How to make a Christmas tree shaker card with heart dies

It can be fun to take basic shapes like a heart and transform it into something like this Christmas tree. The heart dies from Crafter's Companion are mixed-media dies and they cut through cardstock and Fun Foam at the same time which is how you make this shaker card.

First up I die cut the 3 hearts at the same time layering the silver cardstock and Fun Foam.

Then I glued a piece of recycled plastic container between the silver cardstock and Fun Foam. I played around with different sequins and embellishments from Buttons Galore on the top of the card until I liked the look.
I trimmed the black Fun Foam down to about a 1/4 inch.

 I then filled the three upside down hearts that formed the Christmas tree with gold sequin mix and glued the green glitter cardstock together.

Then I glued on the half pearls and buttons to the top layer of the card.

This technique for cutting the cardstock and fun foam makes creating shaker cards so easy!

Election year U.S. map and recycled dictionary page card

I remember being at an election part for Obama's first term and the hostess had a map on a board that was colored in every time a state was announced. This U.S. die cut card is inspired by election year maps.

For the background I used a page from an old dictionary and I chose the page that had California on it. To embellish the page I stenciled a field of stars with a blue ink pad and a Judikins field of stars stencil.

I used the Sizzix United States die to cut out both the outline of America and the individual California state.

Happy Election Year!

"I Love You Dad" Card adult coloring page

I thought I'd share with you the card I made for my Dad. Since I love making adult coloring pages I thought I would make a coloring page Father's Day Card.

I laid the page out so you could print it on cardstock and then just fold it in half like a card. I ended up cutting the focal part out and gluing it down to a piece of blue scrapbook paper.

Feel free to download and if you do, leave a comment with a link to your finished card or tag me on Instagram @StefanieLGirard

Happy Father's Day to all the Dads out there!

Recycled magazine page font Father's Day card

Have you missed me? I know it's been a while. I've been blogging every day at Craftside and Craft Gossip Recycling. But today I'm back to give you a fun Father's Day Card tutorial on how to make recycled magazine (or book catalog) letters used to make a Father's Day card using an idea featured in the book Creative Lettering: Techniques & Tips from Top Artists.

I had an old catalog that I thought would work great for cutting up these little block letters.

What made it so easy was that the books were all about the same size rectangle and this font is very boxy. I cut out each book cover first. I chose book covers for each letter that the title would still be exposed even when I snipped out parts to form the letters. It took a few different tries as I ended up using all white background covers so they would coordinate and stand out against the black background paper

I glued the letters down to the card and added two strips of scrapbook paper to make a "shelf". I also kind of had to giggle in that one of the books is Water Paper Paint and another is 1000 Creative Re-use. Nothing like re-using paper images of the words to make another word!

If you are like me and love type and lettering you will love Creative Lettering: Techniques & Tips from Top Artists.

More about the Lark Crafts book

Creative Lettering: Techniques & Tips from Top Artists
by
Jenny Doh
 
" Hand-lettering techniques are a popular and visually dynamic way to add textual elements to crafts, from journals to mixed-media art. Sixteen accomplished contributors—including calligraphers, painters, collagists, card makers, fiber artists, and graphic designers—give their personal perspectives on lettering. They all offer their favorite tools, how they use them, their signature technique with step-by-step instructions and photos, and an alphabet sampler of their own font. Gorgeous gallery images of each contributor's work are also included.

 

Contributors include:
Andy Ainger   •   Francois Begnez   •   Flora Chang   •   Barbara Close   •   Philippe Debongnie   •  Karyn Denten   •   Aimee Dolich   •   Lisa Engelbrecht   •   Pam Garrison  •   Stine Kaasa   •   Rhianna Lederman   •   Martha Lever   •   Linda Schneider   •   Jessica Swift   •   Madeline Tomkins   •   Lori Vilegen   •  

 

Jenny Doh is the former Editor-in-Chief of Somerset Studio magazine and the President and Founder of crescendoh.com. Jenny serves regularly as keynote speaker across the nation to deliver messages related to creative passion, authentic leadership, effective communication, and focused compassion. For her leadership in publishing and the art and crafting community, Jenny was recognized by Folio magazine as one of the top 40 leaders within the publishing industry. Jenny is the author of several books, including Hand in Hand and We Make Dolls (both Lark). She lives in Santa Ana, CA."

How to make a St. Patrick's Day custom label and card

As an Industrial Design major in college I think package design was one of my favorite classes. Now as a craft designer I don't design much packaging but making a custom label to celebrate a holiday is doable these days. I found these free downloads for St. Patrick's day graphics and labels and all that was left to do was a little punching with some Marvy Uchida Big punches and some cutting.

I glued the graphics on two more layers of scrapbook paper and then onto the bottle of real maple syrup. The card was made the same way simply layered up the graphic with two more pieces of scrapbook paper.

How to make a framed cartoon greeting card with a Cricut Fancy Frame Die cut

Do you have a stash of little things cut from magazines and newspapers like I do? If you you do then why not use them to make greeting cards? The Cricut Fancy Frames Cartridge is the perfect cartridge to have in your craft arsenal to make all those recycled bits into framed art! (Want to win one? Pop on Over to Craft Gossip and leave a comment by August 25th, 2011 to get yourself in the running for a Cricut Fancy Frames Cartridge.)
Here is how I made my framed recycled cartoon greeting card:
I cut out one of the pretty frames from the Cricut Fancy Frames Cartridge.
To make the card I held the frame onto a piece of scrapbook cardstock and scored it.
Next I folded the cardstock in half on the scoreline and cut the card width. All that was left to do was trim the bottom flush to the top flap. I like cutting my cards after I make my top element as opposed to starting with a card and then embellishing it. I'm just crafty like that.
I felt the frame needed a little texture and color in the form of some Plaid paint and glitter to coordinate with the off-white of the cartoon paper and the blue glitter of my background cardstock.
Well, then I just went ahead and changed my mind and thought it ended up "blending" too much and I picked out another cardstock that contrasted a bit more.

If you can't read the cartoon it is one snowman telling another wearing a pair of way-long plaid pants, "They fit around the waist nicely, but you may want to hem them up a bit."

Deer Card made with a silhouette from the book and disk Silhouette Style

Today I have a "deer" card design for you using one of the silhouettes included on the disk with the book Silhouette Style: Techniques and Template Sets for Papercut Projects.

I love the deer image and have managed to work it into a lot of my designs so when I got the book and it had a deer silhouette I knew just what I was going to make.
I know it's tough to see but I imported the deer silhouette into Illustrator and copy and pasted it to get a second image. Then I flipped it to get the mirror image. I aligned them along the bottom of the paper and printed it out onto a pretty pink cardstock.

A side note here is that I love doing paper cutout work because it is a twofer, you get the surround and the cut out shape. These two deer will definitely be used in the future.
I placed a fun piece of pine branch paper behind the deer silhouettes kind of ironic "camo" style and got my quote for the card at one of my favorite sources- One Up Me. This one says, "He's like camouflage, when we're together, it's like I'm invisible."

More about the book from North Light Books:

Silhouette Style: Techniques and Template Sets for Papercut Projects

by
Nanetta Bananto
Discover the modern versatility of the classic silhouette. The bold lines and strong contrasts of the silhouette are no longer limited to flat, two-color portraits to be hung on the family room wall. In Silhouette Style, silhouette designs take on color, dimension and the 21st Century. Nanetta Bananto teaches you to bring papercuts to life in more than 40 projects incorporating her beautiful, original designs. Create tea-light lanterns, gift boxes, cards, paper dolls and fashion accessories using papercut designs in themes such as sea life, animals, flowers and fashion.

The book includes:

• Step-by-step instructions for 21 stylish projects and more than 20 variations easily created using the same techniques and designs
• Tips and techniques on how to cut designs either by hand or using an electronic die-cutting machine
• A CD-ROM containing all of the cutting design files needed to create the projects, plus bonus designs to expand your creative possibilities

Pull out your scissors or electronic cutter and develop a passion for silhouettes as you create art, gifts, home décor and more!

To read the pdf files on the CD-ROM included in this book, you will need Adobe Acrobat. To read .eps files, you will need a software program such as Adobe Photoshop or CorelDRAW. You may need to convert .eps files to the correct format for your cutting machine, according to the machine manufacturer’s instructions.

Nanetta Bananto is a beadwork, sculpture, clay, painting, calligraphy, fiber and paperarts artist and author of Creative Techniques for Polymer Clay Jewelry (North Light, 2005). Nanetta designs projects for Polyform Products, sells art to galleries and museum shops, has designed numerous CD covers, flyers, menus and t-shirts. She has been working with Accugraphic and will soon sell designs for their Klic-n-Kut systems on their website.

Computer Keys are the shape of most of my days it feels like

Today's ATC and card are inspired by the book Inner Excavation: Exploring Your Self Through Photography, Poetry and Mixed Media. One of the questions that is posed to help a creator make art is " What are the shapes of your day?"
Well, I feel like the computer keys on my desk are often the shapes that I spend the most time with. So they became my starting off point.
These are two additional keys I have added to my keyboard. The other main objective some days is to "find" things. If it were only as easy as hitting a key to make it happen.....
I have a book of clip art images that I love to use in my art and cards and funny enough there was an image of computer keys. Another element that is one of my favorites to include is a translation dictionary bit. I used a Spanish dictionary and the word "find".

Lastly I had this great picture of Brigitte Bardot looking like she is looking for something. Well there is the starting off point from Inner Excavation and where it took me. I look forward to trying more of the explorations in Inner Excavation.

More about the book from North Light Books:
Inner Excavation:
Exploring Your Self Through Photography, Poetry and Mixed Media

by

Liz Lamoreux

This book will guide you through the expressions of photography, poetry/journaling and mixed-media as they pertain to exploring how we not only currently see ourselves, but how we can learn to see new things hiding below the surface. Each of these sub-topics features a different contributing artist (or the author) and includes tips, prompts, meditations and other exercises, along with plenty of full color inspiration.

Liz Lamoreux is an editor, poet, photographer, yoga teacher and mixed-media artist living in the Pacific Northwest. She is the organizer of the Be Present Retreats where she teaches alongside nationally known instructors. She has been writing on her blog, Be Present, Be Here, for five years and has quite a following.

I love my Mom from head to "Toe" Mother's Day card

Yup, the woman who crafted me and had to put up with me at my craziest cutting up moments is to be honored with these absolutely silly socks. My Mom is waaaaaay conservative so there are for sure over the top, but I felt the sentiment was true.

At first I was just going to pop them in an envelope but then I decided to make the card a little more special.

I die cut a few letters "texting" style and taped the socks in with removable poster double sided tape. (I love how the packaging matched the card)
And what Mom doesn't have a stash of handmade cards? Why not get her a special place that she can slide them in without damaging them and flip through them like a book? Sound like a plan? Then score yourself a Card Album!
Here are a few Card Albums that I decorated with the words "Mother's Day Cards" on the front and the word "Mom" with the "o" being a heart die cut on the spine that would show when the Card Album was on a book case.

How to make a stitched broken heart card

Today I have this mixed-media card project to share with you using a stitching idea from the book Flavor for Mixed Media: A Feast of Techniques for Texture, Color and Layers.
I like using the broken heart as a theme. They are super easy to make. I ran a pretty piece of paper through the Sizzix die cutter and then just sniped the heart in half in a zig zag line.

This page from Flavor for Mixed Media: A Feast of Techniques for Texture, Color and Layers was my inspiration to stitch back up my broken heart. It features words and art by Tonia Davenport.
I glued the heart down to the card and poked holes on each side of the zig zag with the needle. I then stitched it back up with a piece of silver Kreinik thread.

I thought it came out looking pretty cool from the back side too!

If you are like me and like compilation books filled with art, techniques and inspiration from a variety of artists then I bet you will like:
Flavor for Mixed Media: A Feast of Techniques for Texture, Color and Layers
by
Mary Beth Shaw

Creative individuals are typically as passionate about food as they are making art. So while this is a mixed-media technique book, there are underlying analogies of cooking. A dinner-party setting has a guest list featuring contributing artists. You will be introduced to five chapters, or "courses": Color, Layers, Texture, Flavor and Combinations. Each chapter features projects with stepped-out techniques pertaining to that chapter, as well as tabletalk (inspiring insights and constructive tips) from the guests, and sidebars (What?s in Your Pantry) for ideas such as using found objects, painting over ?failed? works and stimulating your brain when you?re out of ideas. Techniques for the projects will show you how to do things like develop layers with stencils, create texture with items like a cheese grater or combine different substrates into one project.

Mary Beth Shaw has been exhibiting in galleries and art shows across the country since 2000. Her mixed-media works incorporate acrylics, pastel, ink, maker and various collage materials. Her pieces have been published in Cloth Paper Scissors as well as in Creative Awakenings by Sheri Gaynor (North Light Books, 2009). Her teaching style and classes have been very well received on the art-retreat teaching circuit.

How to make a dotted line and recycled newpaper greeting card

This is my #6 card in my 365 Greeting card project that I am posting over at The Card Album blog but I thought I'd share the tutorial with you here. I used a technique from the book
Mixed-Media Paint Box: Weekly Projects for a Year of Creative Exploration.
You don't tend to think of your sewing supplies as painting tools but that's what Giuseppina "Josie" Cirincione did by coming up with the idea for using a tracing wheel to paint dotted lines.
I grabbed a piece of pink card stock and tried out this fun way to paint dotted lines.
Now that I had this cool dotted line paper it was time to make it into a greeting card.
I had this page from the newspaper that had some cool illustrations by Katherine Streeter and I picked one to incorporate onto my card and off to one of my favorite sources for quotes, One Up Me, and I picked "She's like bell-bottoms, had a fit over boots."

Pop on over to The Card Album blog to see some of my other cards, mostly made out of something recycled and make something too!

More about the book:
Mixed-Media Paint Box: Weekly Projects for a Year of Creative Exploration
By
The Editors of North Light Books

Play With Paint All Year Long!

Incorporating paint into your mixed-media art has never been easier or more fun. Open up your paint box and delve into a year of creative ideas from 45 of your favorite artists. Whether you’ve used paint for years or have been anxious to try a new medium, you’ll find great advice and ideas inside Mixed-Media Paint Box. Each week, you’ll be guided with step-by-step instructions through a different project or technique that will add instant depth and drama to your art!

Inside you’ll find:

+ 52 projects and techniques, one for every week of the year, to inspire a weekly dose of creativity.

+ Tips, hints and suggestions from some of your favorite authors, including Ruth Rae, Claudine Hellmuth, Chrissie Grace, Bernie Berlin and Margot Potter.

+ Step-by-step instructions for jewelry-making, assemblage, journaling, collage and a variety of painting techniques to incorporate into your own art.

Discover inspiration and new ways to express yourself every week inside Mixed-Media Paint Box!

Mixed Media Greeting Card Album using embellishment ideas from the book The Scrapbook Embellishment Handbook by Sherry Steveson

First let me say mixed media crafting makes a mess! A fabulously fun one, but none the less a big a** mess.

I love working with all sorts of bits and pieces so the book The Scrapbook Embellishment Handbook was right up my alley being that it is divided up by chapter based on each type of embellishment....very cool!

The first embellishment that caught my eye was the little metal frame on this page in the "Metal" chapter.
I save tin cans to recycle into die cut elements and so it was easy to run a piece of soda can through the Sizzix die cutter with the slide/frame die.
I have a stash of old family slides and it's cool that they fit perfectly in the Inkssentials Memory Frames by Ranger.
But I think they would look better hanging being back lit so I then when to my stash of scrapbook paper catalogs which happen to be a great source of little images and backgrounds. I also poked through an old catalog of stock photography. Out of these two I filled my little frame.
I punched two tiny wings from the McGill punch and textured them. I assembled these elements along with a tag that said "wander" which I thought went great with the road image and shoes with a bit of wire.

For the background I cut a piece of woven plaid fabric and fringed the edge by pulling a few of the threads out from each side and glued it onto the cover of The Greeting Card Album.

I put an image into the soda can die cut frame.
Printed out the words "knot nice" with my label maker.
Glued it all onto the plaid cover with a sawed off end of a spent 12 gauge shotgun shell casing.

Kind of eclectic but so am I!

Want more fabulously fun ideas on how to use embellishments? Grab a copy of:
The Scrapbook Embellishment Handbook
By
Sherry Steveson

Product Description from the publisher Memory Makers Books:

"The Scrapbook Embellishment Handbook, author Sherry Steveson covers 17 popular types of embellishments and teaches you how to utilize them on your layouts. With beginner, intermediate and advanced techniques for each embellishment, you will get over 50 step-by-step demonstrations, plus 130+ layouts and projects that illustrate these techniques.

A bonus Step It Up gallery shows you how adding embellishments can enhance a layout. In the gallery, you will see how a layout starts with a simple design, then is passed to a second scrapbooker who adds a few embellishments and finally it is passed to a third scrapper who adds even more embellishments, completing the look.

About the Author
Sherry Steveson has been scrapbooking for nearly nine years, and her work has been featured in Creating Keepsakes, Scrapbook Trends, Simple Scrapbooks, Scrapbooks, Etc. and Memory Makers Magazine. She is a design team member for several kit clubs, a manufacturer, and an online store. She is also the author of When Life Gives You Lemons."