A Mother’s Day Card & More! Free SVG Cut File too!

Hi friends, Mother’s day is this Sunday so why not make mom a lovely card!

My mom (and sister) have a green thumb so we usually buy them some sort of plant from the greenhouse. They all open up around here about a week before mother’s day and there are always so many choices. Luckily mom can keep any plant alive so we can choose what looks pretty! I thought it might be fun to make some cute plant markers to customize the gift.

They would also make pretty bookmarks and I have a free SVG cutting file you can download if you want to make some. I cut them as is from white cardstock and then I cut them with a shadow on kraft for a matting layer. That way they would be sturdier and have a nice finished look. Check out the video to see how I made these and then dig through your stash for similar products and give it a try!

Supplies (affiliate links used)

• FREE SVG file
• Bristol cardstock
• Kraft cardstock
• Distress oxide ink pads
• Wonderland stamp set (flowers on plant pics)
• Darling Rose stamps, dies, stencil
• Large script stamp *12% off at Topflight Stamps with coupon code LINDSAYWEIRICH
• Postmark stamps
• Ink blending brushes
• Seam binding to die and crinkle
• Crinkled seam binding tutorial
• Flower marker coloring demo on this review
• DIY Distress oxide ink blending tools tutorial
• DIY vintage label tutorial
• Laminator and pouches

I hope you enjoyed this fun DIY and til next time happy crafting!

Happy Father’s Day! {A cute card I copied!}

Hi friends! I was looking for a cute card for father’s day for my husband and I happened upon this cute valentines card by Stephanie Chumbley and I thought it would be perfect for a father’s day card. Here is the one I made:

I used basic cardstock I had on hand to make this card. You can see the Stephanie’s card and read how she made hers on the Cards by Stephanie blog. I use this free lawnmower SVG file to cut the mower with my electronic die cutter (Using SCAL2 I broke apart the shapes and cut them from red, black and white) and I used a grass die cut I had on hand to cut the grass from green cardstock. For the clouds I punched a scalloped oval from a scrap of cardstock and used a color duster to ink over it starting at the top and working down, a sponge would work as well. 🙂

I am a very practical gift giver and I remembered hearing my hubby complain about how messy and annoying the new “safety” gas cans are so when I saw a review of the SureCan (no, I am not sponsored by them LOL!) on This Old House (or possibly some other home improvement show on TV) I thought he might like it. Of course, it is kinda like getting my husband a chore for Fathers day so if I end up with a vacuum cleaner for my birthday we will know why LOL…I wouldn’t mind a steam mop though truth be told! Have a wonderful day and happy crafting!

A Freebie for Easter! {let’s make cards!}

Hi friends! I love looking through stacks of vintage postcards at antique shops. People used to send cards all the time, especially on holidays such as Easter. Today I have a free template (printable PDF and SVG cutting files) for you to create four cute cards that won’t cost a lot to make or send!

We will also be using washi tape and baker’s twine, two of my favorite supplies, from our sponsor Papermart. Watch the video to see how it’s done:

Supplies:

• White Cardstock
• Baker’s Twine
• Washi Tape
• Stamps and Ink
• Sponges or color dusters
• Embossing folder (I used a Damask pattern from Darice)
• Foam Tape
• Scissors
• Free Template
• Also a craft knife or die cutter for cutting the templates.

Directions:

1.  Die cut the SVG template on a full sheet of white cardstock OR print the PDF template. If hand cutting I recommend using a craft knife to cut out the windows on the cards and then cutting the scalloped frame with scissors. You will have 4 scalloped papers with windows.
2. Emboss the papers with an embossing folder if desired. You can also stamp a sentiment on the paper if you want to keep it flat (unembossed.)
3. Center the window on a card base and trace the window with a light-colored pencil.
4. Apply washi tape over the traced image.
5. Apply foam tape to the back of the window.
6. Wrap the panel with baker’s twine and adhere to card base.
7. Stamp an Easter sentiment on a label die cut (not included) and adhere over twine with foam tape.

Thanks so much for stopping by and til next time happy crafting!

 

A Fathers Day Gift Kids Can Make Today!

Hi Friends! Today I have a craft for kids to make for their Dads or Grandfathers using items you have around the house or in the recycling bin and basic craft supplies:

You will need:

• Cardboard (mine is 9″x12″)
• Colored paper (Blue, white and green, this can be construction paper, cardstock or typing paper)
• Twine or string
• Googlie eye
• Markers or watercolor crayons (or something similar)
• Metallic eyeshadow
• a spray bottle of water
• A hole punch and scissors
• Optional: Patterned scrapbook paper to use as a mat, I used a 8.5″x11″ necktie pattern I’ve had in my stash forever.

Directions

1. Distress the cardboard panel by pulling off bits of paper then you can add color, if desired, to the ridges with markers or crayons.
2. Glue scrapbook paper on cardboard.
3. Glue a smaller rectangle of blue on top and add a strip of green as shown. Accent with markers or crayons.
4. Cut a fish shape (I used this free SVG to die cut one) from white paper and color with markers, spray with water to blend (or you can use spray ink) *I dry embossed my fish for texture so do that too if you like before coloring.
5. While the fish paper is wet dust it with metallic eye shadow.
6. Adhere fish and draw a hook and line on the background. Glue on googlie eye.
7. Punch holes and add twine for hanging.
8. Write or Type “Fishing you a happy father’s day” on a strip of paper and adhere.

Pretty neat for a last-minute gift huh? It would go great with a fishing licence and a new box of tackle I think! Thanks for stopping by and til next time happy crafting!

Calling all procrastinators! A freebie for you!

Let’s see a show of hands…who intended to, but has not made their Christmas cards yet? That many? Wow! Well don’t fear because I have 2 easy card designs that you can copy. Make them today and mail them tomorrow..well, tomorrow is Sunday, OK mail ‘um Monday.  The first card features the likeness of our favorite holiday Grinch:

I made an SVG die cut and printable sheet for the Grinch eyes, you can download it for free here. All you do is cut a sheet of green cardstock in half and fold (you get 2 cards this way) then glue on the eyes in the center of the card base. Draw on a smile, nose and angry eyebrows and glue a green feather on the forehead if you have one.  Your recipient is sure to get a chuckle when they open this card!

This next design is more traditional. Again, cut a sheet of red cardstock in half and fold in half to get 2 card bases. Then I used a rotary wavy cutter to cut 1.5″ strips of felt (I used a wave rather than a scallop blade so both sides of the cut would look the same and I would not waste felt…yeah, I know it is only .25 cents a sheet but still, why waste?) If you don’t have felt you can use paper, or cotton balls, whatever! Use a hot glue gun to attach it down the center of your card. Add a strip of black cardstock for a belt and a gold buckle. I used a large square punch to punch my gold paper then cut around it with scissors to make a buckle. I dressed it up with holly die cuts and a red sequin.

These cards are quick and inexpensive and fun to make with the kids. I hope you give them a try this year! BTW, use thick and tacky glue and not hot glue if the kids are helping! Thanks for stopping by and til next time happy crafting!

Video Tutorial: DIY Honeycomb Paper!

Edit: I created a SVG and a SCUT2 file to cut the file folder to make the glue jig. You can download it here. You can download a .cut file here for use with Design Studio, use layer 1 if you have George cart or layer 2 if you have Plantain Schoolbook. You can use a 12″x12″ mat, just let the rest of the file folder hang off the edge or use the 12″x24″ mat. Line the fold up to the 10″ mark so the slits will start 1/2″ away from the fold. See the video for an explanation of the technique before cutting the jig. 🙂

I love the look of honeycomb pop-ups on cards and tags. What I don’t love is the price. I have seen the Inky Antics Honeypop paper in a few online shops and it is $6 for a 5″x7″ piece of honeycomb tissue and, while beautiful, it is just too expensive for tissue paper (for me anyway) so I decided to try to make my own…and I did! Here is my homemade version:

It is easy to make, albeit a bit time-consuming. It take about 20 minutes to make a pad of tissue paper but it is something I can do while I watch TV (better than polishing off a bag of chips, know what I’m sayin?) and it saves me a bundle, it costs me about .30 cents to make vs. $6 to buy. See the video to learn how:

Here are some close up pics of the projects in the video:

This is a close up of the large pom-pom made with coffee filters I sprayed with ink and let dry before gluing.

Try it, you’ll like it! There is something magical about seeing that honeycomb paper the first time! If you have any questions just leave a comment and I’ll get back to you. Thanks for stopping by and til next time happy crafting!

A Kid’s Craft, a Freebie & a 40% Off Sale!

I was going to aim this craft to all of the teachers and moms out there but after I made it I have to say it was a ton of fun and I urge everyone to try it! I am teaching a craft program at the local library next week and I thought it would be fun to do Chinese New Year. I planned on the kids decorating “lucky money” envelopes, coloring dragon masks {for the preschoolers} and for the big kids we could make dragon puppets:

Wow, it was so fun to make the samples. The lucky money envelopes are freebies. I used the SVG in the kit to cut my envelopes from red paper but there is a printable version too if you do not have a die-cut machine. Also There is a full color printable with a Chinese dragon (2012 is the year of the dragon) on the back if you just want to print them and not have to decorate. BTW {shameless plug} Everything at Lindsay’s stamp Stuff is 40% off now through Sunday so after you snag that freebie be sure to have a look around at all of the new products I have added this month!

When I went looking for inspiration on making a dragon puppet I did an internet search and came across a cute template on the Martha Stewart website, well, there was no need to reinvent the wheel there!

Did you know you can cut PDF files with SCAL?

Oh yeah! I saved the PDF dragon template and imported into scal2 (click file-import-then pick the pdf file you want) and with a little tweaking (there is a rogue node on the dragon’s head, just drag it over to the node next to it and click union to make it one shape) I had a great file to cut! Note: I enlarged it and moved it around on my mat to make best use of space. I’d love to share the SVG but I don’t know if that would be cool with Martha.  😀 You can check out her template and instructions here.

I love how the body is jointed so it wiggles and moves when you hold the sticks. I made a few changes in my puppet: I added crepe paper party streamers, they fly wonderfully when you are using the puppet and the pleated crepe paper adds more bulk without weight. I used skinny sticks because I had no chopsticks and I added glitter, sequins would be nice too I think;)

Here is a look at the  Lucky Money Envelopes Freebie:

In the preview you see the color version of the money envelope, for my project with the kids I am cutting them from red paper and they can stamp Chinese characters with gold pigment ink. The stamps I used are from About Art Accents. I heat embossed mine, I think I will let the kids try that too as long as I have an adult to man the heat gun 🙂

And be sure to snag lots of goodies at Lindsay’s stamp Stuff for 40% off! Thanks for stopping by and til next time happy crafting!

50% off at Lindsay’s, a freebie and new Christmas products!

Howdy folks, I know it is a bit too early to start thinking about Christmas…well, unless, that is, you are selling at craft fairs and in that case you need cute packaging ASAP! And today is the perfect time to grab your needed supplies because it is 50% off today at Lindsay’s Stamp Stuff! I was asked by a crafty customer to come up with some printables for her to sell her movie gift kits at craft fairs so I came up with the Holiday Bazzar set. How cute would it be to wrap a few bags of microwaved popcorn, soda bottles and candies and package them in one of those large plastic popcorn boxes from the dollar store, you could throw in a DVD too for a super cute and inexpensive gift!

If you wanted to really spread some holiday cheer you could leave the baskets on a friends doorstep with a note saying “You’ve Been Elfed!”, the 5″x7″ notes in the kit would be perfect for that! You can also used the cards for invitations to a cookie swap and recipe cards!

If you want a cute gag gift for the folks in the office how about some reindeer poop? I found this funny poem online that you can print and slip in the bag:

I woke up with such a scare when I heard Santa call…
“Now dash away, dash away, dash away all!”
I ran to the lawn, and in the snowy white drifts,
those nasty reindeer had left “little gifts”.

I got an old shovel and started to scoop
Neat little piles of “reindeer poop.”
but to throw them away seemed such a waste,
So I saved them, thinking you might like a taste!

As I finished my task, which took quite a while,
Old Santa passed by and he sheepishly smiled.
And I heard him exclaim as he rose to the sky~~~
“Well, they’re not potty trained, but at least they can fly!”

 

For the kids you might like to send them to school with “Snowman Soup” for their teacher and classmates! I found a poem for this too:

Snowman Soup
Was told you’ve been real good this year.
Always glad to hear it!
With freezing weather drawing near,
You’ll need to warm the spirit.
here’s a little Snowman Soup
Complete with stirring stick.
Add hot water, sip it slow.
It’s sure to do the trick!

Isn’t that cute! Both of the poems I found at The Organized Home.com.

Here is a look at the new printable kit and some other Christmas products you might enjoy, remember they are 50% off today only and two of the below products are freebies!

It’s been a while since I had a freebie so here are 2 sheets of tags you can use for your holiday gifts and packaging:

click the preview to download;)

While you are on the topic of holidays Halloween is right around the corner. Check out these spooky sets also 50% off today:

Thanks for stopping by and til next time happy crafting!

How to make a custom die cut

Happy Friday folks! Are you doing any stamping this weekend? Well how you like to lean how to make custom die cuts to match your stamps using Sure Cuts a Lot software. I am going to show you 3 ways to make a custom mat, the first is very easy, the second is a bit more tricky and the third will require the use of a free program called inkscape. I used these techniques to cut the mats for the stamped images in this batch of 5 minute Christmas cards:

The mat I made for the stamped oval uses the first easy technique. To do this simply measure the hight and width of the stamped image and type those measurements into the properties box of scal. Then select appearance and chose a shadow of .5 to 1 and that will leave a nice border to your stamped art and smooth the edges of the design. I used an oval scallop from the free font 09 Kutups by Clever Someday.

After you size the shape try cutting it, then stamping you image on the die cut. If it fits perfectly great! If not tweak it a bit and try again. When it is perfect you want to save this as an SVG so you can use it again and again without having to test it. Simply click “file” and “Export” then type the name of the new file, I recommend including the stamp name so you will know what stamp it goes with such as Notably_ornate_scallop.svg because it matches the oval from the Notably Ornate Stampin’ Up set. ***You will use this step after any of these methods to save your die-cut to size & scale.

So basically that technique would be acceptable for any label/frame stamp you have, all you need to do is alter the width and height of your shape. You can even do it in Cricut design studio or gypsy as long as you have the cart to cut it out. I am so glad I got SCAL to use with my Cricut before it went off the market!

For your next trick we will do a simple image trace in scal2 (or scal3), you can also do this in inkscape, see my tutorial here. So first you need to find (or stamp and scan) the image you want to make a mat for. I went online to find images from the stamp set I wanted to create die cuts for. I love this stamp set (The Maison Frame set from Inkadinkado) and I have had it and used it a lot for years! I right-clicked on a picture of the stamp set that I found online then clicked “save as” to save it to my computer. Then I opened my SCAL program and I clicked the button that looks like a tree in scal and chose the file I just saved:

when you click OK the converted images will show up on your mat, now you need to get rid of everything except for the outlines that you want. You simply select the shape and go into the object menu and choose break apart, then click on the lines you do not want and hit delete.

You will be left with outline shapes that are clean and good to cut.

Copy one of the designs and past it into a new page. Measure your stamp and type measurements into the properties box. Then you can add shadows if desired and test your cut. When it is perfect export the SVG as explained in the first example. Repeat for each shape.

Sometime you end up with a stamp that has broken or sketchy lines for a border so you cannot simply trace it. In that case you need to create a file from scratch Like I did for the die cut I used on the journal block on these cards. The Journal block is also from the Notably Ornate set from Stampin Up:

Having a bit of a border allows a bit of “wiggle room” when stamping so it looks great even if you stamp a bit crooked 😉

One of the frames from the maison frames set was good for this technique. It is a bit more advanced but one you do it you will find it quick and easy. You will need to use the free (and AWESOME!) program inkscape for this. Did you know that you can cut directly from inkscape with a Silhouette die cutting machine? Anyway you need to open the jpg that you saved earlier but this time we are going to draw our design over the calligraphy looking frame. Select the pen tool (see photo) and click on the top point of the frame, then click on each indent as shown (note: since we have a symmetrical design we are just going to do one corner and copy & past the other 3) then click in the middle of the frame and close the path by clicking on the node where you began. It it like making a child’s dot-to-dot game.

Now copy that shape and paste it, flip the second shape and line them up to make the top of the frame:

Drag a box around both of the shapes and copy and past and flip it to make the bottom:

Save this file and import it into SCAL as you would any SVG. Size it and add a shadow and test cut as above before exporting it as a final file. I like to cut sheets of the frames at a time and store them with the stamp set for quick and easy crafting! Here is a look at the frames we made today:

Please excuse my beat up Cricut mat, I’ve been on a Provocraft boycott since they sued SCAL and my mats are totally scuzzy BUT I just found out that Sizzix Eclips mats and blades will work in my Cricut Expression so I just ordered a bunch, they are cheaper too and they say the blades will last longer which is great because I just replaced a cricut blade last week and it is already dull! I’ll let you know how the Eclips mats and blades work. I’m thinking when my Cricut machine breaks I will get a Sizzix Eclips or a Silhouette because they both endorse SCAL software so I know they won’t leave the customers high and dry. I’ll probably get an Eclips because the mats and blades are cheaper.

So I fretted a bit about sharing these mat files I think I am OK to do so since they are just basic outlines and the stamp companies do not offer die cut shapes (plus they will probably sell more copies of their stamp sets LOL!) but if anyone form Stampin Up or EK Success has any problem with this I will remove them ASAP 🙂

Here are the 2 files that coordinate with the Notably Ornate Stampin Up set:

Journaling mat

Oval Note (thanks to Kay from Clever Someday for letting my use the 09KutUps font!)

Here are the 4 files that match the Inkadinkado Maison Frames set (I’m not crazy about the way the bracket-square one came out but there is a very close shape in the 09Kutups font you can use in place of it)

Maison Frame 1

Maison Frame 2

Maison Frame 3

Maison Frame4

So there you have it! You can create custom dies cuts for all of your stamps, neat huh? Thanks for sticking with this extremely long post and til next time happy crafting!