MFTeaser--Day 3 Tree Swing!

Not sure, what possessed me to let this sweet little urchin
out to play after midnight,

but maybe he's just dreaming of fireflies?

It's day three of the teasers of new MFT stamp adorableness!!!

Today (Monday April 5th at 11 AM E.S.T) you'll find links to
day 3 teaser posts here on Kim's blog!

If you missed the other days, you can see them here:

• Day 1 of the MFTeasers here on Kim's blog
• Day 2 of the MFTeasers here on Kim's blog

More sweet new sets!
(That will be available in the MFT boutique
on Wednesday April 7th):

• Pure Innocence- Birthday Princess
• Pure Innocence- Book in Hand
• Pure Innocence- Make Mine a Double

and I've used this one:

• Boy & his Dog- Tree Swing:

Is it where the flow'r of the orange blows,

And the fireflies dance thro' the myrtle boughs?

--Felicia Hemans

(I am in LOVE with this set!!!)

The boy is stamped on cardstock that I applied gesso to (swiped it on with a scrap of cardstock.)The gesso lets you manipulate the paper a lot. I've scratched a grid in the paper to texturize his overalls.



This is scratched with a paper piercing tool, and the gesso makes the paper resilient. You can do this with regular cardstock; I just MUCH prefer the gesso paper. I'll have a full pictorial with all the details of the gesso technique tomorrow, in case you're curious. :o)

The rope is stitched:



(I pierced the image with a paper piercer & sewed on quilting thread after I adhered the cut out image to the black grid paper (the background paper is Basic Grey Origins 6x6 paper with some hills coloured on using black & grey Copic Markers.)

The teensy flowers:



The teeny tiny shaped paper flowers were made (super quickly)
using a Fiskar's scallop flower border punch:

The punch was a gift from Maria (one of the most insanely talented & sweetly generous crafters in the whole wide world! You ROCK, girlfriend!) I love this punch SO much; I tried to find a link, in case anyone wants one... but I'm not sure if they still make it, sorry.

To make the flowers:

1. Punch the wee flowers (punch border punch in white cardstock.)
2. Pierce a hole in them (on a firm foam or cork surface)
3. Glue them to your project (You could colour or glitter them first)

No shaping required. The piercing shapes them. Though you might find that if your paper piercer is too thick, this won't work. The one I used is Making Memories deluxe piercer. (LOVE it--after buying 5 brands.) You could use a needle/push pin...

They're glued on with Tombow Monomulti:

and with some leaves. To make the leaves, I just stamped an extra branch & coloured and cut out the leaves & glued them on with the flowers...

on blowing in the wind:

I love this branch and can't wait to make a card with just the branch even!

Fireflies:

The fireflies are clear seed beads sewn on with white thread:

1. Draw a white dot on the image with a gel pen (I like Sakura Souffle)
2. Draw a soft glow around it with a white marker (I love Close to my Heart white marker more than words can say.) You could paint on a weak wash of white paint or ink with a small brush.
3. Pierce two small holes on either side of the white dot (using a paper piercing tool or a needle.
4. Thread a needle (that will fit through the clear bead) ;o) with white thread
5. Starting at the back of the image, come up through the hole you pierced & adhere the end of your thread on the back of the image
6. Once you've threaded through to the front, just pop the seed bead on your needle.
7. Go back down through the image, in the 2nd hole you pierced.

TIP: The two holes will make the bead lay flat. For a bead that shows its circular inside, just pierce one hole & go back down through it after adding the bead.

And yup, I'm a lunatic, I did stitch around all the words:

To make the embossed words (from an inkjet printer):

Embossing the words lets you colour your paper with distress ink or other things without smudging the computer printing.

1. Type out your quote in your favorite font in a word document

2. Cover a piece of cardstock in Matte Medium (This requires only a very thin coat; Matte Medium is clear & lets you emboss ink jet ink if you work QUICKLY) I apply with my hands, but you could try brush, brayer, lint free rag if you don't want lines in your finished paper

3. Dry Matte Medium & prepare embossing supplies: While the matte medium dries, prepare clear embossing powder, tray, & heat gun so you can act quickly after printing. I find in BC Canada that Golden Matte Medium dries super quickly, but it will depend on the humidity of your area. You can speed with a gentle pass of the heat gun.

4. Print the text & sprinkle on embossing powder. (I like to print on a half sheet of cardstock and on standard setting, so it prints quickly enough to keep the ink jet ink wet.) Immediately sprinkle the clear embossing powder on.

5. Melt the clear clear embossing powder with a heat gun. To get the most out of the powder application, you can heat it from the back of the paper so the heat gun doesn't blow the embossing powder off.

Then you can ink up the paper, or add Glimmer Mist or what have you without smudging. I applied Distress Ink (Broken China & dark grey ink to mute the hue.)

(Please note: Sorry, I can't guarantee that the Matte Medium doesn't do naughty things to your printer. Mine was $50. so I play at whim)

...and there you have it...

Hope this card wasn't too somber for you.... & Sorry about the photo quality, I'll try to get better photos & close ups of this when the sun comes out today & add them with descriptions of the techniques. (It was SO fun to make but SOoooh difficult to photograph!) Photos all added now. :o)

The leaf embossing texture is made using this
homemade cereal box embossing plate:

Thanks for swingin' on by!
Happy Easter.

P.S. (Word to the wise, these stamp sets tend to sell out
quickly, so if you want them badly, then you may
want to save that date: APR 7th) :-)


P.P. S. Can you believe this. If I won the lotto, I would buy these: Jeweled buttons
(no affiliation at all; I just thought they were hot.)

(please click if you'd like to visit the blog
from an email or reader)

Embossed Fred Flowers--from Caardvarks Wedding Bouquet

This post is all about the flowers from yesterday's Caardvarks "Get Published--Your Best Wedding Card" challenge... Prima & other pre-made store-bought flowers are so lovely, but they're just not in my skinny old budget. ;o)

I made another bucket handbag box & embellished it with the small white flowers, but most of this post is describing how the Fred She Said flowers were made to put on this card:


Please click the photo, if you'd like to go to
the card tutorial with the Caardvarks Challenge link...

....and now for the flower making schtuff:

BIG freds

(These large 5 pointed petal flowers are about 1-1/2 inches wide)

& LITTLE freds

(These small flowers are about half an inch wide)

Digital Paper Flowers:

SUMMARY: These two sizes of flowers were both printed (from digital images.) The printer ink is heat-embossed in clear to get a smudge proof outline...Then a they were clear embossed with a pattern, coloured, shaped, & embellished with pearl seed beads. Of course, you could stamp too; the digi way just seems faster & more consistent. :O)

• Paper Temptress Candido Incandescent cardstock &
• Pearl Vellum cardstock
• Flowers from Fred She Said's Flowering Hearts Doodledallion Digi Set
• Vellum, Clear & Pearlized embossing powder, heat gun,
  
• Stylus (or end of a paint brush or pen)
  
• YG-91 Putty Copic Marker,
  
• Three For You flower punch
  
• Paper piercer, needle, silver thread
  
• Pearl seed beads & silver bugle beads

Large Fred flowers:

Step 1) Print & emboss FSS flowers. Print flowers on Paper Temptress Candido Incandescent cardstock. (It has a shimmery finish for some classy bling--but no fuss no muss.)

Step 2) Stamp with a background stamp over the flowers (in Versamark ink--or the like.) Heat emboss the pattern with more clear embossing powder & melt with a heat gun.

I used my new fave background stamp Tapestry
from Paper Garden Projects here:

I put it on my my Cuttlebug plate (as a block to stamp with)
since it's so nice and BIG & comes on Ez mount.

Step 3) Colour the flowers... The darker flowers are just coloured with a Putty Copic marker. The clear embossing powder is a-okay for your Copic markers (Copic site says embossing powders won't damage the tips, but suggests avoiding coloured embossing powders.)

Nifty thinger: Copic colouring will dull the shine of the embossing effect--which I quite liked for this look--BUT the really nifty thing is that it turns out you can just heat the powder again quickly to make it all shiny again!

3B)For more subtle colour tinted on the clear embossing:

1) Scribble with a Copic marker on an acrylic block or something
2) Quickly, while the Copic ink is wet, pick it up with your finger (if you're nutty like me)
3) Smudge over the flower with your inky finger & repeat until you're happy with the results

Step 4) Cut the flowers out & shape them: I shaped these quickly by pressing in the centers with a stylus after putting them on a homemade fun foam mat (made of 4 layers of 12x12 fun foam.) It gives cushioning, so they shape nicely.

A little of the embossing powder may flake off. You could discard the ones that happens with, if you like (but I just use them strategically since this is a shabby chic look after all.) ;o)

...make medium bud (or trumpet lilly-like)
variations of the large fred flowers:

Step 1) Cut one petal from the flower

Step 2) Shape the flower like an opening bud & glue it:

2A) Put a nice strong adhesive under one of the petals beside the cut section (for instance, behind the petal marked A in the photo above.)

2B) Pull the glue-y petal over to adhere it to the front of the petal on the other side of the cut section (onto the petal marked B).

2C) Trim it up: cutting away any of the petal that may stick out from underneath where you don't want it to.

2D) I save the cut-off petal (marked C) to use as a single bud or leaf.

2E) You end up with the 3-petaled, trumpet-shaped bud flower on the right in the photo above (marked D.)



Step 3) Pierce the into the bottom center of the flower (to sew it on securely and add a decorative bead center) or you could just glue it on.



Step 4) Pierce a hole if you want to stitch on the flower on: make a hole in the patterned paper where you want the flower using the paper piercer (going through the hole you made in the last step.)

Step 5) Sew the open bud flower on with silver thread and add a little pearl seed bead center:

5A) Select a needle (test to ensure that it will fit the bead on past the eye of the needle.)
5B) Stick the needle in from the back & adhere the thread end at the back of the patterned paper.
5C) Put the flower on the tip of the needle (bottom side first)



5D) Thread the flower onto the thread.
5E) Add the bead onto the needle tip
5F) Go back through the flower and into the front of the patterned paper, where you made the hole using the paper piercer.
5G) Adhere the thread end at the back of the patterned paper.

..make small Fred Flowers:

Step 1) Make a sheet of flower centers--digitally: Open a copy of the punch guide in photoshop/other software use a photoshop brush to add centers & Erase the flower punch guide layer (leaving just the centers) Save the file & print it (If you'd like more specific directions for this, please see the 'cheap tricks' punch guide directions below)

Step 2) Print the FSS flower centers on white vellum Pearl Vellum cardstock & heat set them.

Step 3) Stamp & Emboss the tapestry background over the flower centers (These are done in Versamark ink & emboss it with pearly iridescent embossing powder.

Step 4) Punch the flowers out (cutting off strips of the scrap parts left after punching as you go, so the punch will fit.)



Step 5) Shape the small flowers & stitch them on in the same way as the large ones (in the tutorial above.)

...and that's it...

To make the bucket handbag, I just...



...adhered a whole bunch of the flowers on the front of
a stitched white bucket handbag. (The template can be found here.)

-3-

Punch guides for digital flower centers
(using Photoshop/other software)

Both sizes of paper flowers used on this card are made with the digital set from Fred She Said. I wanted the smaller flowers to have centers that matched the large Fred She Said flowers & wanted to use my Three For You flower punch to make them (which punches 3 wee flowers at once--go figure, hey--3 for U?) Hence, those centers needed to line up or they'd be all wonky. I also wanted a way to not waste vellum, so I made a template in photoshop.

If you'd like to make templates to match your own
flower punches here's how this one was made:

(This might seem like a fair bit of work but it makes a punch guide matches your very own punches, and it can be used again and again with any style of center you like.)

Step 1) Punch once on a sheet of white copy paper to get the three flowers (or your shape) out of it.
Step 2) Lay the punched white paper on a scanner bed.
Step 3) Place a dark sheet of cardstock behind it (to make the flowers show up)
Step 4) Scan it, save the document, & open it in the software of your choice (layers are needed, so I used Photoshop)
Step 5) Cut and paste in Photoshop to make fairly even rows. No need to be perfect the set of 3 is all that matters & it will always be even since it was scanned from the punch.
Step 6) Merge the layers (in Photoshop, this is under the "layer" tab at the bottom "merge layers") At this point, it will look something like the grey rows of flowers in the picture above.

Please stop & SAVE a different copy of this for future use
(since the next steps involve obliterating this layer) ;O)



To use the punch guide:

Step 7) Create a new layer to put the centers in click "layer" tab "new layer"
Step 8) Make a photoshop brush from the center of Fred She Said flowers & use it to put the centers in--nice because you can size to fit your particular punches. Merge this new layer with the centers.
Step 9) Delete the under layer of original flowers. Save & print it out for punching.

If you have a Three for You punch & you'd just like to use the guide that I made,
then you can simply skip to step 7 (above) after opening the punch guide.

The 3 for U punch guide is
available for download here:

Download Three For You punch guide PDF
Download Three For You punch guide JPG
Download Three For You punch guide PNG

Hope you're having a great weekend!

(click to visit the blog from an email or reader)
...to subscribe: Feedburner or Feedblitz