Papercraft! Let’s Make a 3-D Snowflake Ornament!

Howdy folks! I know I have been posting a lot of watercolor projects these days so I wanted to post a fun papercraft project today. My sister gave me a pretty 3-D snowflake she made with paper strips, she thought I might like to make some for a craft fair. Not only that but I know you would love them too. Best off all you can get 4 snowflakes from one sheet of double sided paper. I used this paper pack from Oriental Trading Company to make vintage inspired paper snowflakes, watch how:

Easy huh? I suggest you trim all your paper at once, have the glue gun ready, and put on your favorite holiday movie or music and have a snowflake making party! You can also decorate your snowflakes with lace, rhinestones, cinnamon sticks or whatever you like but I thought mine were prim and pretty as is! Thanks for stopping by and til next time happy crafting!

Pandora Style Paper Beads!

Howdy folks! I have been playing with the idea of making Pandora style paper beads. I had bought some metal bead cores (you can get a pack of 500 for less than $5 with free shipping on Ebay) and made some glass beads but when you get many of them on a bracelet it can get quite heavy.  So why not paper? Here is a bracelet I made with the beads I made:

It was a joy to wear too, I love the sound the beads make with they move and the bracelet is so light! The beads don’t really take all that long to make either. I do the assembly line style: roll a bunch, glaze a bunch and glue in the bead cores. Here is a video to show you how:

See it was easy! I used ultra thick embossing enamel (UTEE) to glaze mine but you can use clear embossing powder as well, it might take an extra coat or two but that’s no big deal. I found a size 9 (5.5mm) knitting needle is perfect if you are using cardstock or thicker scrapbook paper but if you are using book pages or magazines go up to a size 10 (6mm) knitting needle. Also if you are using thinner paper you will need 3-4 strips rather than the 2 I used. If you can’t find bead cores you can use sewing or scrapbooking eyelets. Bead cores are cheaper overseas through the seller 8 Seasons ebay though. If you have any questions on this project or just want to let me know what you think you can leave a comment below. Thanks for stopping by and til next time happy crafting!

Wordle’s the word!

Have you heard? Well, it is now exactly new but there is a fun application online called wordle that lets you make word clouds like the ones I used on these cards:

These first two cards use stamps from About Art Accents.

Stamps: About Art Accents, Brads Dollar Tree, Paper: today's freebie

Stamp: About Art Accents, PP: Making Memories, wordle paper freebie, die cut: cricut

This card uses the Cherry on Top digital stamp for Lindsay’s Stamp Stuff and a die cut from Creative Cuts and More:

Digital Stamp: Lindsay's stamp Stuff, Rubber Stamp: Crafty Secrets, PP: todays Freebie, Die Cut CC&M

I made these cards for the September 2009 issue of Vamp Stamp News, the challenge was making computer generated backgrounds. If you missed that issue you can order it here. I used some pattern paper I made a while pack to make this card, isn’t she cute, I used the Little Red Wagon stamp set from Pink persimmon:

Stamps: Pink Persimmon, Paper: Today's Freebie

If you would like the papers I made for the cards you can download it for free here.

Click to download today's Freebie, enjoy!

Thanks for stopping by and til next time happy crafting!

Scene Building with Digital Stamps {and a freebie!}

If you have been stamping for any amount of time you remember the tedious process of using many different stamps and masks to create scenes. Don’t get me wrong, it’s fun,  but one mistake at the end could ruin an hour work.  Now that we have digital stamps we can build scenes in minutes and save them for  future use. Here are a few examples using the Funky Forest digital stamp set from Lindsay’s Stamp Stuff:

This week I used stamps from the Funky Forest set to make scenes. Learn how below.

For this excercise you want to use the PNG files that come with the set (you get both PNG and JPG files in all the LSS sets) and you will need a graphic software that allows you to work in layers. I am using PAint Shop Pro but Photoshop and many other brands of software will work too.

The moose, bubble and birds are all separate stamps. Just resize and piece the scene together, easy peasy!

In this example I opened a new document and copied and pasted the moose in it. I opened the Primitive Bird stamp and used the “Magnetic Lasso” tool to draw a circle around the bird and copied that portion only and pasted it as a new layer in the new document with the moose. I resized the bird using the pick tool and moved him up to the moose’s antlers. I opened the thought bubble and copied and pasted into the document above the moose. Now if you want to resize the whole scene you will need to flatten it, You can save this as a new png file simply by hitting the save as button and naming it something like” moosemontage.png”

Now let’s move on to something a bit trickier. Here we make a scene with overlapping images (I used this weeks sketch over at 2 sketches 4 you as my inspiration):

Stamps: Lindsay's stamp Stuff, PP: American Crafts (green & blue) Woodgrain (LSS freebie, download below;)

Follow along with the step by step photos and you can make this in minutes using the “pick” and “eraser” tools.

step 1. Open a new document and copy/paste the stamps you want to use as new layers.

Use the pick tool to re-size and arrange the stamps.

Use the eraser tool to remove overlapped portions of the design. Here I have the "tree" layer selected and I am erasing parts of the tree that are behind the deer.

Here I am erasing the parts of the clouds that are behind the tree, see how the cloud layer is selected.

Crop the image, flatten and save. Easy huh?

Here a the close ups of the other cards:

On this scene I just had to erase the portions of the clouds behind the title and sun.

Here is the scene from the tutorial with the freebie background paper.

And here is another card just because I was on a roll 🙂

don’t forget to grab this weeks freebie: It is a sheet of funky colored woodgrain paper, the same woodgrain paper I used in my cards this week!

Download the Funky Forest Woodgrain Paper here.

The Funky Forest digital stamp kit had 14 images in both png and jpg format for only $5  in the Lindsay’s Stamp Stuff shop! Take a look:

14 300 dpi digital stamps in png and jpg format for $5!

Now that you have made it though my long post let’s see what the fabulous Lindsay’s Stamp Stuff Design team has been up to this week:

Ceal Pritchett October Guest DT

Tamara

Leanne

Shannon

Cindy

Katt

Diana

Margie

Lisa

Janet

Melissa Craig

Kim

Tracey

Thanks for stopping by! Don’t forget that the Babies and Bows Collection is 50% off until the end of the month and be sure to check out the Halloween and Creepy Crow sets in the Lindsay’s Stamp Stuff shop today! Till next time happy crafting!

Cheap embossing & last minute teacher gifts!

The countdown is on! 2 more day of school til summer, I’ll miss my 3 hours of “alone” time in the morning but I WILL NOT miss dragging the kids out of bed 😉

Last night I helped my kids make gifts for their teachers. We made decoupaged clothespins, I’ve wanted to try this for quite an while and they are easy enough for my 4 and 6-year-olds to do. I think they turned out adorable:

Stamps: Plaid (ruler), Stampin Up (alpha background wheel), Inque Boutique (boy) paper: Autumn Leaves

Tip: I used the cellophane bag theat clear stamps come in to package the clothespins! (See, told ya I never through anything away!)

Here are the finshed clothespins (not dry yet) don't worry about blobs of glue, they will flatten out when they dry)

OK, I admit I made the bag topper but the clothespins were all their handiwork! To make them is easy but when crafting with kids have EVERYTHING ready and laid out before you begin. You will need: wood clothespins (a pack of 50 was $1 at target), white glue or decoupage medium, a foam brush for each child, pretty paper scraps trimmed to fit the clothespin (about 3 1/4″x 5/16″), waxed paper to protect the work area and for the clothespins to dry on, and a couple of small containers to pour glue in (plastic lids work great for this). Simply brush a thin coat of glue on the clothespin with the foam brush, place the paper on top and brush a layer of glue over it. Let dry then repeat on the other side. you can glue magnets on them if you like or leave them as is, they are handy for closing chip and produce bags, in fact we have some plain ones holding out chip bags closed, I’ll have to get the kids to spruce them up!

So I told you I had a cheap embossing solution for you. This is so easy and looks so cool I can’t believe I didn’t think of it before.

A close up look at the embossed circle. Read below to see how I did it without an embossing die!

This technique will work with any shape you can cut out either by hand or punch or die cutter. First cut the shape the size of the embossed area (mine was 2″) then cut a larger circle (2 3/8″ and I stamped on it) then using my Big shot I placed the spacer, cutting plate, 2 sheets of rubber gasket, my larger stamped circle face down, the smaller circle centered on that and the top cutting plate and I cranked it through. Viola an embossed circle! I inked the edges to make it stand out, can you believe it is that easy? If you don’t get a good impression you can add a sheet or two of cardstock between the rubber pad and the bottom cutting plate. Too much pressure and it will cut/crack the paper rather than emboss. It may take a couple of tries to get the right combo but when you figure it out you can emboss any shape! I’ll post a card tomorrow using a fancy bracket shape that I cut with my cricut and embossed and who knows maybe a freebie too. Until then happy crafting!