Simple scissor storage

Just a quickie today.  Old Nutella jar + garden string + paper = perfect place for all my scissors.

Football card made using WORDLE

Before we get on with today's offering, can I just say a HUGE thank you to everyone who took time out yesterday to leave me a comment.  Being a new blog on the block, I really appreciate hearing what people think - it made my day!

Not found Wordle yet? Try it out. It arranges your words in a random sequence of fonts & colours. The more often a word is used in your selection, the larger the font size it appears in the picture. You have some input into colours, layout & font. Once you are happy with the colours & fonts etc, just keep choosing 're-layout with current settings' until you have one that takes your fancy.

The only thing is, if you pass over a layout you like, it can sometimes be hard to get it back again. I tend to take a screen snapshot (alt printscreen) of an arrangement I like & paste it into MS Publisher, & then I can compare them all at my leisure.

For this card, I added the footballs & cut out the sentiment on my Silhouette. A piece of red paper (coloured with promarkers) was fixed behind the sentiment to make it stand out & then all adhered to an A6 base with foam pads.

Submitted for Daring Cardmakers "The Sportsman".

Make a clean & simple card from paint charts

This is an idea that's all over the web.  Using the paint charts means you don't have to worry about matching / toning your colours.  It's already been done.  And it's free.  What's not to love? 

If you are going to make more than one of these, the easiest thing is to make a template.

I made mine using my Silhouette. You could also fold the paper & use a punch or scissors.  Make the template the same size as the card base & use temporary adhesive to hold it in place while you stick down your punched shapes. 

If I want to put a sentiment on the front, I just move the whole template up a bit.

Entered into Less Is More Challenge & CAS-ual Fridays this week.

More desk-top storage

How to turn a smoothie box into something pretty & useful.

I needed some storage for my small Papertrey Ink stamp collection, so had a quick rummage through the recycling box.  This smoothie box was just the right size to fit a few cd cases in.

To begin with, draw an angled line on one side of the box.

Then carefully undo the box so it lies flat.  This line will be one edge of the finished item, so cut as straight as possible.  I used a guillotine.  Keep the piece you cut off & use this as a template for the diagonal cut on the other side.

When both diagonals have been cut, re-assemble the box.  The front & back ends will be a bit uneven & need a little more work before the box can be covered.

First, measure the width of the box. Cut a strip of card (cereal box is ideal) to that width, & mark off the height needed at the back. Cut to size & repeat at the front. Stick these well to the outside of the box. This gives strength as well as neat edges.

Inside the box, there will be a difference in the number of cardboard layers, which could lead to problems when lining. This is easily rectified by cutting pieces from the discarded box top & sticking them in the right places inside the front & back.

Now cut pieces of card to fit the 4 inside faces, using the box itself as a template. It is best to cut something slightly larger & gradually trim tiny amounts off until it is a snug fit. If you cut off too much, there will be gaps in the lining.

In addition to the 4 pieces shown, you will also need a bottom piece. These can now be covered in the paper of your choice.

A little care may be needed when lining up the patter. The paper I chose for the lining has a grid pattern on it, so I had to make sure that all my pieces were in line with the grid before cutting.

This box is relatively small & can be covered by 2 pieces of A4 paper. By using a design that is easy to match up & you can make 1 long piece by sticking the 2 together at an appropriate place in the pattern.

Use this to cover the outside of the box, ensuring that there are no joins on the front of the box.  Having folded this down over each edge & stuck down the folds, stick in the previously covered lining pieces. 

I find that double-side tape is best for covering the all the cardboard, or a glue stick.  I think wet glue may wrinkle the paper & would take too long to dry.

Ta daah!

Paper used is from a digital pack by Crystal Wilkerson, Orange Soda, a HUGE collection of patterns currently only $1.  There is a luscious range of colours & I have succumbed to more than one!

Hope this makes sense.  If you have any questions, leave a comment & I'll try to help if i can.

Paper pieced tractor card

This has to be one of my favourite cards ever.  I can't draw for toffee, & am not much better at colouring, so I like to build pictures by paper piecing.  Usually this involves stamping, but this picture was entirely my own creation.

The card base is a 9.9cm square (I can get 3 of these from 1 sheet of A4).  I sketched the idea out very roughly on scratch paper & then used this to make templates to draw around on the patterned paper.  The wheel sizes were dictated by my punch collection, so this was where I started.

Each piece was sponged with black ink before being glued into position, to give definition to the edges.

Paper pack used is 6"x6" Hopscotch Boy by K & Co.

Make & line an envelope to match your card

This envelope is for the 5 inch square card I posted yesterday.

Cut a square of Kraft paper (I used a manilla suspension file) & score as shown below.





Round all the corners of the square & one corner of the lining piece.  Use temporary adhesive to stick the lining piece in position on one of the envelope flaps.  Draw lines parallel to the Kraft piece on each side, & fold the flap over.

 

Remove the liner & cut along the lines you have drawn. Stick the liner down to the flap first, then fold over & stick the inside.

Fold & stick the 3 other flaps, ensuring there is no adhesive on the inside of the envelope.

Quilt card from paper scraps

I cut a 12cm square of printer paper & found the centre by drawing lines diagonal to diagonal.  Using temporary adhesive I stuck a 3cm square of card in the centre.

 

I cut 4 strips of paper 4.5cm long by 1.5cm wide.  The edges were sponged with brown ink to give them definition. They were stuck around the centre, making sure the edges lined up by using a ruler as shown.  The centre square was then removed so I could use a brayer to ensure everything was adhered properly.

The next strips were 7.5cm long, & then as long as was needed to go across the paper.

Turning the quilted piece over, I scored along the original edge of the 12cm square, then folded the excess over & stuck it down.

The cardboard square from the centre was covered in paper, stuck in position & finished with a faux button & some twine.

The quilted piece was then matted on to Kraft card & adhered to a 5" square card base. 

Paper used is a digital design,  Love Cherries from Sheri K Designs.

Make your own wrapping paper

I designed this pattern using Silhouette Studio, but you could use MS Publisher.  I then put A4 sheets of Kraft wrapping paper through the printer.  The pattern has a simple repeat, which made it easy to join 2 sheets together. 

I made a small bag, carefully hiding the paper joins at the bottom, & folded over the top.  2 small holes punched through the top fold allowed a faux button to be tied in place with bakers' twine to hold the bag closed.

Very quick & simple card

Need a card in a hurry, but don't have much in the way of supplies?  Try this.

The sentiment was printed first (SNF Lollihop), & the tiles arranged around it.  I didn't have any suitable colours in my paper stash, so I simply put stripes of colour on plain paper with a few promarkers, added sellotape over the top to give it a shine & punched them out with a small square punch.

The hardest part was trying to get the squares random enough.  Random doesn't come easily to me!

Sliding Dr Who card

This is a card from 2 years ago which I chanced upon whilst tidying No 2 Son's room. 

Pull the ribbon at the top, & all is revealed...

The pictures were scanned in from a Doctor Who magazine.

If you are interested in doing the sliding mechanism, leave me a comment & I'll try to put a tutorial together. 

How many uses for a cat food box?

We have an elderly cat who is eating us out of house & home.  He is constantly crying for food.  We get through about 6 pouches a day.  That's more than 3 boxes a week.

Ergo, we have a lot of cat food boxes in the recycling.  Always.  So I have begun to appropriate them for my crafting.  It started when I needed a small box to display my cards for sale, but it seems their uses are endless.

Today's CFB (cat food box) was transformed from this:

to this:

a handy box for all my adhesives, sticky pads etc.

The exterior is wrapped in my favourite Kraft paper.  It takes a long piece to get all the way round, so wrapping paper is best.  Inside, I made simple panels using cereal box card & covered them in gingham paper downloaded from Activity Village.  Getting the panels to fit is quite time consuming & involves a bit of trial & error, but it does become easier with practise.  A simple band of gingham & a co-ordinating label ties it all together.

Same card 2 ways

I find the hardest part of making a card is coming up with the design.  So when I stumble upon a design that works, I work it hard.  Lucy Abrams held a sketch challenge earlier in the year and, although I didn't enter, something stuck with me as I came up with this.

One for a girl...

Card: Hammered White (Paper Mill Direct), Kraft (Anna Marie Designs)
Paper: Pretty Please Spring (My Mind's Eye )
Stamp: Circus Animals (My Cute Stamps)
Ink: Tuxedo Black (Memento)
Font: 2Peas Mister Giggles (free download)

and one for a boy.

Paper: Celebrate (free download from Shabby Princess)

I'm sure I won't be stopping at two, especially as this design lends itself to using up scraps!

Another way to avoid housework is born...

Hello.... is there anyone out there?

Well, that wasn't as hard as I thought.

I've been an avid blog READER for some years now, but I've decided to stop being merely a voyeur & join in the fun.

One thing to say straight away, as it will become immediately apparent, is that I am RUBBISH with a camera. Paper, scissors, glue, computer: fine.  Camera: pants.  So I apologise in advance for the poor quality images that will shortly be appearing on a PC near you!

Right, on with the important stuff.  Today's offering is a bookmark I put together using my newly acquired PTI Tremendous Treats Valentine set (bought second hand off ebay, of course - no way I want to pay their shipping prices).  I coloured the spines with promarkers & paper-pieced the body, details below.  Not sure whether to laminate or not.  Would make it more durable, but might lose some of the charm.  What do you think?

The kraft card is from www.annamariedesigns.com, & the paper is a free digikit from here http://www.twopeasinabucket.com/shop/betsy-tuma/96385-digikit-bold-brights-sampler/?filters=_brights_%2Ffree%2Fdigital-kits. 

I generated the sentiment on the computer, using Silhouette Studio.

Thanks for reading.