Baby Name Frame

A friend just sent me a baby announcement, something I wasn't at all expecting from her. But it gave me the opportunity to try out an idea I had with my "new" Sizzlet Stuffed Animals dies, as well as my Nouveau alphabet.



Some people may look at this and wonder why in the world I overlapped the name over top of the animals. Well, it looked right at the time. The more I look at it, though, the more I think I should have made the letters go over their heads completely. That would have required a slightly larger frame, but I probably would have liked it quite a bit.

Oh well! Lesson learned. :) Other than that minor little detail, I liked this very much. It's in a frame from the $1 store, so I can't complain about the price!

Another medallion card

My blog was acting up yesterday, so I hope it's back to normal today!

I wanted to share those monogram notecards I made for my Heart Sister (the ones I hinted at yesterday):

I used my Nouveau alphabet for the capital "L" and just added a pen border around the whole card. I really like the simplicity of it!

I almost forgot to mention the envelope. Do you see the embossed back flap in the picture? I used my Birds & Swirls embossing folder on it, and I really liked how it blended with the swirled flowers in the patterned paper.

More medallion circles - and a tip!

I told you I'd show you the medallions with my new corner punch, so here they are.



This punch is a bit different than the one I borrowed from my friend. I could only get it to go so far "into" the circle. As a result, I found I had to adapt the number of times I punched around the circle. I punched a sample first, punching eight times like Becca recommends. It looked like this:



That's fine, if it's the look you're going for. But I wanted mine to be closer together and more lacy. So here's the tip: I did another sample, punching as many times around as I could. It didn't come out exact and I certainly wouldn't use it on a card, but it served its purpose. I counted the number of times I needed to punch (not including the last partial cut), and it happened to be twelve.

So then I knew to divide my circle into twelve "pieces of pie," instead of just eight. And since twelve is a little interesting to get divided just right, once I got it, I made a template so I can easily mark it on future circles. (The template is in the first picture, in the middle. I cut out the center so I could easily mark dots and then connect them with my ruler.)

Here is a card I made with one of these medallions:



I really, really like how the watch face (by Inkadinkadoo) fits perfectly inside the medallion! And I really like the effect of framing patterned paper with the medallion and tucking it into matching punches. This is such a simple, easy card, but it's also one of my favorites.

The first picture has a different medallion. I made a set of monogram notecards for my Secret Sister with those. I'll post them soon!

Getting more mileage from Sizzlets

If you have any of the Sizzix Sizzlet dies (the really thin ones), maybe you noticed that they supposedly only cut paper up to a cardstock thickness. Well, I just had to know if that was true, so I tried mine out on a few materials other than paper. Here's what I found out:
First of all, I knew my Sizzlet alphabets (this one is Nouveau) would cut through cereal box cardboard since I had previously tried it. But I was really curious if they would cut through felt, since that would be a big help with homeschool supplies (think flannelgraph!). So I got out my felt scraps and tried it.

I had to put a piece of cereal box cardboard behind the die as a shim, but my alphabet cut out of my white felt just fine. That's what you see in the picture. Then I tried it on a dark brown felt I had, but it wouldn't work. I'm assuming that the white felt is just slightly thinner than the dark brown.

I tried another Sizzlet die (the stuffed animals bear), but it wouldn't cut through the white felt even with a shim. So I guess what I'm telling you is to experiment - you never know until you try! :) Now I need to try cutting felt with my Cuttlebug dies. [As always, never force anything through your machine or you may end up breaking the die, the plates - or the machine!]


Secondly, I really, really wanted to make some metal sliders for my cards. That's the main reason I bought the small slider dies. So I grabbed a soda can and tried them out. As you can see, it works just fine with the Cuttlebug dies, which are about the same thickness as the Sizzlets. (I'm still not sure if CB dies are supposed to cut through all these things, but I'm trying them at any rate.)
Then I used my Tiny Tags Sizzlets to cut some metal tags. Again, it worked beautifully.
I'm not sure if it matters or not, but I ran my plates through the machine twice just to be sure I got a clean cut.
I can't wait to use my new embellishments! :)

Embossing with 2x2" embossing folders

I hope you'll excuse some of the pictures being turned sideways. For some reason, my photo editing software showed them turned the right way but didn't actually turn them ... Anyway, I wanted to share this idea with you, just in case you got any of the 2x2" Cuttlebug embossing folders and have no idea what to do with them. :)

This idea is not original with me. Becca is the mastermind behind this one. Check out the link to her blog (and the tutorial) - she has the most gorgeous, innovative ideas!

I thought I'd show you the results of each of the 4 embossing folders I used, since she highlights just one on her tutorial. I haven't colored them yet because I haven't decided what kind of card I'm going to make - or what the colors will be. But you can see the embossed image just fine, since I set them in front of my window.
This first one is the one she used on her tutorial.

Notice I don't have the scalloped circle Nestabilities. It's not necessary. I just used my Creative Memories Custom Cutting System to make a 2-1/4" circle in the middle of the larger paper.

This square reminds me of tin tile that people use in home decorating. I bet it would be beautiful on a piece of recycled soda can!

I think this one reminds me of tin tile, too.

These are so easy and yet so impressive to look at. I hope you try out this technique, and then share what you've created.

Flourishes from Cuttlebug Floral Border dies

I've been pretty quiet this weekend. Bad news usually does that to me. I got word that more tragedy struck my dear friend's family late last week. I've spent the weekend with a renewed sense of the blessing I have in my family. Sometimes it's too easy to forget ...

So this is a new week and you might have bought a few Cuttlebug items with the Michaels sale last week. Did you happen to pick up this die?

It's the Floral Borders die set. I thought it was pretty just the way it was, but another blogger opened my eyes to even more possibilities.

I love flourishes, but I don’t have any flourish dies. (And I’m certainly not going to hand-cut something that intricate!) So I was delighted to find this idea for making flourishes, using a die that I already have! Isn't she a genius?

Last week I picked up a new corner punch, so I'll try to remember to share photos of those neat medallions done with a different punch. As far as Cuttlebug, I didn't need much. I bought the small Fancy Corners embossing folders as well as the Sliders (small set of 4) ... And it's probably best that I "didn't need much" because I found another (!) Sizzix alphabet set (Classic) that I like on my local Craigslist for $15! I'm going to pick it up today, so maybe I'll remember to post a picture.

Now it's "reporting" time - tell me what Cuttlebug items you got last week. I know my friend got her machine!! :)

Back from Ministerial!

I'm back - did you miss me? :)

I got a migraine on the (5+ hours) ride back home, so after "sleeping it off" for three hours, I'm wide awake in the middle of the night, thanks in part to the caffeine in the migraine medication.

Things will be crazy around here for the next few days, so I'm not sure how often I'll be able to post. I have an entire house to get back in order, as well as Sunday to prepare for. Hopefully it won't be as hectic as I'm envisioning ...