I Built A Snowman.....

Hi There,

Start of another week. Hope everyone had a great week-end. I spent all day Saturday making cards. I was celebrating World Card Making Day and playing some on-line challenges. For all you gals who subscribe to my blog feeds I didn't send all of the entries out, but just posted them so you may want to check back through Saturday entries to make sure you didn't miss anything! I've still got a couple more to share too.

I built a snowman....isn't he cute. It's pretty much the only type of snowman I'm going to build down here but I'm okay with that. My temperatures have dropped off considerably from where they were a month ago. It's still nice but not hot, hot.

I made my snowman from Basic Grey paper - Jovial. I know I've been using Basic Grey a lot but I have a lot. There's a few really neat things on this guy. See his nose....I stamped one of the snowman stamps from Just Rite Stamps and cut it out. That was just too easy. His eyes, mouth and buttons....I'm so smart...somethimes. Didn't have any black bling so I used some of my pearls and my black Copic marker and altered the color. Now it does take a while for those to dry completely. Almost 24 hours.
The pom pom on his hat was two circles cut out and puffy paint applied and then heated to give it dimension and texture.

Inside the big box I made some Christmas Tags to fit. The back side is stamped To & From:

Scroll down and I'll give you the dimensions.

Large Box - 7 1/2 x 7 1/2 - scored at 2 1/4" all four sides.

Lid - 4 x 4 - scored at 1/2" all four sides.

Middle Box - 5 3/4 x 5 3/4 - scored at 1 3/4" all four sides.

Lid - 3 1/4 x 3 1/4 - scored at 1/2" all four sides.

Small Box - 4 1/2 x 4 1/2 - scored at 1 1/2" all four sides.

Lid - 2 1/2 x 2 1/2 - scored at 1/2" all four sides.

For the HAT:

                                      You will need 4 cardstock pieces cut 1 1/2″ x 1 3/4″.

This gets a little tricky so try it on scrap paper first. Score the 1 1/2" side at 1/4". ONLY SCORE ONE SIDE. On the opposite side that is 1 1/2" find the center point which is 3/4" and make a tick mark. (First square in picture.)
You will now need to score between the tick mark and the 1 3/4" score line.( second image). You're forming a triangle.

You're creating tabs so you can glue them all together so you need to cut away some of the cardstock and also angle the corners for a better fit (third image).

Fold on all three sides.
Assembly - Using a good sticky tape adhere all the 1 3/4" sides together. The other piece you see there is from a photo corner punch and help to form the tassle on the hat. So before you glue the remaining side together be sure to insert the photo corner. Once you have the triangle formed glue the bottom pieces and attach to the lid of the smallest box.

This was not my design ...I got the directions here. I re-wrote the directions as a couple of the measurements seemed to be off. Check over there to see how the boxes are folded.

I think I may try the Santa too.

Hope you enjoy!

Yvonne

Corner Bookmark Tutorial

 Good Afternoon...

Busy yesterday. Spent the day at appointments. I did get time last night to make a couple more projects. So today is a corner bookmark, tomorrow is a fancy fold card and next week an Advent Calendar. Told you I was busy!

The bookmark - Pattern paper on the first one is Basic Grey - Jovial and on the second one discontinued Stampin' Up. Stamp set from Just-Rite Stamps - Whimsical Christmas .

Tutorial for Corner Bookmark

Start with a square piece of cardstock or double sided paper. I used 5 x 5 but as long as it's square it will work. Score at 2 1/2" both directions (or in half each way).

Cut out one of the squares.

Opposite the corner you cut away cut that square on the diagonal. This is where you could also use fancy edged scissors or a border punch. Look closely on the second bookmark and you'll see the border.

Fold it up.

While it is folded just cut a little bit off of the tip. This is where you will place the ribbon if you want a tab to pull on.

Place the ribbon between the two full squares and then glue both of those squares together.

Decorate the front as you like. This is one time you'll want to not add a lot of dimension as it is going between pages in your book.

This would be cute to add if you're giving a book as a gift.

Also useful for your recipe books.

We can bookmark our favorite pages in our craft magazines.

Tell me what you think. I love your comments.Remember unless you leave an address or a link to your blog I can respond back to you.

Have a great Hump Day...it is Wednesday you know!

Yvonne

Tutorial for Nestabilities & Just-Rite Stamps

Good Morning,

Hope you all had a great week-end. We had a nice one...very warm...and we had a few friends over on Saturday night which made for a sleepy Sunday. lol

Today I want to show you how to use your Nestabilities with stamped images.

Start with the size of nestability that you think will accomodate the size of your stamped image.

Tape one side of it to scrap cardstock.

 Stamped image.

Remove the centre after you have cut it.

Open the nestability like a window and position your stamped image under the opening. 

Close and cut.

The technique works great with the Just Rite Stamps. You can see in the top corner I've used the circle to cut out the stamps ring on a Just Rite Stamp

Onto today's card. You can see how nicely I was able to cut out all the circles. The snowman was cut around and popped up with dimensionals.

Isn't the background paper cute? That is the new Basic Grey Christmas Line called Jovail. FargoCat Shops will have this in stock soon if it hasn't already arrived.

See the scalloped border strip and the square under the snowman. Those were made using SU's punches. The border punch was used for the long strip and I just punched one strip in red and one in black. Layered those together and then put another 1/4" strip of black over top and added a black grosgrain bow. The square was 2 3/4 x 2 3/4 and I punch just the corners with the corner scallop punch. It is designed to work with the border punch so you can have a scalloped square. Good in theory but you are very limited to the size of square scallop that you can make. I'm waiting on my order of Scalloped Square Nestabilities to arrive and that will make it much easier. (They should be here tomorrow- - hehe). Anyway it did make a fancy square so you might want to try some of those corner punches that are sitting in a drawer and see what you can come up with.

A few Christmas colored dew drops down the side for balance and Christmas Red Stickles on the holly.

For those of you who want to make this the base card is 4 1/4" x 5 1/2", red cardstock 4 x 5 1/4 and pattern paper is 3 3/4" x 5"

Copic Markers used

YR68 (orange)

E37 (sepia)

Y38 (honey)

R27 (cadmuim red)

R29 (lipstick red)

G99 (olive)

C5 (cool grey)

This has been a long post and if you're still with me "Have a great day." Lots of parents here in Houston are especially having a great day as it was the "First" day back to school! lol

Yvonne

Fragrant Flowers - House Mouse - coloring

Good Afternoon,

Long tutorial today. Lots of pictures.

The card is a recessed window and instructions can be found at Splitcoaststampers.Splitcoaststampers.

Starting with the finished product. House Mouse stamp called Frangrant Flowers. Embossed green Brazzell leaf cardstock, Bazzill Half Edge Borders and Copics can all be found at FargoCat Shops. Prima Flowers and brads from my stash.

This is a large stamp - covers about an area of 4" x 6". I thought it would take a lot longer to color but it really is very quick and actually requires less shading than a lot of stamps.

Stamp image in Momento Black Ink.

1.  Color stems in flowers Yellow Green (YG03)

2. Color flowers Dark Pink (RV34) Don't worry about getting perfect coverage-it's doesn't need to be even in color.

3. With Prune (BV02) just do little strokes of color here and there. Not too much. You're just wanting to create different shades.

4. Now finish in coloring the leaves with Yellow Green (YG03)

5.  Add Cool Gray #1 to the inside of the vase to create some shadows.

6. The veins of the leaves and anywhere you want to create a shadow add some Apple Green (G14). If you figure you have it to dark go over with the Yellow Green and blend.

If you click on the picture above and the picture below you can see where I darkened up the leaves.

Decided to make the branch a little darker so applied Lionet Gold (Y28).

All mice the light areas are done in Barely Beige (E11) and pink areas Blush (R20)

Top Mouse Cool Gray #3 & 5

Brown Mouse Brick Beige (E31) & Sand (E33)

Bottom Right Mouse Warm Grey #3 & 5

!

Lastly I wanted the background colored in. I worked in small areas. Colored the area first with the colorless blender and then over top used Frost Blue (B00) for the sky and Pale Green (G000) for the grass. If I thought is was too dark in areas go over it again with the colorless blender to lighten the ink.

 Hope you found some of this helpful. If you have any questions leave a comment and I'll e-mail you back if you leave a contact address otherwise I will answer your question in the comments section of the post.

Sun is shining the wind is blowing lightly. Think I'll head outside now!

Enjoy!

Yvonne

House Mouse Tutorial

Hi There,

I know ...I told you I'd share a scrapbook page yesterday. I choose sun over crafting. I did finish it up last night but didn't photograph it. But on an up side I can post it on Friday!

Today I wanted to share with you how I color my House Mouse's or is it House Mices? lol

Firstly I am not (at this time) Copic Certified so I'm sharing what works for me. When I was at CHA I did manage to squeeze in a two-hour class but it covered just some coloring techniques.

There is a great site I Like Markers that gives great information and tutorials on using Copic Markers.

I use Memento Black to stamp my images. Doesn't bleed. I usually give it about 5 minutes after I've stamped it just to make sure it is dry. You want to use a dye based ink versus a solvent ink like Stazon as the ingredients in copics and Stazon react badly with each other. I believe it is due to both of them being alcohol based.

These are the four Ciao Copic Markers I used to color in my mouse. Any combination of browns can be used, just remember to go from lightest to darkest.

My image stamped in Momento Ink.

Start with E21 (Baby Skin Pink) and color in the entire Mouse. For the large areas make sure you color in small circles. For the tiny areas just use a light touch of the brush tip to these spots. Click on any photos to enlarge the image to get a more detailed look! The beauty of copics is you can do multiple coats of color without having your paper pil or breakdown.

Next use E31 (Brick Beige). Color only the areas that have fur on them.

You may do more than one coat to deepen the tone. Same goes for all the areas you colored in E21. You can go over those to darken.

Lastly E33 (sand) and use the tip end and check make little lines to match the fur being sure to make your lines in the directions of the fur. Notice I don't put a mark on each hair as that would probably result in the image being covered to solidly. What I'm trying to do is have some of the color from underneath show through and create depth and texture. Now add a little RV10 (pale pink) in the ear. Again anywhere you think there might be a shadow such as under the ears, along the bottom of the tail go over that area again with E31.  Don't forget if you go outside of the lines you can use the clear blender tool to fix the ooops! My image may look like a lot of ooopes but I had the camera on macro so it magnified it. It doesn't even show when I look at the image. (of course my eyesight isn't the best! lol)

Lastly here is my card using Butterfly Express. (this is the same stamp I used on Monday)

The pink cardstock is Bazzill Bling. It's textured and has a bit of a shimmer to it. Wanted to show you that I was able to heat emboss on it and the font came out clear. All images were done with the copics. The butterfly I used R20(blush), BV31 (pale lavender), C3 & C5 (cool greys). I choose to cut the image apart. The butterfly was colored, cut out and then covered in Diamond Glaze. While it was still flexible (not quite dry) I molded the wings so when it dried completely there would be dimension.

Gold xrylon pen to edge all the lavender cardstock. Cuttlebug leaf folder to emboss the lavender cardstock. (Bazzill crosshatch texture). The fold on the card was a little different. You can see the inner layer and the outer shell. The brads I didn't want them showing all the way through the cardstock or creating a lump between layers so I cut the back off of them and used a glue dot to adhere them to the card so they are strictly for looks only. They're not holding anything together.

So if you're still reading after this long winded post. Thanks! I hope you enjoyed it the supplies can be found at FargoCatShops.

Until tomorrow....bye!

Yvonne