New Home Card (2)

Hi Crafters, having recently bought a 'Home Sweet Home' die I though I would use it to make a card suitable for someone moving into a new home. 
Most cards are discarded after the event they were given for so I thought it would be good if it had an additional use. With this in mind I made the card so that it can also be used as a wall plaque.

Home Sweet Home card

The body of the house was hand cut from 300gsm card. To save loads of measuring in the future, I have used Microsoft Publisher to save the outline of the house. I then print this onto the 300gsm card and cut it out using a sharp knife and ruler. The shape is then covered with a thinner card or paper with a suitable pattern for your needs and trimmed to the shape of the house with a scalpel. This is easily done by following the outline of the thick card shape with your knife. The card attached to the back is a 5" x 7" 300gsm scalloped edge card that has been cut down to fit as can be seen in the picture below. Some of the scalloped edge was used as weather board trim on the roof.

Inside of card.

The rest of the card construction is straight forward. The cards insert is printed from the computer then cut to size before attaching with a strip of double-sided tape. The text reads:

WELCOME TO YOUR NEW HOME

Every house where love abides

and friendship is a guest,

is surely home and Home Sweet Home

for there the heart can rest.

Card Materials:
300gsm Card.
Patterned Card/Paper to face house shape.
5" x 7" Scalloped Edge Card.
Parchment Paper for Card Insert.
Brown Gems - Habic Rhinestones (Boyes).
Red Gems - Dovecraft, Merry Magic (Range)
4mm Eyelet
Distress Ink - Tim Holtz, scattered straw.
Distress Ink - Tim Holtz, worn lipstick.
Brown Garden Twine.
Die Cuts:
Daisy Frame - Lea'bilities, Art. nr. 45.0362.
Home Sweet Home - Spellbinders, Die D-Lites S2-086.
Large Butterfly - Cheery Lynn Designs, Exotic Butterfly DL112.
Small Butterfly - Marianne Design, LR0261.
Flourish - Nellie Snellen, Flower Swirl SD 002.
Flowers (inner) - Nellie Snellen, FLP 035.
Flowers (outer) - Nellie Snellen, FLP 013.
Card Insert - Dovecraft Corner Punch.

If you want to make a card of your own and require a template of the card, click on the link shown below and download the PDF document. 

http://goo.gl/s337kq

I hope you like the card/plaque. It isn't a difficult card to make which makes it suitable for anyone new to card making or the more experienced crafter. 

Thank You for taking the time to look.

Happy Crafting

Spellbinders Tool 'n One Review

Hi Crafters, I recently bought myself a Spellbinders Tool 'n One. For those of you who don't know what it is, it is a special tool that has been designed to help release the card die-cut from the die and remove all the remaining off-cut bits. 

Spellbinders Tool 'n One

The Tool 'n One is well made and has three removable tools. A spatula, a pricker and a rotating brush. Each of the tools are easily removed or fitted by pulling back the spring loaded collar. Unused tools can be stored inside of the Tool 'n One body which unscrews so they don't get lost.

Tool 'n One - Tool Collar

The only problem I have found was when changing a tool. If the collar is pulled back too far, the ball bearing which is used to locate the tool can fall out. Other than that I found no other problems.

How does it perform?
To give a fair assessment of the Tool 'n One, I used a Spellbinders Shapeabilities Fancy Lattice die (ref:S5-152) and a piece of 240gsm card stock that had been rubbed over with a Tumble Dryer Sheet. 

Example 1: 

The die-cut was removed from the die after cutting without any problems and all the off-cuts were still in place. I then banged the die on my desk 3-4 times which removed about 25% of the off-cuts. The remaining residue was removed using my normal pricking tool. The total time taken was 1m 49secs.

Example 2: 

As in the first example, the die-cut was removed without any problems from the die and all the off-cuts were still in place. I then laid the die face down on a piece of firm foam and rolled the brush of the Tool 'n One over all the die. This removed about 95% of the off-cuts from the die. I then held the die in my hand, ran the brush over it again which removed the remaining bits. The pricker wasn't needed. Total time taken was 36secs.

Conclusion.

Although the pricker wasn't need on this particular die, I think on the more detailed and intricate dies that are available it would be required.
The big difference in time between example 1 and 2 speaks for itself as to whether the Tool 'n One is worth purchasing. I was certainly impressed with it's performance and think it is money well spent. I certainly won't be die cutting without having a Tool 'n One to hand in the future.

If you do a lot of die cutting and are thinking of buying the Spellbinders Tool 'n One, I don't think that you will be disappointed with it. It costs about £13.00 in my local craft stores but if you check on-line you can get it a lot cheaper. You can also get some special soft foam that you are supposed to use in conjunction with the Tool 'n One but I personally don't think it is needed.

Spellbinders Tool 'n One Foam

Note:

For those who are new to Die Cutting, rubbing your dies or card stock prior to use with a Tumble Dryer Sheet greatly helps removal of your die-cut and waste bits. The ones I use are Asda's own brand, £0.99p for a box of 40. They last for ages.

If you think my review has been useful, please let me know by leaving a comment. If enough interest is shown I may post other reviews.

Thank You for taking the time to drop by.

Happy Crafting.

40th Anniversary Card

Hi Fellow Crafters. It was my Ruby Wedding Anniversary a few weeks ago so I thought I would make a card for my wife. It took me a few days to complete it but I think the finished result was worth it. My wife was really pleased with it and said that it is one of the best cards I have made.

Card Materials:
     C5 Scalloped Edge Ivory 270gsm card - Range (Craft UK Limited).
     Background Paper - Harrogate Show.
     Mat & Layered frames, 250gsm Card - Ross Papercraft Show.
     Lace trim - Range.
     Rose - Boyes store.
     Love Brad - Art Accentz, bought cheap set at local store
     Pearls - Bling Bling C301IV, Boyes
Die Cuts:
     Wife Tag - Lea'bilities Art. nr. 45.0362 Daisy Frame die set.
     Heart - Marianne Creatables, LR0159 die set.
     Happy - Cherry Lynn Designs B243
     Anniversary - Cherry Lynn Designs B226
     Lattice - Spellbinders Shapeabilities Fancy Lattice S5-152
     Small Flowers (outer) Nellie Snellen Floral Punch FLP 014, also embosses.
     Small Flowers (centre) Nellie Snellen Floral Punch FLP 035, also embosses.
     Butterfly - Marianne Creatables, LR0261 die set.
     Medallion (behind rose) - Spellbinders D-lites Die Medalion 4 S2-013

The 'for my Wife' and '40 Years' text were printed before die cutting.

Thank You for taking the time to look.

Happy Crafting

Get The Most From Your Punches

One of the most useful tools you have for crafting is your own imagination. How often do you buy something to do a particular job, use it and then put it away without seeing its true potential. 

Butterfly Punch

To show you what I mean I will use a cheap Butterfly Corner Punch that was bought for £3.75 from Hobbycraft. The basic design is shown below.

Basic Design

Using a scalpel or scissors to cut various sections away, a number of different designs can be achieved to give the corner a totally new look as shown below.

Trimmed Corners

Further corner designs can be achieved by adding a contrasting card/paper as can be seen in the pictures below.

Trimmed Corners + Contrasting Card/Paper

You can also extend the versatility of the punch by using it to make Toppers for your cards. A small selection is shown in the pictures below. With a little imagination I could have made lots more different toppers with the addition of ribbon, gems, glitter etc.

Toppers

I have shown you just a little of what can be done with one corner punch. In the example below I have used two different corner punches to make a topper. You may also be able to use your dies in a similar way to get more use out of them.

Topper using two punches

Punch Maintenance:
  - To sharpen the Punch cutting mechanism, punch onto cut out thin aluminium foil.
  - To lubricate the Punch cutting mechanism, punch onto cut out wax paper.

I hope I have encouraged you to take another look at the tools you have. You may be surprised at how versatile they can be.

                                                                 Thanks for taking the time to look.

                                                                                Happy Crafting.

                                                        

Woven Birthday Card

Hi Crafters, I haven't had much time lately for making cards due to other commitments and illness. Anyway, the urge to make a Birthday Card for my sister got the better of me and the finished result is shown here.

       Card Materials:
        6" x 6" 300gsm White Card Blank - Papermania (The Range)
        Frames and Weaving - 250gsm Card (Ross Paper & Card)
        Flower Flourish - Shape Dies SD002 (Harrogate Show)
        Flowers - Xcut (Range)
        Happy Birthday - Free Die from Magazine.
        Pearl Gems: large - Crystal Stickers (Harrogate Show)
                           small - Bling Bling (Boyes)

                                                                                        Happy Crafting                                                                                                                          

Double-slider card (New Home)

Hi everyone,

since making the Flowers Double-slider card shown on my previous post, I have made a few more Double-slider cards. This New Home card was made for a good friend who has recently moved into a new property. When she received it, she said that it was adorable and she absolutely loved it.

Double-slider New Home card - closed



Double-slider New Home card - open



Construction of the card has been improved with each card made to give it a neater appearance. It takes quite a bit of time to make one of these cards but I think you will agree that the results are worth it. I hope you like this card. It is one of my favourites.

If enough interest is shown, I shall attempt to put a tutorial on my blog.

Thanks for taking the time to view my blog.

Happy Crafting.



Time Flies By

Hi Crafters, I've not been making cards all that long but from talking to and seeing other peoples work, it seems to me that not many crafters make cards for men. They seem to concentrate on the more feminine type of cards. If you buy a man card from the shops, they all seem to be themed on either golf, football or cars so I thought I would have a go at making something a but different. I love die cutting so it also gave me an excuse for getting out my Grand Calibur. The resulting card is shown below.

Happy Birthday - Cogs Card

It was a bit time consuming making all the cogs and letters, mainly due to having to paint them all black and then wax them. I also made the clock pointers from scratch and was pleased with how they turned out. If I didn't know otherwise, I would think they were real clock pointers.

Happy Crafting