Grunge it up card

Click on the image and see how this was made. There is a video tutorial of the process.

In My Garden card

Click on the image and see how this was made. There is a video tutorial of the process.

Timeless Treasure art journal spread

Click on the image and see how this was made. There is a video tutorial of the process.

Father's day card

Click on the image and see how this was made. There is a video tutorial of the process.

Distress it card

Click on the image and see how this was made. There is a video tutorial of the process.

Sunday, October 30, 2011

Pink Simon

Hi everyone,

I've been putting off this week's challenge of Simon Says Stamp and Show all week long. The challenge is to make something using only one color. And I couldn't think of something to make. But I thought I should give it a go anyway and here is my attempt:

I found a very nice site with vintage photos were you can get lots of freebies. The picture I have used for this tag is one of them. I've played a bit so the the color of the picture became pink:).

What I've used for this tag:
  •  Flowers (great marketing)
  •  Hotfix
  •  pompom trim
  •  ribbon
  •  Vintage photo (e-vint.com)
  •  Distress Ink (spun sugar, velvet victorian)
  •  Stamps (background stamp and text stamp, prima marketing)
Thanks for stopping by!
Sandra

ColorQ and Freshly made sketches

Hi everyone,

I was a little behind with the challenges, so I'm trying to catch up. Hopefully I'll succeed:). This time there are two challenges to that I want to enter:
ColorQ


Freshly made sketches


The color theme of colorQ, I found it quite tricky this time. I don't have much yellow and orange colors. But I managed digging up some from my paper stash.
Here is the result:







 Materials used:
  •  A5 white card stock, orange-yellow
  •  Dessign piece of paper from me and my big ideas (butterfly)
  •  ribbon
  •  buttons
  •  flowers (prima marketing)
Thanks for visiting my blog, hope to see you next time!

Sandra

Saturday, October 29, 2011

Fancy folds in pink with green

It's time for another challenge! Actually two challenges, because with this card I'm playing along with Our Creative Corner and Crafter′s Companion UK.
For Our Creative Corner is the challenge fancy folds. Crafter's Companion has a color challenge, namely pink and green.

FromLein I got a CD with all sorts of fun cards(thanks again for that cd!), and for this card I used one of the layouts.
I (still) don't have a scorpal or another tool to score with, so my first attempt went wrong with the folding part. I had used cardstock that was too thick. In my second attempt I used thicker A4 paper, and the layout was for 12 x 12. So I had to change all the measurements, but I succeeded. Here is the result:


 
 

The supplies:
  • Distress Ink: shabby shutters, spun sugar, victorian velvet, worn lipstick, peeled paint
  • Stamps: French Script and swirls from Tim Holtz, memories from Teresa Collins , eiffel tower and aimer la vie from kaiser craft.
  • ribbon

Of course I used my new stamp-and-cut method for this card. You don't have to cut twice using the hinge method, you can also stamp on the first cut out of the stamp. It's less work, but a bit more tricky.

Thanks for stopping by!

Friday, October 28, 2011

Tutorial: Stamp-and-cut method

Hi everyone

The other day I promised you I would make a tutorial on the stamp-and-cut method. This is my first tutorial!
Due to the fact that I'm not good at neatly cutting things out, I always look for ways to help me with that. That's when I found the print-and-cut method. I've made it into the stamp-and-cut method. I always leave a white border around the images I cut out, because it is easier but mainly because I love it.
The supplies for this method are:
  • Stamp
  • Scanner
  • Electronic cutting machine (in my case the eCraft)
  • Make the Cut! software (or other similar software)
Step 1:
Stamp the stamp with black ink (I used jet black archival ink) on white paper. Make sure that the edges are crips and clean.


Step 2:
Open Make the Cut! (or similar software) and use the pixel tracking to import the stamp into the software.


Step 3:
Scan the stamp with your scanner by pressing the "TWAIN" button.
For me it doesn't work for some reason, so I have the image scanned and saved on my computer.

Step 4:
Make sure the outlines are as closely as possible to the original. Changes the "Threshold" for the best results.
Check "Blackout path". This works better with the shadow layer, than we do in the next step.


Step 5:
Make sure the size matches the actual size of the stamp. Adjust if necessary.
Create a shadow layer with the desired thickness of the white border that you want around the stamp.


If there is something to black out, you can click on the "Apply Blackout" button so you get only the outside lines.


Step 6:
Remove the original stamp, so that only the shadow layer remains.


Step 7: Set the shadow layer on the outer edge of the mat where the cutter starts cutting.


Step 8:
eCraft doesn't use cutting mats (whoohoo), but you can use a sheet of cardstock for this. With  the cutting machines that do use cutting mats, grab an old mat, which doesn't stick anymore. That's necessary for this technique.
Take the mat and stick in the same corner as you did in the software a piece of test paper with scotch tape on one side.


Step 9:
Cut the shadow layer. NOTE: leave the cutter as it is and do not move the mat from the machine, because possible that shifts everything.



Step 10:
Remove the cut out, and let the "hinge" where it is! Now take the paper with the stamp and put it under the hinge. Position the stamp. For this tutorial I inked the stamped image up, so you could better see what I'm doing :).


If you've found the right position, stick it onto the mat with scotch tape.

If you do a bulk, fold the hinge back.

Step 11:
Cut the shadow layer again.
 

And you have a beautiful stamp that's perfectly cut out!




And if you have bulk work, then just remove the excess and put you a new stamp under the hinge. As long as the mat stays in place and you don't change anything in the cutting software you can keep repeating this.

Hope you found this tutorial helpfull. If you have any questions about it, please feel free to contact me!

Sandra

Wednesday, October 26, 2011

Inspiration journal en use it tuesday challenge

Hi bloggies,

Today it is time for a new challenge. Yesterday I visited the blog of Shelly, who makes incredable and beautiful things (the can of sardines is so cool!). On her blog I saw that there was a super fun challenge at Inspiration Journal. And of course I'm going to enter! This time it's a color theme. And I heard about Use it Tuesday challenge, where they have the same color challenge! Why not combine the two? I knew right away what I wanted to make! I want a box for my loose scraps I have lying around. So I'll make one in those colors.
 I do not own a scor-pal (I'm deeply ashamed) and I thought it was a good idea to buy one today. When I came to the scrap book store, they unfortunately were not in stock. So I had to think of something else to score the lines of the box. In Illustrator I drew the box I wanted to create so I knew what the measurements had to be. After I measured and marked the black sheet of cardstock, I made score lines with a ruler and a hobby knife. You have to  use what you've got...
Then it was time to go make the four sides. I had orange flowers laying around which I thought I never gonna use, the same voor the black feather, but for Use it Tuesday I had to use something I forgot about or rearly use.
For this box, I tried a new method, namely the cutting out a stamped stamp. I'm not good at neatly cutting out images, so I used the print-and-cut method, but now it's the stamp-and-cut method:). I have made pictures of it and will make the tutorial in a couple of days.
Before I go on for another hour, this is the result:


 
 
The supplies:
  •  Distress Ink: milled lavender, dusty concord, seedless preserves, black soot, ripe persimmon
  •  Perfect pearls: Pewter
  •  Paper flowers
  •  Stamps: all from Tim Holtz
  •  Lace and ribbon
  •  Feather and label
  •  Split pins
Thanks for visiting my blog!

Sandra

Monday, October 24, 2011

Grungy Monday 24: Perfect distress

Hi everyone,

It's time for Monday Grungy Studio L3 and that means working with Tim Holtz products. Which I love to do! This time the challenge is perfect distress and we were referred to a video of Tim doing that technique. The theme for this challenge is free, and I chose for a Halloween meets Christmas theme. I like to make a sort of combination.
I already had seen the video and I've used the technique in my smashbook, but I wanted to practice a little more. Despite the practice I still wasted a tag because it wasn't completly dry. Duhh.... lol.

Here the result:


 

 For this tag I used the following:
  •  Perfect pearls:  pewter and heirloom gold
  •  Distress Ink: Seemless preserves, Dusty Concord, milled lavender
  •  Archival Ink: Jet Black
  •  Distress stains: dusty concord
  •  Stamps: pine trees and script

 As alwaysI had a blast doing this challenge!!

Sandra

Sunday, October 23, 2011

JUGS 107 - 3D / Template challenge

Hi everyone!

Today I'm joining  the challenge of Just us Girls for the first time. This week it's a template/3D challenge. I'm not sure what the meaning is of the template part, so I stick to the 3D part. The theme is Halloween and I think that's a very cool theme and I can not get enough of it, lol.

What I have made is ​​a treatbag. And therefor score lines are essential.  I made ​​score lines with the eCraft for the first time. I always like to try new techniques :). 
In Make the Cut! (version 4.0.4 beta) I made this treatbag. It was a bit tricky to make the score lines, but with this version of MTC you can draw cut lines. Allthough it's still a bit of getting used to.
The score lines I made as cut lines with a pressure of 1. So that creates a very thin line and make it easy to fold. Then I cut the other lines with the normal pressure of 4.


I also used dies of Tim Holtz, but because the treatbag is so small I used pixel tracking from MTC  to import and adjust the size and cut them out with the eCraft. That way you can also use them on smaller projects.




The result:







Supplies needed for this bag:
  •  Distress Ink (Peeled paint, mustard seed, seedless preservation, ripe persimmon, black soot, Gathered Twiggs)
  •  chain, charms, ribbon and  / or other embellishments
  •  acetate
  •  Stickles (gun metal, yellow)
  •  treats
  •  dies or die cuts
Hope you like it. Thanks for visiting!

Sandra

Saturday, October 22, 2011

Happy Halloween, Pumpkin!

Hello bloggies,

Today, I'm entering 3 challenges! How exciting!
One for the color, colourQ

One for the layout, mojo Monday


and one for the subject, Our Creative Corner, and the subject is faces this week.

I thought it would be easy if things were fixed, and I did not have think too much about what I wanted to make, lol. But to combine 3 challenges in 1 card was a lot harder than I thought. Anyway, I've struggled through it and this is the result:



The papers that were used as background are from a store called Action (similar to the Dollar Store, I think). On the edges of the background I used distress ink. Peeled paint for the green background and spiced marmalade for the orange background. The ribbon was originally white and I used walnut stain distress stains to color it. The tag is from the gallery of MTC (Make the cut, die cut machine software) and I used Distress Ink Dusty Concord and Stickles on it. Because of the light and stickles is not quite easy to read the text. Perhaps next time I have to cut down on Stickles, hihi.
The photo corner is also from the gallery of MTC. You can find really nice cut-ables there.
The pumpkin is a stamp from Stampotique, and I altered the size in MTC and created a shadow layer. I cut that out with the print & cut  the hinge method from  Denise of Purple Paper Paradise that I changed a bit. If you have an eCraft it is a great website where you get lots of ideas and there are many tutorials available.

That's it for today, very nice weekend!

Sandra

Friday, October 21, 2011

Paula's wedding smashbook

Hi everyone,

A few weeks ago I told you that I'd made something for Paula, my friend,  who's getting married in Las Vegas next week. Finally I can tell you what it is! I made a smashbook for her wedding, where she can put the wedding pictures in and journal about her great adventure. I was quite busy making this smashbook and I really love the result. I will not bore you with showing all the pages of it, but only show a few to get the impression.















Here are the supplies for it:
  •  A4 Design Paper pad Wedding of Pipoos (a Dutch company)
  •  Teresa Collins - Journal It Girl paper
  •  2x A4 1mm thick cardboard
  •  Distress Ink Pads
  •  Lettering delights - Love affair
  •  blending tool
  •  glossy accents
  •  buttons
  •  large flower
  •  Stickles
  •  ribbon
  • Tim Holtz stamps
  •  paper flowers
  •  envelopes
  •  etc
Paula was so happy with it when I gave it to her today! Luckily she didn't have an album for her pictures yet. Next week she will get married, how very exciting for her!

Sandra

Wednesday, October 19, 2011

Stripes with Simon Says Stamp & Show And Sketch with Fresly made sketches

Hi Bloggies!

Today I've got two challenges on my list that I want to enter. The "show some stripes" challenge of Simon says stamp and show and the sketch challenge of Freshly made ​​sketches. A friend of mine is getting married in Las Vegas next week and I wanted to make her a card and these two challenges are perfect for it.

The paper is from Echo Park - Be mine and the stamps are from KaiserCraft - Bonjour. The flower I bought on an online beadshop in the Netherlands and the tag I cut my eCraft as well as the scalloped edges.
Here is the result:








I had a lot of fun making it and I'm happy to give it to my friend.
Hope you like it too!

Sandra