Wreath Cards

Jennifer McGuire has posted videos of wreath cards made using templates by Gina K. It is a clever and fun concept. I have a huge collection of stamps, so I decided to try to make wreath cards with the stamps that I have on hand, but using the wreath card template. It has been a learning experience. These first ones have not really been finished or made into cards yet. I am not sure which ones I will actually use. These are just my first attempts that turned out halfway decent. The ones that bombed (several) got tossed into the trash. I really recommend that you choose your colors for coordination before you begin. Some of my first experiments would have worked if I had chosen my colors more carefully. Stamp the largest image first, then fit in the smaller ones, working your way down in size as you go.  The following wreath card fronts are not necessarily in the order that I made them.

I went diagonal with the next one. Not sure how it will work for an actual card. I may have to cut it out to use.

There is not much of an open center to this one. The bulk of the wreath was one floral stamp that I used in each corner, then filled in with a little green using smaller stamps.

This next card uses circle borders by ArtGoneWild. The pumpkin in the center is not part of the set. I just liked it better. It looks kind of like a wreath card, but it was done with 3 circle stamps made to go together. I could and probably should have popped out each of the smaller circles and the pumpkin, but I was tired, so I went for easy. If I used just the outside circle, I could adapt it to an actual wreath card, maybe filling it out a bit. I may try that eventually.

This last one is my favorite, and it is the most recent. The small pumpkin that I used in the center of the Halloween card above and in the wreath of the one below was by Impression Obsession.  The leaf/acorn/stick swag was a single stamp by Stampin' Up, so the wreath itself was made using only 2 stamps. The scarecrow is also a Stampin' Up stamp. These stamps, and most of the ones used in all of these card fronts were older stamps. There are a few stamps from newer sets, but very few.

Simple Card

After seeing several examples on Pinterest of a beautiful embossing folder, I wanted to find and buy it. Apparently it is by Apple Blossom, is sold in the U.K. through CraftStash, and the original one came in a Papercraft magazine. The original is referred to as "THAT embossing folder" and someone on the Refupeas message board very kindly sent one to me as a RAK, along with the magazine. When I saw the company had others, too, I had to buy a few, in spite of their shipping costs from there to the States. The above card was made with one of THAT embossing folder's family. I love roses. I love basketweave. I love the curved middle.

I needed a quick card, so I just added a couple of cut outs from Heartfelt Creations' Wildwood Cottage paper collection.

Just FYI, these folders are thicker than the normal ones. I had to get creative to get it to emboss with my Big Shot. I used the platform, one plate, and one or two pieces of chipboard as my sandwich. The second plate seemed too thick to go through.

Disney Album, First 4 Layouts and a few Disney Shirts

In December of 2017, each of our children, spouses, grandchildren, and additional family members came from different states to gather for a reunion and celebration at Disney World. This is going to be a rather lengthy project. We all took a ton of photos. I considered doing digital photos, but I went traditional. I just like playing with paper.

This first, introductory page used the cutting file that I cut from vinyl and put on the back of one of my Disney T-shirts.  I actually made about 27 different t-shirts for 6 of us. Everyone else made their own or wore shirts they already had. Most decided to have matching shirts. My group was rebellious and chose different designs.

 Above is the introductory page. Below is the back of my t-shirt, made with blue glitter vinyl.

A lot of journaling went on this layout, which has been whited out, since it is being posted online. We never did manage to get a photo of our entire group all at the same time. There were some lack of communication issues. The pages shown below were taken on Christmas Eve after church. The Mickey die cut is a Cricut cutting file. I decided to mix Disney and Christmas papers and embellishments for this album, whatever seemed to fit the photos on the page.

After lunch, several of us went to Disney Springs, where we had our first experience with Disney photographers. The title was by Paper Wizard. The Naughty and Nice cutting files were adapted from Silhouette Design Store files. The Mickey on the right is a stamp that I have had for years.

 Below is a close up of my shirt. This is another Cricut design that I cut from various colors and types of vinyl and applied with my heat transfer machine. Since I made nearly everyone else's shirts before I made mine, I kept getting better at doing multi-layer heat transfer. This is not one I would recommend that a beginner try to make. It was very time consuming, and I had trouble getting the colors and types of HTV that I wanted.

We had all made matching pajama pants from material that a family member found at Hobby Lobby. Of course we had to take pajama pictures on Christmas Eve. The paper that I used for this layout was a simple diagonal plaid. Our pajamas were a similar plaid, just not diagonal, and since our PJ fabric had Mickey characters, I stamped and cut Mickeys and Mickey heads, then glued them to the page to resemble our pajama pants.  The font that I used for the title is a commercial font that I loved enough to buy. The font family is called Desire.

Mother's Day Gift Activity Day

I do projects with the 10 and 11 year old girls at church, so I try to choose something they will enjoy but also has a purpose. This was our May project, and the girls gave them to their moms for Mother's Day. It's basically the same as the summer projects I made and posted awhile back, except that y sweet husband cut the wood for me.

It's just a sanded and painted wood block, with a little Modge Podge to hold the scrapbook paper to it. The paper had several sayings, and the girls got to choose which one for their block. This one was definitely the most popular. The paper line was Home Grown by Pebbles, and the individual paper was called "Family Time."

Heartfelt Creations Cards I made for 2 Friends

July was busy with family, and on August 6th, I had major surgery. I am finally back in my craft room, and since I have the perfect excuse to ignore housework without guilt, crafting is what I am trying to do. I am not yet up to much, but I am just happy to be able to do a little crafting.

I found out from a mutual friend that two of our friends back in Virginia have been having a rough time. I pulled out two of my favorite Heartfelt Creations collections and made cards based on the personality of each. I also made a matching envelope for each card.

Just a reminder, I am not affiliated with Heartfelt Creations or any other company in any way. Heartfelt Creations is, however, my favorite company and has been for a few years. They have such beautiful stamps, with matching dies and paper collections.  They also have more whimsical stamps, for those who like cute designs.

They are currently having a clearance on older products, if anyone is interested. The two collections I used here aren't on sale, but they do have some good ones that are on clearance, and there are 5 pages to browse if you want to see what they have. Here is a link:

Heartfelt Creations Clearance

This first card was made with the Lush Lilac collection:

The second card was made with the Woodsy Wonderland collection:

They may be simple, but I am happy with the results. Since I can't really do much yet, simple is good.  If you want to see fancy cards, look at the Heartfelt Creations Gallery on their web site. They have some amazing and very fancy samples there.

Heartfelt Creations Gallery

Layered or Stacked Cards

Recently on the RefuPeas scrapbook message board, jstblondie showed some beautiful cards she had made with stacking dies. They are dies that come as a set and which create a layered card. She also asked about using electronic die cut machines, so I decided to start playing with my Cameo to see what I could come up with by altering designs I had in my library as well as actual layered card designs.  These first two designs I bought from the design store. Lori Whitlock was the designer. I just chose the colors of cardstock and cut them:

This first one really looked pretty online, but not as pretty in person. I actually liked this next one better once it was cut and glued together

It's a bit hard to see the middle layer, but there are three different colors in the diamond layered card. It has a very dimensional effect and looks amazing in real life.

The next two were single layer designs that I altered using the offset feature of the Silhouette software to create 3 layers:

Unfortunately, the middle layer (medium blue) is not as obvious, but it is gorgeous. It also shows how nicely the Cameo can cut thin details.

The last one is not your typical layered card. I started with a single layer design from the Silhouette Design Store again, and turned it into a 3 layer design using the offset feature:

Layered cards are lovely. It can be expensive to buy the die sets, but cutting them with my Cameo works well enough for me.

The Scan N Cut: If I Knew Then What I Know Now....

Would I have bought the machine?  Probably not.

Just to clarify, it is a good machine. Some people will love it! I am just not one of them. The reason? I had unrealistic expectations based on overly positive reviews that never mentioned any of the limitations.

The videos always showed the machine cutting out cute, but simple stamps with a slight border. Since a lot of people prefer that style of stamp, I did not think much about it. A lot of people also like a slight border. I did wonder a little about that one until I saw someone cutting right on the lines. However, those were also simpler, less detailed stamps.

My huge stamp collection is made up of more intricate, detailed stamps than simple ones, and I want them fussy cut right on the line. No border.

Intricate details do not always scan well, so either a lot of the stamped images don't scan the full design, or they don't scan the stamped image at all. Your stamp needs to have a solid outer line, with no break in order to get a cutting line that will cut the entire stamped image, without chopping off parts.

If I were willing to fully color each stamped image before cutting, the machine would meet my needs better. It can see the fully colored image much better than just an uncolored stamped image, especially when there are a lot of details. While coloring, you can fill in any inconvenient little artistic gaps in that outer line. I prefer to stamp and cut out a bunch of images at a time, to color in later, once I know what colors I will be using for the project that the stamped image will eventually be part of.

One very good thing about the machine, though, is that once you get a good scan of a stamp, you can save it and keep it for later. That comes in handy if you like to cut first, stamp second (my recent tutorial post).

If you like simple, cute stamps that have a simple outline, the machine works great. If you like a border, many of the more intricate stamps will scan and cut fine, too, just not if you want to fussy cut on the line. If you stamp and color first, this machine may be right for you.

I bought it as a stand alone machine, to scan and fussy cut stamps without using my Cameo or buying matching dies. It did not quite live up to my expectations.  Maybe if I wanted to use the online software, I would feel differently.

However, I am used to using a Silhouette Cameo. It has great design software. If I have to use software, I would rather use Silhouette. I can scan my stamps, import them into the software, use it to get a good trace of the outline (which I can manipulate if I need to), and cut all the blanks I need. I don't have to have a matching die. I also don't really need the Scan N Cut, so I could have saved myself some money.

I will keep the machine. There will still be times when it is more convenient than using my Cameo. Besides, I would be selling it at a loss, because no one will pay me the price I paid for it, since it is now a used machine.

My one recommendation is that before you buy the Scan N Cut, or any other machine, find out the negatives, not just the positives before you buy.