Day 13 - "L"

I chose pretty shades of lilac and lavender to colour one of the Christmas mittens from the Home For The Holidays digital set. Some silver mirror card and little rhinestones give the project a nice shine.

YOUR TURN: Create a card or project using the letter "L" as your prompt.

Click on the link below to add your creation to the challenge:

CLICK HERE

INSPIRATION WORDS:

Lights, list, log, love, lettering, layering, letterpress, lever card, latch card, lavender, lemon, lilac, Lord, lamb

Digital Stamps:

You're A Treat

I love the look on this little bear's face, it looks as though she's been caught in the act of doing something she shouldn't... like eating all the berries on the bush! 

Stamps:

Day 27 - "X"

Ugh! The day of the dreaded "X" has arrived... the most difficult letter of the alphabet and the bane of many challenge participants. Happily for paper crafters, we have a couple of fabulous brands that begin with the letter "X", such as XPressIt blending card. Yay!

YOUR TURN: Create a card or paper craft project using the letter "X" as your prompt.

Click on the link below to upload a photo of your creation:

INSPIRATION WORDS:

X-Press It blending card, Xmas, xyron

Enjoy Your Day

Who doesn't love a delicious little flan topped with beautiful fresh berries and a side of whipped cream? I must admit that I'd probably prefer an actual flan, but a pretty card comes a close second... and it's about all I'm going to get today.

Stamps: Just Desserts by Beccy's Place

Day 5 - Adding Shadows (Tutorial)

Today I'd like to show you a relatively easy way to add dimension to your paper crafting without having to fussy cut and pop images up with foam tape.  This technique works by fooling the eye into thinking there is a shadow, and therefore, what it's looking at is a three dimensional object.

YOUR TURN:  Use the tutorial to create a card.

Upload a photo of your creation HERE.

Start by colouring your image.  As you can see in the photo above, I've marked the light source in the top left hand corner, which means that the light is coming from that direction and therefore all the objects facing that direction will be highlighted.  Hence, I coloured my leaves and berries with the lightest areas on the top left hand side and the darkest areas on the bottom right hand side.

Now choose your shadow colours.  I generally gravitate toward grey, but you could also use blue or purple if you wanted to.  Three shades is generally enough, but you want the lightest one to be as light as possible so that you can fade the colour out.  I used Copic markers for this tutorial, but the principles remain the same regardless of the medium you choose.

We're attempting to "lift" the image up from the background.  To do that, we must apply the shadow onto the background, directly opposite our light source.  We know the light is coming from the top left-hand side, therefore all the shadows will be on the bottom right-hand side of the objects.  I've started by applying a line of the darkest colour (C5 in my case) to the right-hand side and bottom of these two leaves.

I've walked the colour out a bit by applying C3 and C1 over the top of the first line. You don't have to soften the shadow if you don't want to.  A harsh line will give the illusion of very bright light, such as you'd find at midday.

In the photo above, you can see that I have applied shadows to a quarter of the image.  The image is starting to look like it has some dimension.

Once the shadowing is complete, the image looks like it has a lot more dimension. Surprisingly, the shadows become almost invisible as the eye is drawn to the lighter parts of  the image.

CAN YOU SEE THE DIFFERENCE?

Image: Beccy's Place - Build A Wreath Set

Sentiment: Kaisercraft

All photos and written instructions are copyright Beccy Muir.

All rights reserved.

Build A Wreath Cards

Build A Wreath Set

Available in Store Now

Ready to see some more fabulous cards created with the Build A Wreath set of digital stamps? Well, here you go...

These two cards from Anesha feature several elements from the set, including the blossoms, which she has enlarged and used as the focal points for both her projects.

Carla has put together four beautiful cards with a seasonal theme... spring, summer, autumn and winter. I especially love the autumn themed card with the gorgeous fall colours and the sweet little die cut bunny.

Annie's card has lots of layering. She printed out two copies of her coloured image and layered them together for a fabulous dimensional look. She then created her own background paper by enlarging the same image.

Petra created her wreath card using the plaited wreath as a base and then building on it with the blossoms, berries and leaves. To complete her project she added a gorgeous border of pink and brown stitching.

New Release: Build A Wreath Set

I love wreaths, whether they are hanging on the door at Christmastime or decorating the front of a pretty birthday card, I think they are fabulous! This set is comprised of individual elements that can be mixed and matched, resized and flipped to create wreaths for just about every occasion.

Start with one of the four bases and build on it by adding leaves, flowers, berries and a bow. Complete the picture with one of the coordinating sentiments for a truly unique creation.

Don't feel like colouring? No problem! The set also contains full coloured versions of each individual element, all saved as .png files, for easy, quick and unique image construction.

Build A Wreath Set

Available In Store Now

But wait... there's more! (sorry, I couldn't resist)

The set also contains these four, full-coloured and fully constructed wreaths for when you're really in a hurry and need a wreath right away!

Have a look at the fabulous projects that some of my designers have been working on. As you can see, the set is very versatile and has lots of possible combinations... you become the artist!

A.J. created these four beautiful cards using each of the four base wreaths in the set and matching them with the sentiments.

Judy used the gnarled wreath and decorated it with the flowers, leaves and ribbon bow, then mounted the completed image on a pretty embossed background.

Karin created two mixed media cards using different elements from the set. She kept her second card nice and simple and added a computer generated sentiment of her own.

Coming Soon...

One of the new October releases at Beccy's Place is a digital set called "Build-A-Wreath". As the name implies, you can use all the different elements in the set to build wreaths for whatever occasion you wish. As a little bonus, the set also comes with these four pre-built and pre-coloured images to get you started.

These sneak peeks from my designers give you even more idea of the versatility of the "Build-A-Wreath" digital stamp set. All of the individual elements have been saved as .png files, which means they have a transparent background for clean and simple merging. That feature, combined with the ability for resizing and flipping, means there is an almost endless array of possible configurations you can discover.

In Store From October 1st

Design Team Cards - The Collector Set

Available in Store Now

 

Two cards by Shirley

Kati's Card

Annie's Card

Carla's Card

Joyce's Card

Christine's Card

 

Day 5 - Nesting Dies

Nesting dies - the same shape in progressively smaller sizes - are readily available on the market and are great for creating all sorts of fabulous cards.  You can easily cut frames, windows, shaped cards or stacks using the various sized dies, and they look wonderful layered together in different colours.

 



 

YOUR TURN: Use a set of nesting dies to create a layered card.  If you don't own any dies, use scissors or a craft knife to cut out circles or squares of various sizes.

Upload your creations here.

Day 1 - Clean and Simple

Clean and simple cards are very popular amongst card makers at the moment.  They tend to have quite a lot of blank space without too many embellishments, colours and patterns with the focus generally on a single image and sentiment.

 

 

YOUR TURN: Create a clean and simple card using your favourite stamps.

Upload your creation here.

Tutorial - Gap Cards

Gap cards are great fun to make and can be created for practically any occasion.  The idea is to cut a section out of the front of your card, a gap, and then bridge that gap with letters that make up your sentiment... clever huh!?  And with the huge range of alphabet embellishments available on the market you don't need to have a die cutting machine nor do you have to spend hours fussing cutting with a pair of scissors.

 

 

1.  Start with a card blank and some letters.  Your card can fold horizontally or vertically depending on how many letters you wish to fit on the front.

2.  Determine how much of a gap you want to make.  You need to keep in mind that the gap should be less than the height of your shortest letter or else the word won't be able to span the distance.  As you can see in the photo below, my shortest letter is a little less than 1" in height, therefore I am going to make my gap about 3/4" wide.

3.  Cut out the section of card to create your gap.  I made the bottom piece 1" wide, which was a good size for decorating and for providing stability to the finished project.

4.  Make sure your letters fit nicely across the gap, then set them aside while you decorate the card base.

5.  I used some pretty patterned paper on the 1" strip at the bottom and also on the top part of the card.  I always like to cut my patterned paper slightly smaller than the area I'm adhering it to so that I get a nice little border.

6.  Use some low-tack tape to secure the 1" strip in place on your card.  Make sure it lines up perfectly with the sides and bottom of the card back.

7.  Use a pair of tweezers and some strong glue to adhere each letter across the gap.  Remember to only apply glue to the parts of the letters that are going to be stuck down or else you may end up gluing your card shut!  Now be patient and let the glue dry completely before you start to add your decorations... I know it's hard to resist, but it's important that the bond is nice and strong.

8.  Okay, now it's time to gussy things up with all those pretty embellishments and gorgeous images.  Have fun!