Stamp, Ink, Paper Challenge #6: Tic Tac Toe

I've been looking around the internet the last couple of days at all these different craft blogs and such, and I came across this fine thing!  I thought I would try it out.  I like challenges.

The way it works is you just pick three squares going down, across, or diagonally, and make a card using those three.  I chose enamel dots, patterned paper, and ribbon or twine.  Here's what I came up  with!

You may notice that the enamel dots have dark stuff on them.  That is because I made them myself, and I think I burnt them in the oven!  Whoops...

I also made the patterned paper.  That is, I drew the pattern on myself.  I did not make the paper, although I would love to do that sometime.  I love chevron, and I'm so happy with how it turned out!  I used my scallop edge punch on the sides.

Then for the twine, I got creative and decided to spell a word with it instead of the traditional wrapping around paper I'm used to seeing.  I don't know if that really counts as twine actually...?  It's technically embroidery floss...I think.

I don't remember ever doing words like this before, but I have done patterns with this thread on cards in the past.

For the edges of this card, I rubbed light pink sharpie on my finger and then rubbed it onto the card.  It gives sort of a soft...princess-y feel, don't you think?  Well anyway, it makes me think of princesses and tea parties.

Hope you like it!  I might do some more of these challenges in the future!

Using Scraps: Introduction

Sooooo, I've been talking about doing this series on using scraps, and now here I am following through on that!  (Finally!)

Before I started thinking about using my scraps, I barely ever used them, and they were piling up around my desk everywhere.  Okay, I'll be honest, they still are, but not quite as much.  I still have two full bags of scraps, one of which is so full I can barely stick my hand in to get something out.   I hate to admit it, but I am a hoarder of scraps.  Ha, like you couldn't tell by now.

I was inspired to start using up my scraps when I started reading this awesome blog, more specifically these Use What You Have posts.  The name says it all, right?  They talk about how you don't have to buy anything from the store to be creative!  I love that, and it's helped me to think about how I can use all the supplies I have laying around.  Pretty helpful.  Below is a picture of my two overflowing bags of scraps.  I cherish my pride too much to show a picture of my desk though.

The one in front is not quite so full now, thankfully.  I'm not doing any tutorials on this post, but I am showing y'all some cards I've made using mostly or only scraps.  The cards themselves don't count.

In later posts in this series, I'll hopefully be sharing some simple tutorials on using scraps for cards!

Hope you enjoyed this post!

The Camouflage Truck

In my last post, You Make Me Happy, I hand drew and cut the word "make" in the shape of a heart.  A friend gave me the idea afterwards to do the same thing with other shapes (specifically more manly shapes, like guns and trucks), so I decided to give it a go!  (Making these is quite fun.  It's not like I had to be begged.)
Day before yesterday, my fathah and little broham left for camp, and I completely forgot until yesterday morning (when I saw a letter from my sister to my little broham) that we're suppose to write them letters!  So really quickly I whipped up a couple of letters, and then, since the theme this year is camouflage, I thought it would be fun to add in a sticker with the word "camouflage" in the shape of a truck!  Welp, it all went swimmingly until I tried to run it through the sticker maker.  This was the first sticker I'd tried with that cartridge, and I must have messed it up somehow.  I'm telling you, I about died of frustration.  I ended up not even putting it in the letter at all, because I'm still set on making it a sticker, and I had to get it in the mail in a very speedy manner!  It might be a while until I touch that thing (sticker maker).  I have to let myself cool down, you know, so I don't chomp it into little pieces in my rage.  That wouldn't be good....
I'll give it to him someday.

 So ANYWAYS, I roughly drew a simple truck shape, and then roughly filled in the letters, and tweaked them until I thought they looked good.  Each letter has to touch the letters on either side of it so the word will all be one piece when cut out.

 Then I cut the whole thing out!  I love this part.  After that I had to erase the pencil lines, which wasn't hard, but I did have to make sure I was gentle so the paper didn't get bent.

Then came the camouflaging!  I used five different sharpies, being: brown, tan (more like light brown), green, black, and gray.

Let me know what y'all think!  In other words, comment!  I love feedback!  What other shapes/words could I do?

You Make Me Happy

I wasn't planning to take pictures in the beginning (which is why I don't have pictures of the beginning), but I just couldn't resist doing a post on this card with that title!  I wish I could send this to so many people.

I use that embossing folder more than any other.  It's so versatile.  The paper is 3 3/4 by 5 inches.

THIS makes me happy!  "You" and "happy" were die cut, and I hand drew and cut "MAKE" and "ME."  I especially love that "MAKE"!

With a thick purple sharpie, color in all of the word pieces.

I LOVE PURPLE.

With a coordinating color, trace a triangle, as shown, in the corner.

Then fill in as desired.  I desired to do a cross-hatch pattern.  You don't need to fill in the middle part, because that will be covered up.  Not that it's much more work to do it.  For serious!

Position embossed piece on card.

Swoon with me!  No, this is not a swooney sort of card.  Squeal with me!

Spring Anemones: How I Did It

This past Saturday, our family had a big graduation party for my sister Rebecca, so I had the opportunity to make a bunch of paper flowers as center pieces.  Last Christmas I recieved The Exquisite Book of Paper Flowers, and believe me, I was overjoyed.  I am always overjoyed when I receive gifts that I've been excited about getting.  It had been on Maggie's List of Wants for a while.  So Rebecca looked through it and liked the spring anemones, and the book said they're "quick and easy," so that's what I did!  If you look up spring anemones, they don't look very much like what Livia Cetti (the author) made them look like, but hers are quite beautiful anyway, so I guess it doesn't matter, right?  Here's a picture of them from the book.

Though mine did not look quite as pretty, I was proud of them nonetheless.

Things I Learned From Making These 

• Sometimes it might be good to accept (or, gasp, ask...!) for help, even if it hurts your pride.Your pride could probably use a little hurting anyway.  Mine could...
• When a book says something is "quick and easy," don't necessarily believe it.
• You get a whole lot more petals than you were expecting if you go the paper efficient way, instead of the time efficient way.
• It is totally okay to improvise.  (Fiiine, I'll be honest.  I didn't learn that from making these.  I already knew it.  I do it all the time, sometimes to a fault!  But I thought I should add it in here for y'all to know.  It's a good thing to keep in mind.)

Things I Improvised On/Did Differently

•  The book said to use floral tape, but I do not own that, and it's not like I'm gonna go out and buy something like that (ha!), so I simply rolled long strips of green tissue paper through my sticker maker instead.  Of course, that's not as strong as floral tape, so on the parts where you need to secure stuff, I used masking tape, and then went over it with the tissue paper.  The idea to use masking tape was suggested by Rebecca.
•  Related to that, the book said to use pretaped wire, so before doing anything else, I wrapped the tissue paper strips around wire I had cut.  Later on my sticker maker cartridge ran out of stuff, so I decided to stop wrapping the wire before making the flower, and then wrap it after everything else was finished.  I should have done that at the beginning.
• I don't know exactly what size wire the book said to use, but anyway, we didn't have it.  We had some wire that was just a bit larger though, so that's what I used.
• For the centers, you're suppose to stick the end of a Q-tip on the wire, but since my wire was bigger than it was suppose to be, the Q-tips didn't fit, so with my baby knife, just made a little slit down to the cotton part, and then I was able to side it on the end of the wire just fine!  (Story time: Once after coming back from helping out at the print shop my other sister works at, and thus having many a paper cut, I was trying to do this in the in the car, and the knife slipped and I got yet another cut.  So, not a good idea to do this in the car, if you were planning to do that.  Not saying I wouldn't have done it had I known I would get cut...)
• Also for the centers, it says to use crepe paper, which I don't have, and it's basically the same as tissue paper, right?  Maybe not, but I still used it.  (I realized later that I could've used crepe paper after all, because I didn't even have black tissue paper, so I asked me mum to get some, so she could've gotten crepe instead.  Oh well, it worked.)
• When I was making a test center (it was not intended to be a test center, but I accidentally used the wrong color, so...), I fringed the edge of the piece I was wrapping around the Q-tip center, because that's what the book says to do, but it was difficult, so for the others, I didn't fringe it (with Rebecca's permission), and they still looked superb!
•  The way the book says to cut out the petals is as follows: cut tissue paper strips measuring 3" by 20" and then cut those into 2" by 3" rectangles and stack six on top of each other and trace around one petal template, and then cut out all six at once.  Now, that would be awfully convenient and save a lot of time, but there would be space around the edges that wouldn't be used, and you know I couldn't have that!  No no no!  So I decided to trace around the petals so they were right next to each other, and that made it possible to have one, or may even two, more petals on that strip than if I had gone the time efficient route.

  

  This is roughly how I did it.

• Because I started later than I should have, and I procrastinated in the beginning, I did not put a leaf on the back of the flower, like I was suppose to do, and they still looked fine.  I must say though, that I think they would have looked better with the leaf on the back.  If you don't know what I'm talking about, look at the two pictures above.
• I also did not bend the flowers' necks, as you can see from the picture.
• For some reason, the book says to trim the stem so that it's seven inches from the bottom of the bloom to the end of the wire.  I didn't see a reason for that so I didn't do it!  The wire was originally nine inches.

Things I Could've Done Differently

• Not cut out 3" by 20" strips, and traced around the petal template as many times as possible on a whole sheet of tissue paper.  That would have been even more paper efficient.
• I definitely should have started earlier.

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