Eat Chocolate and a Quick Tutorial

Here is a card that I made using Eat Chocolate. The colors are Very Vanilla, Pretty in Pink, and Early Expresso. It is a CASE of a swap I received.

I originally was going to make it as one of my swaps for the Minneapolis Regionals, but I ran out of time with all the favors I had to made. At first, I thought I was crazy for attempting to cut out all those cupcakes, but I came up with a little trick to cut them out fast. So as promised yesterday, here is how I did it.

First I colored the cupcakes as desired and stamped. Since I was only using Pretty in Pink and Early Expresso here, I inked the image up in Pretty in Pink and then took my Early Expresso and colored over the portions that I wanted Early Expresso. Note, this would not work for the cupcakes I showed yesterday. I  then took my 1/2" circle punch and punched out each cupcake, making sure the top of the cupcake lined up with the punch. I hope you can see this is the picture below. Apparently I'm not very good at taking pictures of myself trying to work, sorry about the blurriness.

Then, I took my paper snips and made three straight cuts. One along each side and one along the bottom.

And you then have your cupcake all cut out and can adhere to your project as desired.

Thanks for stopping by and I hope you found that quick tutorial helpful.

VC Rocks Blog Hop

Welcome to the first VC Rocks Blog Hop. If you came from Lori's blog, you're on the right track. If you started here, don't worry you can follow the blogs and it will bring you full circle.

Today I am showing yet another card that I created for a swap using Island Oasis DSP. I tried to show as many different patterns of the paper as possible, while still making it reasonable to reproduce. I came up with the pinwheel design. This is NOT my original design and there are many other tutorials out there for this, but this is what I did.

Supplies:

1 1/4" square punch

Word Window Punch

Build a Brad

3/4" circle punch

Cardstock  (Pumpkin Pie, Rose Red)

DSP (Island Oasis)

Ink (Pumpkin Pie, Rose Red)

Tropical Party Stamp Set

Pocket Sillouettes (sentiment)

Directions:

1. Cut two 2 5/8" squares out of Rose Red cardstock

2. Fold both squares in half both ways and along the diagonals to find the centers.

3. Align the squares so the score lines on one of the squares folded in half line up with the score lines on the other square along the diagonal and the centers are on top of each other.

4. Punch four 1 1/4" squares out of one design of DSP and four more out of another design of DSP.

5. Start layering the squares on top of the base you created in step 3, alternating DSP designs. The last square will need to be tucked under the first square to finish the pinwheel look.

6. Punch out 3/4" circle out of another design of DSP and assemble the Build a Brad.

7. Put the Build a Brad in the center of your now completed pinwheel.
8. Finish the card as desired. I used Island Party to add a subtle design to the Pumpkin Pie cardstock and the word window punch to display my greeting on the Rose Red cardstock.

Hope you enjoyed this stop and now you are on your way to see the beautiful creation of Ellen Kemper here.

Thanks for stopping by!

I Heart Tutorials

Here is another variation of the layout that I shared with you yesterday. Is it bad when I rather design a new card than clean up my scrap area to find the embosslit heart that I need to complete the cards that I already prepped? Well that's what I did for this card. Remember this card here? Well I have all the peices cut and assembled to make 6 of these for a swap, all I have left to do is cut out the three embosslit hearts and I can't find my embosslit heart. If you saw my desk, you'd understand why. Well, I really wasn't feeling like cleaning so I decided to create a new card instead, using the punched heart from the other card.  This card uses Sweet Pea DSP, Taken with Teal (2" x 2", 5.5" x 8.5" folded in half, 3.75" x 0.75), Pumpkin Pie (2.25" x 2.25"), Whisper White (2.5" x 2.5", 4" x 5.25", scrap for heart).

Now, as promised, here are the steps I took to cut the DSP for this layout. I gave the measurements yesterday, but I will repeat here again. The trickest part is making sure the triangles lay in the right directions when cutting and what sides you want up. I went through several pieces of paper before I got it right.

1. Cut two different designs of DSP into 3.75" x 4" rectangles, one will be the upper right hand triangle and the other will be the lower left hand triangle.

2. Now, place the rectangle in the cutter as shown here. Be sure to have the side you want shown up and the longer edge vertical. Place the upper left hand corner on the inch marker and the lower right hand corner on the cut line. This will result in 4 different pieces, but you will only use 2 of them, one of each of design.

3. Now take the triangle that will be in the upper right hand corner and turn it over. You will then cut the small triangle from this. Once you have the back side up, line the paper up as shown below. You will be cutting off an inch from the 4" side of the triangle.

4. Now to cut the small triangle, cut a rectangle 1" x 1.5". Then place this in the cutter as shown below and cut in half. If you are using double sided paper and place it as shown, you will want the front side up.

5. Now you have all the pieces cut and can adhere them to the 3.75" x 5.25" peice of cardstock and finish off the bottom strip as desired.

If you have any questions, please email me.

Thanks for looking!

Day 9: Medallion Swap with baby-wipe technique tutorial

Here is a card that I made on behalf of someone for a swap that I held on SCS. The swaps were fantastic and maybe some day I'll take the time to take pictures and share them with you. Anyways, this card uses the baby wipe technique. This is where you use a babywipe colored with rinkers as your ink pad. It's okay if it a little dry, you can rewet it by spraying some water on it. To make my "ink pad" I used Green Galore, Pink Passion, and Bashful Blue reinkers and tried to create a target-like pattern. I then used this to ink up my Medallion stamp and stamped in on the desired size card stock. Instead of just adhering that to my card, I decided to cut it into strips and mix up the order of them before adhering to my card.

Hope you enjoy!

Shaving Cream Technique

I participated in a Technique page swap, where everyone does a 6x6 page with the instructions and a sample of a technique. The technique I did was the shaving cream technique. And since I was making samples for the pages, I figured I might as well make some extra to make some cards with too. Here is the card that I copied. It used Punch Pals, Rich Razzleberry, Gold, and Always Artichoke (I beleive) cardstock.

My version also used Punch Pals and Rich Razzleberry, but I also used the shaving cream technique and Basic Grey cardstock. Additionally, I used the ribbon instead of strips of paper. here is my take.

And now the shaving cream technique.

1. Spray shaving cream onto a pan, spread it out to ensure it will cover the size of paper you are using.

2. Add a few drops of a few colors of reinkers. (I used Basic Black craft and Rich Razzleberry classic refills.)

3. Swirl the color into the shaving cream with a fork.

4. Lay Whisper White cardstock into mixture.

5. Pull cardstock out of mixture and wipe of excess shaving cream.

6. Use pattern paper as desired.

Hope you enjoy!

Top Note Matchbox Tutorial

As promised, here is the tutorial for the top note matchbox posted here. While everyone else is enjoying convention, you can have some fun of your own. Please let me know if you have any questions. I will post more step-by-step pictures when I get home. This is my first tutorial, so any feedback will be greatly appreciated.

Enjoy!



Supplies:
8 ½ x 5 ½ thin chip board (cereal box, cardboard from DSP, etc)
8 ½ x 11 DSP
12 x 12 cardstock
Sticky Strip
Big Shot
Top Note Die
Matchbox Die
Oval punch
2 ½ x 4 transparency sheet
2 jumbo eyelets
6” wide ribbon
Crop-a-Dile

Directions:
1. Cover both sides of the chip board with the DSP and cut out two Top Note Dies. These will be the top and bottom of the box.
2. Cut out two matchboxes and two sleeves using the cardstock. Assemble the box as instructed.
3. Adhere the middle section of the two sleeves together. Make sure the score lines line up for the rest of the sleeve and the shorter tabs are on the same end.
4. From the shorter end of the tabs, punch the oval out of the two sleeves. Slide the paper all the way in and center (this ensures the holes are in approximately the same place on both sleeves). This will be used as a template in step five to determine where to punch the ovals in the top note.
5. Center the two holes on the back side of one of the top notes and mark the holes with a pencil. This ensures the holes will match up when assembled. Take the oval punch and punch the two ovals out of the top note. Note: Other shapes can be used, but not all with punch through the chip board, so a test might want to be performed beforehand. No responsibility is taken for damaged punches.
6. Finish assembling the two sleeves, using sticky strip to adhere them.
7. Attach the transparency sheet to the bottom of the top note with the holes.
8. Line up the ovals on the tope note and the sleeves and adhere with sticky strip. Please the tape on the sleeves rather than the top note to ensure the adhesive is only where the two meet.
9. Adhere the bottom of the top note to the bottom of the sleeve, again using sticky strip on the sleeve.
10. Using the Crop-a-Dile, set the two jumbo eyelets in the matchboxes.
11. Thread 3” of the ribbon through the eyelet and tie in a knot inside the box. This will be the pull for the drawer. Repeat on the other drawer.
12. Decorate as desired.