April 2012 – Page 2

Frugal Challenge

Frugal Challenge #1

Hi Guys!

So what’s a frugal challenge? I hear you ask, Well, I am going to set little cost effective challenges for myself from time to time and I promise to document them no matter how successful they are ;). One of the ideas is to use things in my crafting that might otherwise get thrown away such as packaging or using household items that we don’t typically think of as a crafting item in a project. Of course I welcome you to join in so if you have made a frugal discovery I would love to hear about it or see your project. Ok, so Easter has just finished and I am always left with a lovely Easter Egg box which I can never bear to throw away but also never get round to using, this year is different, I am making myself use it!

Here’s my box, It’s got some lovely swirly black details on the outside and the most glorious oh-so-bright pink patterned lining:

I saw this shape on the side of the box and thought it would make a great base for my sentiment:

I cut out the front 2 decorated sections and set aside, I turned the rest of the box inside out to use the colourful lining pattern. I alternated the directions of the pink stripes in each layer to help them stand out and not merge into each other and edged in black card. I die cut the piece shown above with a nestability and topped with another die cut circle of the pink side and added my sentiment which I cut in my Silhouette. I dug out some matching hot pink satin ribbon and added to my top panel before sticking down to my card then attached some pink gems to some of the black swirls to tie it all together.

I’m really pleased with how my card turned out as most of the materials were from the Easter Egg box itself, I needed to add very little from my stash and to think it might have ended up in the bin.

April 12, 2012 by Bird

Free Digital Cutting Files

Cupcakes!

Good Afternoon!

I was inspired by this weeks challenge over at The Shabby Tea Room, it was to create a Birthday Bash card including a cupcake and I decided to make a big ‘ole Cupcake card from one of my new cupcake cut files. I adapted some cupcake digis I made a while ago for these cut files so never fear if you don’t have a digital cutting machine and can’t make use of these files check out the digi stamp versions here, here & here.

I cut my card base from some white card then cut my front layer from some chocolate-y coloured paper so you can glimpse little bits of my chocolate cake here and there. I cut my cupcake case from some pink paper, I cut the icing layers from some more white card then covered with some double sided adhesive and doused liberally with some clear glitter. Some of the cupcakes in the inspiration photo had little pennant shapes on them so I cut out some little triangles in a pretty floral paper and added my ‘party’ sentiment to them. I used some thin natural twin as my pennant string and added some little bows to the sides. I’m always anxious that cards made from digital cutting machines can look a tad 2 dimensional so when I create my cut files I try to add extra layers which enable you to add dimension if you wish. In today’s card I have done this my adding different levels of 3d foam pads to the Icing layers, I’ve also done the same to the pennants and letters.

Here are your cut files – formats included are ai, dxf, pdf, gsd, studio & svg:

(click on the links below the images to download)

Cupcake 1 with Card Digital Cutting File by Bird

Cupcake 2 with Card Digital Cutting File by Bird

April 11, 2012 by Bird

Tiptoe through the tulips…

Hello There!

I’ve made a similar card to my last post but my little teardrop gems are raining down on flowers this time rather than an umbrella and those flowers are Tulips! Yup, I have a Tulip cut file for you today and for those of you without digital cutting machines, I made a couple of digis which can be coloured in and cut out with your nesties or punches. The Tulip cut file comes with 5 individual petals so you can get some real dimension with them if you wish.

I cut a square aperture (window) in my card and added a layer of acetate, I sponged the edges of my tulips with distress inks then assembled and stuck to my acetate along with my gems. As the card is all about the window I kept the rest of my card simple, a simple sentiment treatment and a little ribbon and I was done.