Christmas Tree Cut

Sorry it’s been a quiet week from me this week…  I have been rushed off my feet, catching up on household things and getting ahead on DT projects!  Anyway, here’s a card I tried out a few days ago..

I have seen lots of intricately cut trees and baubles and decided to try my hand at creating my own, now that I have almost got the hang on manipulating images in Silhouette Studio.  I combined several swirls and flourishes, creating one row of the tree at a time and then editing out some of the pointless cut points, before committing the image to cut.  Here’s what the final cut looked like:

I punched small circles of red glitter cardstock to add to the tree as baubles, and cut a trunk which I coloured with Pro-Markers.  I used 3D foam pads to pop it off the plain white background, then mounted it on a layer of card embossed with a swirly Cuttlebug folder, which is very similar to the swirls and flourishes in the tree.  I added a little red and white ribbon before mounting it all on a card blank.

I was pleased with the end result, didn’t think it was too bad for a first attempt at creating my own image to cut…and it’s another Christmas card for my ever-growing pile!

Thanks for reading x

Advertisement

Happy Friday!

Happy Friday everyone!!  I don’t know about you, but I am very pleased to see the weekend rolling up again!  Not that it’ll make a jot of difference to the time that the children will have us up and about, but hey ho!  Long gone are the days of sleeping in til noon and partying til dawn…..!

Anyway, today I’d like to share a card I was asked to make for a friend’s father in law, inspired by a love of the seaside!

Both the banner and “Dad” were cut using the Silhouette.  Originally, the banner had lovely shapes cut out of it, but for some unknown reason, I couldn’t get a clean cut 😦  I was a little short on time, so after trying everything I could think of to sort the problem, I ended up “tweaking” the banner a little!  I ungrouped the image, removed the detailing from inside the pennants and cut a much simpler image.  I then cut some small hearts, using a hand punch, from glittery white card, stuck them to the banner and added a little Stickles sparkle.  The two background papers were both random pieces of cardstock from my stash, along with some baker’s twine and an old shirt button to finish!

Thanks for reading x

Challenges:

4 Krafty Girlz – Anything Goes

Seize the Birthday – Anything Goes

Through the Craft Room Door – Anything Goes

Brown Sugar – Challenge 64: Blue, Gray and White

Keeping It Simple: KIS #25: Be Inspired

Aaarrggghhh!! Monster!!

Today I’m sharing another birthday card for a seven year old boy – there are a lot of birthdays in my son’s Year 2 class in the next few weeks! 

The stamp for today’s card is from Birdie Brown on Etsy – there are loads of cute stamps in this collection that may just “happen” to make their way to my stash in the next few weeks!  I coloured the monsters with Pro-Markers, choosing lighter shades so that I could shade the monsters easier.

Both of the background papers were from Mel Stampz.  Mel has created and listed hundreds of papers as freebies; they are great quality and there is such a variety of colours, patterns and shades that the challenge is not finding what you’re looking for…!

To personalise the card, I welded the birthday boy’s name (with offset) to the card base, using my Silhouette and then re-cut the name (without offset) in glittercard and attached it to the base.  Finally, I added a little banner sentiment, using Chiller font to tie in with the monster theme.

I’m planning to enter this card in a few challenges, including Partytime Tuesdays, Paper Crafting Journey and Passion for Promarkers.

Thanks for reading x

Challenges:

Paper Crafting Journey – For a Boy

Passion for ProMarkers – One for the Boys

Partytime Tuesdays – Challenge #139: Anything Goes

Crafting by Designs – Anything Goes

Designed To Color – Challenge 20: Anything Goes

Ladybug Crafts – Anything Goes

ART – Anything Goes

Seize The Birthday – Anything Goes

Card Makin Mamas – For the Kids

Football shirt card

Isn’t it strange when a project doesn’t turn out as you planned, but instead seems to develop under its own steam?  This card was a bit like that….  I was asked to make a birthday card for a little boy who will be turning 7; he is a big football fan, so it seemed fitting to design the card around a football shirt as I could put his name and age on it.

I found a football jersey in the Silhouette Online store – it needed a few tweaks though as it was an american football style jersey, but once it was ungrouped, I simply removed the elements of the image that I didn’t need and added a few stripes of dark green, to represent the school team’s colours.  After cutting and sticking all the parts of the shirt, I coloured the inside of the it with a Cool Grey 1 Pro-Marker, just to show a light shadow.

The background papers are by Kristin Aagard Designs for Scrap Orchard.  This is a great collection for any sporty cards or scrapbook pages as it includes some many variations and additional elements.

Challenges:

Ladybug Crafts – Anything Goes

Partytime Tuesdays – Anything Goes

The Cupboard Trilogy – Challenge 15: Male

Letter welding

I think it is time to admit that I am, ever so slightly, hooked on letter welding on the Silhouette!!  It’s just sooo easy and quick to make a sparkly, bold birthday card!!  Here’s the card I made today: 

I created the white card base in Silhouette Studio, taking one word at a time, sizing it to fit the layout I had in mind, then welded the letters together.  I then added an external offset and used that to weld the words together, with a smal rectangle between each word to allow for spacing and the striped effect.  The next step was to cut the original welded words (without the offset) from a glittery cardstock and attach to the base.  It really was quite straight forward!

Thanks for reading x

Challenges:

Bunny Zoe’s Crafts – September Challenge: Blue

C is for Challenge – Challenge 6

Silhouette Challenges: Challenge 5: Welding Letters

A wedding keepsake card

I like to keep cards and mementoes from important events in the lives of my family.  That’s why I leapt at the chance to make this wedding keepsake card!  As usual, I wanted to keep the style simple, but I also wanted to play with my new Portrait!  After all, one of the main reasons I finally gave in and treated myself, was the ability to cut any font on my computer!  And a wedding keepsake should include the names of the bride and groom as well as the date (handy little future reminder for any absent-minded husbands !)

So, that was exactly what I included.  I set the Portrait to cut the names out of the white card and then backed it with an aqua coloured card.

Then, I cut an aqua coloured, oversized ampersand, which I mounted on foam pads to stand out from the names.  I popped the date below, et voila! 

Congratulations Tom and Rhiannon!

 

Millie’s birthday

Today I needed to make a birthday card for my son’s classmate, who is turning 7.  Desperate to practice with my Silhouette Portrait, I decided to use it to cut the sentiment using one of my favourite script style fonts, Lobster2.  I mounted some textured lilac card behind it and even reattached the fiddly middles of some of the letters!

It was about this point that I sat back and did a lot of umm-ing and aaah-ing, while I tried to figure out where I was going next…  I got so caught up obsessing about playing with my new toy that I didn’t really plan out the finished card!  After a while, I set to colouring a Little Angel digi, which I found on Bodils Scrappeverden (another freebie, thank you!!), sticking to lilac for her dress, shoes and accessories.  I only have one purple Pro-Marker at the moment, so I waited for the first coat to dry, then reapplied a second layer in the areas where I wanted a shadow.

Finally, I added some backing paper from the Forever Friends “Party Time” paper pack, and a little ribbon down the centre and hey, presto!  One birthday card for the birthday girl!

Thank you for stopping by x

Challenges:

Seize the Birthday – Anything Goes Birthday

Happy Campers – Challenge 21: Use a stamp

Paper Crafting Journey – Anything Goes

Stamp and Create – Birthdays

Pixie Holly

Yesterday, by chance, I found a lovely site for digis….and to my delight I found a little freebie Pixie Holly too!!  Pixie Holly is available as a free download from Pollycraft Designs until 11th September and all it takes is a few moments to register for an account.  Why not pop over and take a peek…?

As you may already know, I also received my order of Pro-Markers earlier this week, and I have already lost several hours shading, blending and colouring!  And today was no different!  Here’s what I came up with….

The frame around Pixie Holly is one of the freebie templates included with the software for the Cameo Portrait – I liked the way it echoes the holly leaves in Pixie Holly’s hair, and cut it from a shimmery dusky pink cardstock to tie it back to the colouring of the dress and stripy tights.

I also tried adding a line of pale grey around the coloured image to develop some depth, and I was pleased with the overall results!  I used the cool grey 1 Pro-Marker, but I think I might give a pale blue a go next time as I’ve seen some great results on fellow crafters’ blogs!

The sentiment came with the image from Pollycraft Designs – I loved the font and style!  After printing and cutting the sentiment out, I rubbed the side of the chisel tip rose pink of my rose pink Pro-Marker against the edge of the card until the colour bled in enough to make a fine line around the outer edge, then I added a little clear embossing powder to give it a shine and mounted it on a second shaped card layer.

Finally, I made a small rosette from some spotty ribbon and popped a little wooden heart on the centre.

I had finished card and was casting a critical eye over it, when my daughter appeared.  She is just turned four and very inquisitive!  She sat next to me, told me the card was her “favourite and bestest” and then asked me why the pixie wasn’t smiling!  I tried to explain that it was the style of the image, but she wouldn’t have it, so she ran off with one of my early practice sheets and drew a friend for Pixie Holly…Thanks for reading x

Challenges entered:

In The Pink – Challenge #27 KISS

ABC Challenges – ABC43 Coloring With Markers

Cute Card Thursday – Challenge 285 Pretty In Pink

Aud Sentiments – Challenge 88 Any Sentiment