Chalk Pastels with Blender pen & Bellyband-elope Tutorials

I bought this With Love set from Annapurna & thought the flower from it might look neat with beads added to it. Then I got all crazy with another envelope type thingermajigger...

Wanna make one?....

BellyBandelope How to:

1. Cut a piece of cardstock to make your belly-band.
(I cut this one 12x 5 inches for my 6 inch card):

2. Score on either end of your card (leaving enough room for folding)
(I love using my Tim Holtz design ruler to find center.)

3. Fold the ends in & Do a dry fit with the card inside it
(to be sure your belly band will fit before moving on. Trust me I skipped this step--see no card in there-not good...and I paid for it: had to trim my card so it'd fit LOL.)

4. Trim off some of the ends to allow for embellishing
(I cut off 1 inch on each side)

5. Cut pieces to embellish it; I used 4 pieces of this patterned paper
(2 pairs of pieces measuring 1 x 5 inches & 2 x 5 inches)

6. Cut some cardstock & scallop it--this was 11.5 inches long.
(Trim to fit 2 pieces to your belly-band length)

7. Punch holes in the scallops so you can add eyelets
(SU's corner punch leaves circle divots you can use as a guide)

8. Add eyelets to the holes
(makes the holes strong for lacing)

9. Adhere scallop piece to the back of the patterned paper

10. Dry fit scallop pieces on top of belly band
(place on top to see where you want them to fit)

11. Stick scallop pieces onto the belly-band
(add faux stitches if you like)


12. Laced up, the belly-band should be able to slide off the card
(but I like to embellish the inside in case someone unlaces it)


13. To lace easily, cut the ribbon on an angle
(sealing it with a lighter makes it even easier)

14. Lace that puppy up
(just like tying a shoe!)

Card Details:

The flowers were coloured using "pastel & blender pen" technique which works great on normal cardstock (but this image was embossed on patterned Gesso cardstock.)

Pastel & Blender pen technique:

Supplies: Blender pen & Chalk Pastels (I used the ones made by Stampin' Up! here)

1. Stamp or emboss an image
2. Put chalk pastel on blender pen
3. Apply to paper

Easy hey? The blender pen acts like a binding agent to seal the chalk onto your cardstock. You can get some really soft looks with it. :0)

Neat lil' tip: if your embossing powder looks chalky after you add your chalk, you can use a clean blender pen/q-tip to clean off the worst of it, but the really cool thing is that re-heating it a little will bring back the sheen of the embossing. Like magic! ;0)

The beading & the sentiment, etc...

Beads are added two easy-peasy ways on here:

Just gluing on with Crystal Effects & sliding them onto the stitching. [Sorry, can't stop adding beads and rambling about it. ;0) It's so easy but it adds a lil' sumthin' sumthin' (and there's so many colours of super-dee-duperly affordable beads out there!) The ones threaded on here were a mixed batch from the good ol' dollar store.]


The sentiment was made by:

1) Punching a word window out of black cardstock

2) Punching a key tag around it & another key tag for the back

3) Embossing the sentiment ("friends" is from Blooming Flourishes by CTMH) in black, on white cardstock.

4) Trimming the sentiment to fit sandwiched between the two key tags (with the word window one in the front so "Friends" shows through.)

5) Adhering the whole thing


Other card details:

Main card: Naturals White (stamped with Stitched in Certain Celery ink) Patterned paper: Basic Grey LilyKate Wisteria LIK-567) Mats: Basic Black, Certain Celery Ribbon: (SU's Certain Celery 5/8" grosgrain) & white satin ribbon to lace the BellyBandelope (from Michael's)


Well th-th-th-th-that's all Folks! :0)
Thanks so much for visiting,