers, the cupcake and the "Y" and the "S" in the sentiment.



I think we have attended the last of the Graduation parties and the next week looks like it will be a bit calmer. Jen and I are scheduling a few more Design Studio classes and I have some designs that I have created for another project - to be shared soon. In the meanwhile, here is a sneak peek at one of the designs I am testing - can you guess which cartridge I used?

Another Life is a Beach card

Just a quick post today - I am still in the middle of a bunch of medical appointments and just don't have enough hours in the day! While we are waiting on that Design Studio update to add the new cartridges, I made another quick and easy card - this time I used the flamingo cut. I adapted a frame from the Storybook cartridge to make a more finished card. I can't wait until I can use the elements on Life is a Beach to make frames and other designs.



The eye cut is tiny and didn't show very well so I added a tiny diamond to make it sparkle!



The square card was cut at five inches and I cut a piece of yellow cardstock at 4 3/4 x 9 3/4 inches to line the card. I attached it to the back of the card first and then applied adhesive to the back of the flamingo and around the frame and then folded the front of the card over the liner to be sure that the card would close easily. I will probably add a few cuts to decorate the inside - and a stamp or a Cricut cut for a sentiment.



This is a very simple file - just the frame to cut. The first page of the file shows the sizing template in George - you do not cut this page.

For those of you who have been asking - we have scheduled some more Design Studio "Getting Started" classes. You can check the teaching blog (Let me Show you How to Do that) for times and details. We will also have a card class next week - the exact date and time will be posted in the next few days.

Maybe tomorrow the package I am waiting for will arrive... I can't wait to tell you what is inside!

Frame for five inch LAB Flamingo card

"Owl" be thinking of you...

I have been wanting to make a card for a friend who is having some medical problems and could use a little lift. I was moving slowly today after all the packing, moving and driving over the weekend, but I did manage to finish a card.

I recently found a foam stamp cube in the dollar bins at Michael's and I thought the images were very nice and that I might actually use them (it is amazing how many stamps I have collected over the past year that have yet to touch ink!).



I stamped this owl with the green ink that came with the cube and then inked the edges of the paper and added some chalking for a background. The owl was just "hanging" in mid air, so I found one of the extra Storybook cuts I made to use in the retirement album (here is a LINK to that post) and trimmed some of the leaves from the cut to create a "branch" for the owl to sit on - I inked the edges of the branch with a lighter brown ink.



The sentiment is stamped in dark brown. I matted the image on a pale green textured cardstock and added two strips of the same cardstock to the left side and bottom of the card, adding a clear "skittle" (flat backed plastic bead) where the two strips intersect. The card base is a dark green.



I added another piece of the pale green cardstock to create an area to write a message inside the card. I like dark colors for cards but it is hard to write inside them so I always add a "liner."

Here are the four sides of the stamp block - some very cute images for just $1!





The block even came with a small ink pad in green. I am not sure how well this type of stamp will hold up but I am sure I will have some fun making cards and other projects with it!

Happy Mother's Day!

By the time most of you will be reading this post, Mother's Day will be over. I hope you had a lovely day. Today I thought I'd show you a quick and easy way to make a card - it's all about the paper!



I chose a piece of 12 x 12 paper from this DCWV stack. There are often beautiful papers in these stacks that I know I will not end up using for a scrapbook page - so they become card ingredients!



Here is the full sheet of paper I chose. I wanted to use the glittery roses. I was making a large card - an 8 1/2 x 11 sheet of cardstock folded in half - so I knew that the width would be five inches (allowing a 1/4 inch border all around). I cut the sheet of paper at a bit beyond five inches to be sure I wouldn't cut off the pale pink rosebud on the left of the cluster, then I trimmed the right side to be exactly five inches.



I used the same strategy for the top and bottom cuts, knowing that I needed to end up with an eight inch tall piece and adjusting the cut so the dark pink rosebud would be at the top of the paper. I also cut an 8 x 5 inch piece of the patterned area of the cardstock for the inside on the card. The photo above shows the remainder pieces after I made all the cuts.



I wanted to keep this card very simple and let the glittery paper do the work for me. I added the word "Mom" from the Beyond Birthdays cartridge cut in white glitter card stock.



Above is a close up view of the "Mom" on top of the largest rose (it is very pretty in real life but difficult to photograph effectively). When cutting glitter cardstock you need to use multi-cut of two or three to be sure that it will be cut cleanly.



For the inside of the card, I used the Martha Stewart cornice border punch to create a decorative edge. I worked from the center out on each side. The corners did not turn out with an attractive overlap - so I improvised and used some leafy fronds I had cut from the Storybook cartridge for another project - these covered the uneven corners very nicely.



The phrase "You're simply the best" is from the Wild Card Cartridge. I cut it from glitter cardstock and used Design Studio to adjust the shape to fit my card perfectly.



Even though I carefully saved the dot for the "i" and put adhesive on it - when I went to assemble the card it had disappeared. I ended up using my trick of dotting the "i" with a little gem (I am sure I'll find that dot stuck to something else soon!).

So there you have it - a quick and pretty card (and you even have a few bits of the original sheet of paper left over which you could use for another project or to decorate the envelope).


A note about the Design Studio classes - our first two classes are full - we are sorry if you weren't able to reserve a spot but we will be scheduling more classes and will post them soon. We will continue to have classes as long as there is interest and the dates and times will vary in the hopes that one of the sessions will work for everyone who wants to attend a class.

JenC and I are excited to welcome our first students to these introductory lessons and we will also schedule some classes on different topics based on the topics you are voting for in the poll on the "Let me Show you How to Do that" blog.