Handmade cards and other crafts, templates & tips

Die cutting machines are a must have tool for most paper crafters specially cardmakers and scrapbookers.

Nowadays there are many die cutting machines available commercially and aimed at the home market, they vary in the way they work, in size and in price. If you're considering buying one of these machines think carefully of what kind of craft projects you'll want to create with it, what materials you'll want to cut and read the information available online about the different machines so you know exactly what they do, what kind of dies they use, how much these cost and whether there are any compatibility issues with dies from other companies, etc.

Once you've bought your die cutting machine it's time to start using it and exploring its many possibilities.

I have 2 die cutting machines and they are both from Sizzix. When I bought the SideKick I thought it would be enough for me as I only wanted to use it for cardmaking. I soon realised this was a mistake as I was restricted to the size of shapes and materials I could cut.

Eventually I bought a BigShot and I love it. It allows me to cut not only cardstock but also thicker card, felt, fabric, etc. There's also a much wider range of die cuts and embossing folders I can use.

 

 Below are a few suggestions on how you can embellish die cut shapes to use on your projects. I cut a few shapes to show you how you can put them together.

Duck

After cutting all the pieces that make up the duck I applied some orange blending chalk all around the body, wing and head of the duck.

The next step was to stick a foam pad on the reverse side of the wing to make it more 3D and then glue the beak in place.

I then placed the wing and glued the head on the body to finish the duck. Doesn't he look cute?

Stocking

The aim here was to make a red Christmas stocking with a white toe, heel and top. For that I cut two shapes one in red and one in white.

I cut the white shape along the markings so I had my toe, heel and top.

I then glued them on the red stocking thus creating a pretty stocking to use on a Christmas card, for instance.

Bird with branch and flowers

First I cut all shapes in the colours I wanted. The bird shape will be used as base.

I applied some blending chalk around the bird and the larger flower too and then glued all the different elements in place making sure they were properly aligned with the base shape.

Here are a few examples of cards made using die cut shapes. They were all embellished one way or another before being used.

On this card I used a black pen to create the faux stitching effect.
The sewing helps to add texture to the card.
I used a black pen to outline the flowers and the leaves.

This card was made using the paisley die cut from Sizzix.

Below are links to a few companies that sell die cutting machines:

Sizzix
Ellison
Cricut/Cuttlebug
Craft Robot (French site)
Quickutz

 

 

This post is about where to find inspiration for your crafts when you seem to have exhausted all your creativity.

I don't know about you but it happens to me once in a while, my brain just seems to shut down and all my creativity is gone. Here are a few tips and links to help you deal with crafter's block, I hope you find them helpful.

1 - Tidy up your craft supplies

This allows you to not only organize your things for when your inspiration returns but also to have a better idea of what you have. Sometimes you might even find things you'd forgotten you had or thought were lost!

2 - Create an "inspiration" folder on your PC

Here you can save all those great images, projects and tutorials  you find while surfing the Net. These don't have to be specific to your particular craft, sometimes an idea or little detail you see somewhere may be adapted and used on your projects. For instance if you're a cardmaker or scrapbooker a nice patterned fabric might give you an idea regarding an unsual colour combination that you may want to use on any of your cards or scrapbook pages.

3 - Magazines and books

There are plenty of craft magazines and books available commercially but if like me you're on a tight budget you don't have to spend a penny. There's a wealth of free online publications and you can also use your local library. If they don't have anything useful to you try searching their database, some public libraries allow you to reserve or request books from nearby libraries. You can also try your local charity shop to see if they have any books or magazines that might interest you.

Here are a few links to online craft magazines:

Creative Times Magazine
Craft Creations
Paper Crafts Mag
Craftzine

4 - Photo sites

Browse through online photo sites like Flickr and Picasa to see what other people are making, you can also create an account and share your projects with others.

5 - Relax

If none of this seems to work for you just put your feet up, relax, read a book or magazine that's not craft related or have a nice cup of tea or coffee. Sometimes it's good to have a break from crafting to recharge your batteries.

 

 

 

We've been having a few spells of really nice weather here in the UK, just the thing to take Alex to the park after school so he can play with his friends and I can crochet a little. So here are a few things I made recently.

Crochet necklace with buttons

Flowers

Brooches

On those occasions when you want to present someone with a very special, elegant card nothing beats an embroidered card.

Even a simple embroidered card can be time consuming but you'll see that the results will be worth all your efforts.

If you've never tried embroidering on paper you can follow the instructions below to make not only cards but also bookmarks, gift tags, embroidered embellishments to use on scrapbook pages, etc.

Let's start by putting together the following items:

- embroidery pattern
- cardstock cut to size
- blue tack
- adhesive tape
- embroidery thread & needle
- sewing pin
- foam sheet

1 - Cut your cardstock to the size and shape you want.

2 - Position the embroidery pattern on the front of your cardstock. Use some Blue Tack to keep them in place while you pierce the pattern, you obviously don't need to use as much Blue Tack as I did!

3 - Place a foam sheet under your cardstock and begin piercing with a pin.

4 - When you finish piercing the pattern onto the cardstock remove the pattern and the Blue Tack and get ready to start embroidering.

5 - Thread a needle but don't tie a knot at the end of the thread. Begin embroidering from the reverse of the cardstock. Make sure you leave some length of thread and fix it with some adhesive tape so it doesn't become loose.

6 - When you finish embroidering make sure all loose ends of the thread are fixed to the reverse of the cardstock with adhesive tape. Your embroidery is then ready to be used on your chosen project.

Tips:

* There are many free embroidery patterns online drawn specifically for embroidery on paper but you can use any patterns just make sure that during the piercing step you do it at regular intervals along the line so your stitches are the same length as much as possible.

* There are piercing or pricking tools available on the market but you don't need to spend money on these as a sewing pin is enough to achieve the same result.

* Use pins instead of sewing needles because they are easier to hold.

* It helps to have the embroidery pattern close by so you can use it as a guide if needed.

Here are a few examples of cards I made using this technique.

If you'd like to try embroidering on paper here's a free pattern you can use.

Links to more free patterns:

Form-A-Lines Stitching cards

Stitching cards

Embroidery on paper

Circle of Crafters

Handcrafted Greetings

Happy crafting

These are the Fiskars texture plates, they are used together with the little blue tool on the photo to help create texture on cardstock.

I've had these for quite a while now but have rarely used them because:

1 - I find it difficult to use the little blue tool. To create texture you need to place the piece of cardstock on the texture plate and then using the tool make circular movements to emboss the image. I could never do this for long anough because my wrist started to hurt after a while;

2 - I could never get a clear and crisp embossed image.

Now, I found a way of using them to emboss cardstock and obtain a nice, crisp texture as shown in the photos below.

The light blue cardstock was lightly sanded after embossing to create that wave foam effect.

If you have some of these Fiskars texture plates and a Sizzix BigShot this is how you can use them to emboss cardstock.

You'll need:

Sizzix BigShot
Fiskar texture plate
Sizzix multipurpose platform
Cutting pads
Foam sheet
Cardstock

Make a sandwich with all the items above in the following order:

Multipurpose platform (use no tabs)
First cutting pad
Texture plate
Cardstock (make sure it's aligned over the texture plate)
Foam sheet
Second cutting pad

Run this through the BigShot to emboss your cardstock.

This is one of a series of flowers I made with cardstock embossed this way.

Have fun experimenting with your texture plates

 

If you have a blog dedicated to your handmade crafts or any blog really, you'll probably want to post some photos too and chances are that sometimes you'll want to edit your photos either to add some text, a frame or some kind of other special effect.

Fortunately, there are some very cool photo editing tools online you can use and best of all is that they are free!

Below you can see examples of photos edited with free photo editing tools found online. The links to these free tools are next to the pictures.

Have fun exploring and using them

Edited with Picnik
Mosaic built using Big Huge Labs
 Christmas card edited with LunaPic
 Card edited with FotoFlexer