February 2012

Ski Card and other stuff

Hiyah!

This is a crazy time of year for family birthdays so I’ve been completely snowed under with card making and other craft projects, most of which I will be able to share here after the events so as not to ruin any surprises. So don’t worry if I seem a bit quiet, I am here, I’m just busy. You don’t get rid of me that easily mwahahahaha!

I did see something interesting today. As you will know, I started to post my rolled flower cut files here on 24th January, well Silhouette posted a rolled flower as their free cut file of the week yesterday…great minds think alike ;)

Ok, My Brother’s birthday has passed by so I can share the card I sent to him, He was just back from a skiing holiday and I wanted to make a card to help remind him of it, even going as far as colour matching his clothing. As I said with the motorbike card, I made this for my own use but I am more than happy to share it with you just be warned the Skier has a couple of teeny weeny pieces. I’ve given you the card base and the skier separately as I figured the base may be handy for other uses, you may want a cyclist or rollerskater etc for your card. I added a thin strip of card to the back of my skier with a 3d foam pad to make a traditional slider card but you can also turn this card into a penny spinner card too, I was tempted to make a spinner card to make my skier tumble down the slope but resisted the urge, lol.

I scattered some trees made from triangles of card with some Woodware ‘Puffy Stuff’ for the snow.

I used some mirror card for the goggle lenses.

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

(click on the links below the images to download)

Ski Card Base Digital Cutting File by Bird

Skier Digital Cutting File by Bird

February 22, 2012February 22, 2012 by Bird

Tutorial

Rolled Flower Tutorial

Hello!

I’ve had some requests for some instructions on how I put my rolled flowers together so I’ve done a picture tutorial for you today with lots of pictures, you can see the 3 different rolled flowers in the picture below, each with its own colour to avoid confusion.

I’ve made my flowers today with light weight cardstock (layering weight) although in my previous posts I made these flowers with medium weight, heavy weight cardstock and a sturdy vellum, so they can be made out of anything really.

These are the tools I use but don’t worry there are alternatives for each one. I use a stamping pad but a mouse mat or piece of foam will work just fine and I use tweezers to roll my flowers although a quilling tool works extremely well too. You will also need something with a round end, I have a large embossing stylus and a cake decorating sugar paste tool but you might have a round end on a paint brush etc which will do just fine.

I start at the smaller end which will be the middle petals, I trace around the edge of the petal with my stylus then run the stylus up and down the length of the petal to encourage it to curl inwards.

I continue this for approx 2/3rds of the petals.

I turn the flower over at this point and run my stylus across the petals from side to side to encourage the petals to curl downwards.

When you have finished the outer petals your flower should look like this.

Flip your flower back over and add some strong tape to the middle circle so it’s ready to go when you need it.

Hold the smallest end with your tweezers as shown below and roll towards yourself.

While you roll your flower ensure that the bottom edge stays in line.

When your flower is fully rolled you can remove your tweezers.

Remove the liner from your sticky tape.

Fold the circle over the base ensuring all of the layers are stuck down.

Flip your rose over onto its base and manipulate the petals with your fingers, tweezers or quilling tool until you are happy.

The daisy doesn’t require alot of shaping before being rolled, simply sweep a larger rounded tool along the length of the petals to add a gentle curl.

This time I curled approximately 1/3rd of the petals inwards then flipped the flower over and curled the rest outward.

I like the way my daisy looked when it was rolled up so I didn’t have to do any manipulation here, you can whip these up nice and quick :)

This rolled flower only needs a little curling on the edges of the petals, it didn’t look too attractive at this stage, I know ;)

But it all turned out fine when it was rolled up! This is another really quick flower to put together.

I hope this was helpful to you :)

February 5, 2012February 5, 2012 by Bird

Free Digital Cutting Files, Free Digital Sentiments

Rolled Flower 3 (Rolled Roses)

Good Evening!

I have another addition to my rolled flowers, this time it’s a rolled rose, cool huh? You may have noticed that the petal shapes match my ‘flat’ flower shapes that’s because they are the very petals I used to make my rolled flowers so you can chose whether to make your 3D flowers from my individual flower shapes or from the rolled ones, the outcome will be fairly similar but if you ask me the rolled ones are easier and quicker :) This is my last rolled flower for a while, I picked 3 to create and share to give you the most variation ’til I make more. I do have my next cut file ready to go which I am excited about and can’t wait to play with so keep your eyes peeled for that ;)

My followed the Mojo Monday sketch for my layout combined with The Shabby Tea Room’s colour scheme. I decided to make a tag today so I started by die cutting my circles and scalloped circles from patterned paper and some embossed card, I added a die cut border and some ribbon over the joint and popped in an eyelet and some seam binding. I printed my sentiment onto some white card and cut with a Spellbinders label die and added some drops of pearlescent glue. I gave my rolled flower petals some shape with an embossing stylus and a soft stamping pad then rolled up and popped on top of some hand cut leaves.