tutorials

Inchie Folder and Polymer Inchies

Posted on by debbrooner

 One of the members of my Yahoo Inchies 1×1 group, Juliet, sent me a clever inchie folder. I loved it but it only held 2 sets of 4 inchies each.  It was great for our mingles, but our swaps were 6 inchies each so I wanted something that would hold multiples of 6.  This folder holds 6 sets of 6 inchies each (36 inchies total) and fits into a standard business size envelope (4 1/8″ x 9 1/2″).

I started with a piece of Bazzill cardstock because it is a good heavy weight.  I cut it to a rectangle that was 8″ x 9 1/4″ and folded it to make a 4″ x 9 1/4″ folder.

I used lightweight decorative paper for the inserts.  I cut 6 pieces that were 4″ x 3 3/4″ and then folded the short edges down 3/4″ .  I ended up with inserts that were 3/4″ x 2 3/8″.

To attach the inserts I first ran a line of glue on the backs and then placed them evenly inside the folder.  To make the pockets I measured off 1 1/4″ spaces and then placed staples there.

  I will someday try running lines of sewing down the pockets instead of staples.  This would keep from having the bumps that you get with the staples.  I’m just not sure how sturdy the pockets would be.  If someone tries this , let me know how it works.

Polymer Guild Inchie Swap

     The Mile High Polyer Clay Guild had an inchie swap this April.  These are a few of the inchies I made.

These are a few of the inchies I received.  The diversity of techniques was amazing: faux raku, mokume gane, textures, transfers, tiny fish canes, flower canes, faux malachite,  multiple layers of color covered with resin, lots of PearlEx and some awesome 3D ones.  I loved this swap!

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Fixing Mistakes

Posted on by debbrooner

 

In everyone’s card making endeavors will  come a  time when a  mistake is made. Mistakes are frustrating, but not fatal.  Here are some ideas to help you deal with those mistakes.

 If you get completely done, pick the card up and realize it opens on the wrong side you can:

1) Cut off the front panel, trim it down to a smaller size and apply to a coordinating color blank card.

2) Rotate your card 90 degrees .  

You  stamp your sentiment ( or any other stamped image) and it looks really bad  You can:

1) Stamp the sentiment on the same color of cardstock and then back it with a coordinating color. Place it on top of the mistake

2) Place an embellishment on the mistake (Do you suppose that the first person to use an embellishment did so to cover up a bad spot?)

Maybe after finishing the card you don’t like it. You can:

1) Walk away from it for a while.

2) Add more stuff to it.

Another possibility:

1) Cut or tear the card front into pieces and use to make serendipity squares.

2) Cut the pretty parts into ATC’s, moo cards or inchies.

As a finel resort:

1) Give up and throw it away after salvaging all you can off of it.

Fall Is In The Air

Posted on by debbrooner

 

I can’t believe that it is almost fall.  I have very mixed feeling about this time of year.  I love the cooler days and  the color of the leaves.  I don’t, however, like the fact that after fall is winter. Fall would be perfect if spring came after it.

While thumbing through the above book (it has some awesome ideas), I found a Shadow Forest Wallhanging.  I thought that the design would make interesting ATC’s as well.

Here’s the tutorial for the 3-D ATC.

You’ll need:

4 sheets of cardstock in 4 different colors

Bare tree pattern (make your own or use a pattern such as the  Silhnouette “bare tree” one)

Tiny leaf paper punch

Glue

From the darkest color of cardstock cut out an ATC- 2.5″ x 3.5″.  Cut out 1 tree and one frame from the remaining 3 colors of card. The dimensions of the frames are 2.5 x 3.5 (outer dimensions) and 2″x3′(inner dimensions).

Because the tree cut out that I used was a bit too busy for this project I trimmed a lot of the tiny branches off.  The dark gold tree has been trimmed and the light gold tree has not.

Next I glued the trees to their matching frames.  Notice that each tree is placed in a different spot on its frame.  This means that you will need to trim tree parts that go past the outside edge of the frame.

In order to make the card more dimensional I  glued 2 pieces of card together, cut them into tiny squares, then glued the squares   the corners of the  back and middle frames .  You can see them in the picture above on the darkest frame.  You could use dimensional foam, but it would make the card too bulky to put into a sleeve .

All that is left to do is to glue   layers together and add your punched leaves.

Here is another Autumn-themed card that I made for one of my Yahoo groups.

And finally, while this mini ATC’s theme is oriental, the colors remind me of fall as well, so I am including it.

Have a great week!

The Old 1-2 Lace Punch

Posted on by debbrooner

I have been playing with my border punches lately and thought I would show you the results.  It is possible to use the punches to make paper lace strips to jazz up your artwork.

The first method I tried was punching cardstock strips on both sides, with the designs matching like mirror imaging.  The secret to this is marking your strips before you do any punching.  First, place your paper strip in the punch and then take a pencil and mark both edges of your punch.

 I’ve used red pen so you can see what I have done more clearly. These will be the marks you will use to line up the second edge. 

 Punch the first edge, rotate, and line up the punch with the marks. 

 Punch the second edge. If you lined up the punch correctly your lace should be symmetrical .

 Depending on the punch, changing the width of the strip of paper used may result in very different looks. You will need to play with your punches to see what you come up with.  I found out it is possible to use a strip that was only ½”, but a 1” strip is a good place to start.  These are the test strips I came up with:

 

 

You will notice that I also made strips with offset punching.  These have to be done a little differently.  Marking the edges of the punch on the strip will not work with this method because the marks won’t be visible.

After punching the first side of your strip, decide where you want your offset to start.  In this case I wanted it to start between the flowers and halfway through the little dot.

Take a Post-it note and lay on the table, sticky strip face up and on the right hand side.  You are going to align your strip to 2 places on the sticky note: the un-punched edge of the strip sits on the bottom edge of the sticky note and the marking for the offset lines up with the right-hand edge, on the sticky part.  

Note: I trimmed the top off of the sticky note before taking the picture, so it looks shorter than yours will look.  Line the middle marking on your punch up with the right-hand edge of the sticky note

and punch. 

Remove the sticky note and finishing punching the strip.  Here is the finished lace.

Here are a couple of cards using the paper lace.

I hope this tutorial has started your gears going!  Have a great time playing with your border punches.

Deb

My First Post Gives Me BUTTERFLIES (Antennae)

Posted on by debbrooner

Yahoo! This is my first step into the blogging world!

After receiving my Sizzix Embosslit butterfly from Stampin’ UP, I cut out butterflies from several printed and plain papers and cardstocks but they just didn’t work for me. Somehow something was missing. Finally I realized what it was: butterflies with no bodies or antennae were too weird, too naked, kinda like buttons without any thread in their holes.

 I toyed with making wire antennae and maybe beaded bodies, but frankly it seemed to be more work than I wanted to do at the moment! I also knew that having 3 seperate parts meant 3 places for something to come lose or fall off.  I needed an all-in-one solution.

I happened to have some embroidery floss in my line of sight and poof!, an idea was born.

For the largest butterfly I used 3 strands of embroidery floss (the standard 6-strand stuff comes in a milion different colors). I wrapped it around the middle of the butterfly (between the wings) and then double knotted it. I then slid the knot up to the top of the butterfly, making the head.  DON’T cut the threads yet, they will become the antennae! Squeeze some glue (Elmers, Sobo, whatever) onto a piece of scrap paper. Dab your index finger in the glue, then rub the glue between your index finger and your thumb. This will take very little glue. Now take the thread ends you left and, starting at the “head” of the butterfly, rub the glue up the threads. This stiffens the thread so that you end up with lovely antennae! Once they are dry, trim to the length you desire. For the smaller butterflies use fewer strands of floss.

finished butterfly

To apply to your project, just run a line of glue along the floss on the underside of the butterfly and not only will it stick, but the floss provides a tiny bit of dimension as well.

This procedure works well for stacking multiple pieces together . This is a really great technique when using vellum as there is no glue used so no worry about glue showing.

Both of the cards used Clean And Simple Stamping sketches

Hope you enjoyed this- let me know!