Quilted Background

I love patchwork quilts, but don't have the patience or skill to actually sew one. Thankfully I can get a similar look by cutting patterned paper into basic shapes and arranging it to look like quilt blocks. It's one of my favourite techniques for easy backgrounds.

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Loads of Birthday Cheer

A clean and simple card using one of the die cut trucks from the Long Haul cut sheets, a stamped sentiment and a little blue inking around the edge of the main panel. Quick and easy!

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Blue Wren Easel Card

Easel cards are one of my favourite folds, they're simple to create, look great when open for display, and can be shaped and sized however you desire. For the base of this card, I used hexagonal nesting dies with a faux stitched border, and decorated with die cuts and coordinating patterned paper.

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Upcoming Card Class

A fun card-making class for the Brisbane locals!

Cut Sheets, Stamps and Dies III

The final technique I want to show you in this series brings together all the different products to add outlines to your images. You can use plain inks, coloured inks or embossing powder, which is what I'm doing today. The stamping technique is basically the same regardless of what ink you're using.

I started by die-cutting the images from the cut sheet, then used a tiny piece of double sided tape to secure each image to my stamping platform. Make sure the piece of tape isn't too big or you'll have a difficult time removing the image when you're ready. (If you prefer, you can place a whole sheet onto your platform and use the magnets to hold it in place.)

Line up the stamp and the image, then press the platform closed to pick up the stamp.

Don't forget to use your embossing buddy on the image, you don't want any stray embossing powder!

Ink up the stamp with versamark, close the platform and apply pressure directly over the stamp. 

Lift the stamped image from the platform taking care not to put your fingers on the surface. (I slid a skewer under the edge of the image so that I could get a hold of the sides with my fingers.)

Apply your embossing powder and heat set as normal.

A comparison...

This time I created three different cards using the images. I particularly like this colour scheme for masculine birthday cards, but it also works a treat at Christmastime!

Here's a comparison of one of the images from the Reindeer Games cut sheet sets, stamped with black ink instead of gold embossing powder. As you can see, it's an easy way to add the stamped lines back into the image.

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Cut Sheets, Stamps and Dies II

Continuing on from our earlier tutorial about using the coordinating cut sheets, stamps and dies, I have another technique idea for you. This time we're going to colour over the top of the cut sheets with either pencils, which I'm using, or markers. With this technique, you can enhance, darken, or lighten the pre-coloured images, or even change them completely!

I've opted to enhance and darken the images, so I'm using pencils that are close to the same colour but darker by a few shades, plus little hints of black to deepen those shadows and create a stronger contrast.

Here they are all coloured. As you can see, the pencil leaves added texture on the paper. If you prefer a smoother finish, you can either use markers or blend out the pencil with wax or oil depending on the type of pencils you're using.

A comparison...

Here's a birthday card made with the colour-enhanced images.

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Cut Sheets, Stamps and Dies I

At last year's Paper Craft Show, many of you purchased sets of cut sheets with coordinating stamps and dies, so I thought I would do some quick tutorials on different ways you can use them. I'm going to be working with the Celebrations set, but these techniques can be done with any of our coordinating product range.

I've cut three sets of the gift images from the cut sheets. As you can see, there are three different colour groups in the pack, which can be used for a variety of occasions. Today I want to show you a simple technique using the brightly coloured images and a couple of pens.

The images from the cut sheets contain no outlines, so you can add some in with a pen. I'm going to use a black, fine line pen to draw lines on the bottom and right hand side of the different sections of the gift below. It will create a kind of cartoon-style shadow.

Now I'm going to use the white pen to draw lines on the top and left-hand side of the different parts of the image... basically, opposite the black lines.

Here's a before and after so you can compare the difference...

And here's how they look on a card!

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