Silver and Blue Quilled Card

Blue 2mm strips were used to make the scrolls and  leaf fronds. The large fringed flower has a smaller punched flower glued to the centre. The cream flowers are made from 4 scrunched scalloped circles pinned together with a small brad. The remaining flowers were made from six 2mm wide loose leaves with a fringed flower in the centre. The quilling is mounted on white card and matted on a light blue linen backing card, also mounted onto a darker grey-blue linen base card.

More Hanging Christmas Cards

The bells on these cards are quilled. simply roll up a length of gold metallic paper tightly and glue the end down. when dry, gently push up the centre with the end of a pen and glue a pearl inside for a clapper. the small bells are made with one strip of 1/4 inch paper cut lengthwise down the page. The larger bells are one and a half strips glued together. The dividers between the papers on the left hand card are stickers, on the right I have used a scrap of metallic braid. Rolled fringed flowers finish the right hand card, together with some punched branches and some cold porcelain buds sprayed with gold paint.

 This card has small paper roses that I made, punched branches and some small wooden star buttons.

 This card has silver cold porcelain buds and a fringed flower with a half pearl centre.

 This card is decorated with a cluster of  tiny  jingle bells that I bought tied to some narrow silver cord. Dab some glue on the knot at the back of the jingle bell to prevent the knot from undoing.

 This is one of several blue cards. Again I have used silver jingle bells which I hung from a fringed flower.

Download the images used in these cards here 

 

Comb Quilling

More quilling. This design was experimental (mind you, aren’t most???). I made the large flower some weeks ago using Meg’s  comb quilling method, then made the scrolls and used up left over strips to fill in the gaps. The corner strips are gold adhesive sticker strips that you can buy in sheets. I’m still managing to get glue everywhere and can’t seem to get neat ends to my scrolls – hence the tightly wound two coloured circles over one end and the blue punched flower over the other. Useful ways to hide a multitude of sins!

More Quilled Chrysanthemums

Larger quilled chrysanthemums. These have layers of stamens between the layers of tear drop petals. It’s very fiddly but looks nice when finished, reminding me of Jacobean crewel embroidery designs.
Might explore this idea further!

Quilled Chrysanthemums

I saw these mini chrysanthemums made from curved quilled tear drops and decided to give it a go. I also wanted to try attaching single stem scrolls. I used slightly thicker paper – about 100gsm and cut the strips on the spaghetti cutter of my pasta machine, making the strips about 1.5-2mm wide. This width is perfect for making stems and single scrolls as it stands up well.

Double Fringed Flower

This quilled card I made to display a double quilled flower. I followed Pritesh Dagur’s instructions but the flower didn’t turn out quite how I expected. My paper was very crisp making the fold very stiff and the petals didn’t open the same way as they do in Pritesh’s video. I opened out each of my petals individually and gave it more of a scruffy spikey look, teamed it up with some leaf scrolls and scrolls made from 1.5mm strips I cut using the spaghetti cutter on my pasta machine. I have just bought a 3mm trenette cutter attachment for a pasta machine. Although it is the same make as my pasta machine, mine is a much older model and doesn’t take attachments. However, the winder fits the trenette attachment and it is easy to balance the attachment on the side of the table and cut the paper.

Hanging Christmas Cards

I’ve been playing around with some hanging Christmas card ideas. Not sure if I like the hanging bit so I might remove it and mount the cards onto bases. The images used are available for download below.

The images used in the4 cards are here

Purple Quilled Card

Another go at quilling – this time a DL sized card.  I was using up my 2mm strips on this one and practicing making scrolls.

Handbag gift bag 2

Another bag from the set I bought from SVG Cuts. Again I found the perforations left parts a bit weak – especially the tabs that hold the handles on. The bag is decorated with a die cut mini lace doily ad a quilled decoration. The quilled decoration is a circle of green tear drops with a dark  pink fringed flower in the centre.

Handbag gift bag

The cutting file for the basic handbag is available from SVG Cuts. I added the top  and the bottom contrasting pieces as I found that he perforations on he bottom fold caused the handbag  to split easily as you put it together and it needed reinforcing as I wanted to use it as a gift bag. Then I added the rosette as an embellishment.

Easter Baskets

I used the instructions for these cute baskets from

http://hobby-di-carta.blogspot.com.au/2012/03/packaging-spring-basket-by-fiorella.html.

On the blog they were filed with paper strawberries but I intend to fill  mine with Easter eggs this Easter.

Vintage Roses 2

The image on this card is from a vintage images set I downloaded from a website a while ago, but I can’t remember where, or if it was free or paid. It was a complete card but I trimmed the image off it. It was then mounted onto a dark card circle and then onto a Marrianne die cut. The flower is the same scrunched flower style as the vintage lady card, with 3 purchased pink rosebuds and some leaves cut with a spellbinders die.The tutorial I used to make the flower is at Simply Paper and creativity.blogspot.com.au

Vintage Lady

I cut the image into an oval and inked the edges, then mounted it onto a Marianne filigree die cut. I made the flower from the remaining paper that was used as the backing behind the die cut, added  to pins and another two layers of matting boards and mounted it on a card. The floral layer is actually the reverse side of the dark salmon paper and is a Kaisercraft paper. (The cream card in the background is not part of the card).

The flower was made using the tutorial at  Simply Paper and creativity.blogspot.com.au

The image on this card is included in this set of images. The set can be found here

Cottage Card

Another card made form the vintage cards I found on the net. This one is from a set of landscapes that I have cleaned which you can download below. Unfortunately most of the landscapes have a full coloured background so may only be of use if you are going to use them as a rectangle, but there are one or two like this where I’ve been able to modify the background to cut into other shapes.

I wanted to cut this into an oval because it needed to fit into a new Marianne die that I was given at Christmas and was eager to try out. I inked the edges before mounting it on to the background. Then it was just a matter of layering the matting boards and adding some floral decoration. The leaves are a spellbinders die that came with the triangle I’ve used on other cards.  The dark flower is a rolled paper rose, and either side of that are small “scrunched” flowers, and three pale pink purchased babies breath. I used this card as an Easter card.

The cottage I used in this design can be found in this set of  landscape images which can be accessed here

Quilling 1

On a recent short break, I went to a beginners quilling class with a friend. I had learned the basics of quilling some 20 years or so ago but just went along to keep her company. However, it rekindled my interest in quilling and with the internet having literally exploded with craft sites, I discovered that quilling has come a long way in those intervening years. Of course I had to have another go at it and this is my first attempt.

The design is a bit disjointed, but it was literally thrown together using all the bits and pieces I’d been trying out. Me being me, I couldn’t find the colours I wanted in quilling paper at my local stores and not being one with much patience with waiting, I didn’t want to order on line. So I tried cutting my own strips. Yes you can cut them using a guillotine or as I tried, on my cutterpillar. They cut very nicely BUT you try cutting 3mm strips absolutely accurately every time! I ended up with a whole load of shredded paper that wasn’t all exactly the same width. Yes fractions of a mm do notice! So then I thought I might try a paper shredder but that cuts 6mm wide strips. A search of the internet shows people using hand powered shredders that cut to 3mm. Of course the only one I could source was from Hong Kong..a 6 week wait – sheer agony for someone like me. It has been ordered, but that still left me in a hurry to play with my quilling tool and new found eagerness. I found a quilling die at my local store – cuts the strips too short and 4mm wide (too wide in my opinion) and takes forever to cut enough strips to work with. Final solution: my hand powered pasta machine! The spaghetti setting cuts the strips just a tad under 2mm wide which is really a bit thin and hard to work with, but it will do until the hand shredder arrives. (Note: the shredder arrived and although it cuts reasonably well, the edges of the strips are a bit ragged. I've since bought a linguini attachment for a pasta machine that cuts the strips much more neatly).

This card was made using strips cut on the pasta machine and a little frustration as I ruined a few bits due to the delicate nature of such narrow strips. What didn’t help was the sturdy parchment, which turned out to be sturdy as it is 2 pieces glued together and came apart at times, especially on the curves. It also springs open badly, making it hard to push inside rolled petals. I won’t be using that paper again any time soon for quilling!
The one thing I do like about cutting on the pasta machine is that you can make a mountain of strips (over 100) from one sheet of A4 paper. I’ve barely made a dent in the paper I cut for this project and I only cut one sheet of each.

For those wanting to know details, the card is a standard 5×7 card. The bottom layer is gold cardstock – a pre-folded purchased card. On this I mounted a matting layer of the parchment and then an off white pearlised embossed board which I distressed and edged with with dark gold ink. The bits and pieces were made from ideas I found on the net, and the fringed flowers from memory plus trial and error. There is a tutorial somewhere on the net for the large flower but I found the 2mm wide strips to delicate to make on a comb so I did it by hand, eyeballing the sizes. I actually made the insides and wrapped them after, but it is very hard to get even sized petals this way. Making the wrapping first (as the tutorials recommend) and squeezing the contents in afterwards makes even sized flowers, but is a lot more fiddly, especially with 2mm wide strips.

Having grasped the basics, it is now time to master neatness….something I’m definitely not good at, so that is going to be a challenge…..

Sam's Christening

Download the image used in this card here

The first of the “next generation” babies in our family is being christened at the end of February, and offered a great chance to make a christening card. The child is a boy which is slightly more challenging than for a girl as swathes of flowers and/or ribbon are not really appropriate. Still, I did manage to sneak in some small fringed flowers and a small ribbon!

The card ended up being BIG…too big to mount on a folded 12×12 inch piece of card, so I needed to improvise by mounting on card that was somewhat shorter at the back and adding a contrasting band to the back to bring it to the same length. this wouldn’t have been an issue had the card not also been wide.
I started with a vintage image which I printed out on my bubble jet printer. I cut that into an oval and layered it on a fancy spellbinders oval. Thuis was layered onto blue and white paper, which was then double matted. The right hand panel used the same double mounting but I used a small piece of parchment design that I made several years ago and which has been sitting in my box of orphaned bits and pieces waiting for an appropriate use. Parchment doesn’t look good glued, so i punched holes in the corners and mounted it onto the card with diamonte brads. I added a triple loop bow of 3mm wide silver edged white ribbon and two fringed flowers (tutorial on making fringed flowers is here). I finished the left hand side with some small blue bling and as a final touch, added a blue diamonte to the mother’s hair.

Filigree Mothers Day Card

This card was made using a lovely set of images I bought from from Moonbeam 1212. Her images are available through Renderosity or also through Jaguar Woman Designs.

 The card frame was made using spellbinders dies and shaded card that doesn’t look that nice as a whole sheet, but looked very nice when cut. I made the roses and leaves from the remains of the shaded cardboard. Again the design was fancy, so really only needed  simple decoration.

Download these Mothers day sentiments here (water marks are removed in download)

 

Vintage Roses

Download the image below

Another card that needed no additional decoration other than a few stick on pearls.  I printed the image on my bubble jet printer, then cut the oval shape. The image was backed with a burgundy cut out using a spellbinders die,then backed with a pale pink cut out and a backing paper that was distressed before double mounting on light green and dark green card.

These images are available here

Gold n roses

I used gold metallic card for the frame on the roses  and bordered it with a black matting board. I was stumped as to what to do with the card after that, so simply added matting boards in colours picked out from the roses. Once I’d finished, it looked too fancy to add flowers as well, so I simply finished it with gold bows and a small pearl cluster.

Layered card 2

Gold and mauvy grey tones were used for this 5.5 5.5 inch card. I used a corner design (Spellbinders) and cut 4 corners which I layered inside a plain square frame. I then layered the card with buff card, a layer of the coloured paper, more buff and then a pre-bought gold card. The flowers are 2 rolled roses and one flower made from several scrunched scalloped circles. The sprays were made each with two wired pink gypsophilia that I bought, and a silver gum nut that I  made from cold porcelain. The tutorial on making the gum nuts is here.

 The card was finished with a cream organza ribbon and a button with the shank removed.

Peachy Tone on Tone

A tone on tone card – not the usual white on white though. I used 3 sheets of 12×12 cardstock for this card, which measures 6 1/2 inches square. there was enough card left to cut the stand which I did by folding a piece of cardstock in half and cutting it freehand. The cardstock was not all that strong, so I added a strip to the bottom at the back of the stand to reinforce it.

I started the card by cutting the two triangles (spellbinders botanicals) and layering them together on a 5×5 inch square of embossed card with a 2 inch circle cut out. I cut another strip of card with a 1 /34 inch circle and layered it behind the cut out. The card wouldn’t go through my printer so I scanned it, overlaid the best wishes sentiment and then printed it on paper which i glued to a piece of  card with spray glue, then attached it behind the circle cut outs. The card was stacked with multiple layers of card cut between 18 and 1/2 inch larger than the previous layer. The blade in my el cheapo paper slicer needs replacing so I got some shaggy looking edges, but I rather like that look on this very plain card. I am getting a Cutterpillar Pro next week – using some gift cards my daughters gave me for Christmas, so no need to rush out and find new blades for the old $12 cutter just yet…..I might keep it just to get the shaggy, slightly distressed look now!

Filigree Birthday Card

I bought some more spellbinders dies just before Christmas and eager to use them, I designed this card for a friend’s birthday. I used Romantic Rectangles to cut the filigree boards, cutting two of them from 300gsm card for the back and front of the card. I joined the back and front with a folded piece of card glued to the inside.On the inside I placed a larger piece of the same double sided paper from Kaisercraft that I used for the boards, reversing the paper so that the dark pink side was uppermost on the inside. This also makes a nice plate for a greeting.

From the remaining paper, I made the two large flowers and the insides of the smaller flowers. The scrolls, sentiment and it’s backing were made from white 200gsm card scraps sponged with olive coloured ink. A few pearls and white ribbon loops finished the card off.

A brief tutorial/discussion on various methods of hinging filigree cards is in the tutorial section.

Anniversary Card 2013

My wedding anniversary is just before Christmas and this year we are celebrating 32 years of marriage. This is the card I made for my husband.

I used 300gsm white card stock for the base, then layered two matting boards using blue shaded blue paper. The base was an A4 sheet, folded in half and then I trimmed off an inch from the bottom.

The top cut out is a spellbinders die, which comes with an oval which I used to make the blue oval matting board, cut from the same shaded blue paper as the matting board. The blue backing board is 1/2 inch larger than the die cut out. I printed the sentiment onto white cardstock and cut it out using the second largest spellbinders classic oval die.

The lower boards were cut 1/4 inch smaller for each layer. I layered a blue layer, then white then a second  blue layer. The ribbon is one inch wide satin and is tied around the last two matting boards and into a double bow. The board was layered with foam tape onto the lower blue backing boards, which were then attached to the card base with foam tape.

Finally I added three pale blue diamontes to the sentiment, and used the same pale blue diamontes to bling up the spellbinders cut out.

Forever Young!

“Youth is happy because it has the ability to see beauty. Anyone who keeps the ability to see beauty  never grows old”.
Download the sentiment and several other sentiments here

Don’t we all see beauty in the things we create? Therefore, creating will keep us young.

This is my creation for today. I bought a distressing tool recently and  tattered the edges of some of the elements on the card, as well as distressing using ink.

The card was 5 3/4 inches cream. I used an A4 sheet and from the remaining card, cut a 2 1/2 inch square.  I used the sentiment quoted in the beginning of the post and recoloured it to a dark olive, then printed it onto parchment in the top left hand corner and cut it to a 2  3/8 inch square. With the remaining parchment, I cut a 5 1/2 inch square which was distressed with the tool and then ink distressed with olive green ink. I also cut out two parchment squares using spellbinders fleur de lys dies but one has been almost completely covered by the decoration. These were also distressed  with the olive green ink. Also from the parchment I cut several sprigs of leaves and inked them with the same olive green ink. The Sentiment square and the small cream square were distressed with the tool and inked. The small squares were layered with foam tape. The two fleur de lys squares were offset and the sentiment block placed in the middle. The bow was three loops tied together, and glued with a hot glue gun. The metallic daisy was glued over the top and the sprigs arranged under the bow. I used a collection of medium and small double layered daisies ( tutorial here) and some tiny single layered flowers. Around the edge of the sentiment square I used some wired acrylic drop sprays I bought from Wild Orchid crafts over a year ago and have been wondering what to do with ever since!

You can download the sentiment and several more here

Black Rose Birthday Card

Today’s offering is a birthday card for my mother with a very cheeky sentiment hidden within an elegant setting. We have a tradition of finding cheeky birthday cards in our family and the quote I used is one from Shakespeare.

I used Spellbinders dies to cut out the pink and red layers and layered it on a black card base. The red layer was inked with black ink around the edges to “age” it. The paper I used for the pink layer had script on it so I scanned part of that, faded it out and added the birthday sentiment over the top before printing it on a bubble jet printer. I used the largest Spellbinders classic oval to cut the sentiment layer, then  inked the edges of the sentiment layer with a dark gold ink.

Australian Gum Blossom Card

While not strictly a male card, this card is at least not all that feminine, and could be used for a man who is a nature lover or keen gardener. This card features Australian gum blossoms and leaves. Gum blossoms in nature come in shades of red through pink to pale cream.


The card is a pre-purchased 5  inch square pearlised card in a pale sea foam colour. I used a dark olive green board at 4 3/4 inches square and then sacrificed another card from the pack to cut the top board at 4 5/8 inches. The leaves were cut from grey and dark green paper and I drew the veins in afterwards with a fine tipped black pen. The ribbon was 1/4 inch wide gold ribbon, wrapped around my fingers 3 times, wired in the centre and the wire wrapped around the base of the ribbon. The ribbon was glued in place using a hot glue gun.The 6 gum nuts were wired into two groups of 3 and glued into place with the glue gun, followed by the wired gum blossoms, and finally the full gum blossoms were glued over the top. If the stems are too long, don’t trim back too far, fold the excess up and use this for the hot glue to grip on to, to hold it in place.
My bubblejet printer refused to print on the pearlised card and after several paper jams, I matched the colour as best  could in a word document, added the lettering on top using a text box, and cut out the oval. I cut a slightly larger oval in the dark olive green to back it, and used foam tape to mount the wording on the dark oval. I punched a tiny hole in both and threaded through some thin gold cord. The cord and the plaque were glued into place.

I have written a tutorial on how to make the blossoms and half blossoms. I will be doing a tutorial on the gum nuts soon, so check my tutorial pages for those. I’ll also be putting up some digital stamps for the leaves as well as cutting files for those with e-cutters. The stamps can be used as pattern for cutting out leaves from coloured card or you can print them on to white paper/card and colour them with ink pens and cut them out.

Poinsettia cards

I used a pearlised off white card for the base and third layers. The second layer was a pale green swiss dot on the left and a plain burgundy on the right. I used spellbinder borders to cut the scalloped borders and nested classic ovals to cut the frames. Two spellbinders fleur de lys corners were added to the frames and they were layered onto the sentiments which I printed on my bubble jet printer and cut out afterwards. I finished them with a touch of bling.

The floral pieces were cut from a piece of paper that was shaded at the edges. The bottom set of petals were cut from the darker part of the paper, the second from a medium shade and the third from the lightest shade. Once layered I added a diamonte centre.  It was a bit of fiddling around to cut from the patches I wanted so I’ve made a set of papers that can be printed out and put them in my shop. The branches behind were cut with a Sullivan’s punch which I bought from Lincraft. the ribbons were done floral artestry style, by looping the ribbon around fingers and wrapping some florist wire around the middle of the loops. Bend the loops up and wrap the wire around the bottom. Cut off the wire about a cm from the ribbon and glue it under the flowers.

Talking about glue, I saw some embellishments being made on YouTube with a hot glue gun with a precision nozzle and I just had to have one. I’m notoriously messy with glue, and one with a thick tip is a bad option in my hands! The precision guns are not easy to find but I did manage to get a Rapid Point gun in Eckersleys for around $23, which  is a rechargeable cordless model. Lincraft now has them for around $20. However, I am sad to say it is very light and flimsy and the recharging cord very short. It only has a short life as a cordless, so really needs to be plugged in if you are going to use it for more than 5 minutes at a time because it doesn’t have an on-off switch that I could find! So, unless you are working very close to the power source, it is a bit difficult to use. Because it is so light and the cord so short, it doesn’t like staying put on the table while plugged in and after having it a mere 3 days, mine slithered off the table and on to the tiled floor, landed on the nozzle and that was that! It still works but is no longer a precision model.

 As usual the magpie in me has got the better of me and I’ve used shiny card which hasn’t photographed well with flash photography. I have now made a light box out of a large clear 4 litre plastic container ($4)  and two desk lamps ($9 each plus $6 for two globes) placed shining inwards at the sides of the box. With a sheet of white paper taped to the back and bottom of the box, I now  have a mini light box/studio for less than $30. The great thing is the lamps store in the plastic container! So much cheaper than buying one purpose built, and a whole lot easier than the tutorials I saw where people cut the sides out of cardboard boxes and taped fabric over the holes. There is a tutorial on this here

Snowman card

Today I have some postable Christmas cards – ones that will fit in a standard 5×7 envelope. I’ve made about 18 of these to send this Christmas.

I got the inspiration from one I saw somewhere on the net last year. The one I saw was blue and I’ve changed a few things, but it’s basically the same principle. The matting boards are plain burgundy card that I’ve had for about 15 years. The two biggest white boards were embossed using s Stampin Up poinsettia folder. The snowman graphic I bought from someone on the internet and changed the colours in photoshop as it was green tones and I wanted red tones. I placed 6 of them on  an A4 page and had them printed at officeworks. I worked out the board sizing  and the photo corners in MTC and cut them out on my KNK Zing which made short work of the job,  then it was just a matter of layering the boards, punching out a simple flower and adding the bling.

Christmas 2013 - 1

This is one of the card designs I made for Christmas 2013. I’ve done a few, but this is one of the ones that will need to be hand presented as I don’t think it will post well without getting squashed and it certainly won’t meet the rules for Christmas card rates!

The base is a rectangular card. Beck from Amazing Paper Grace has a tutorial on how top make hinged cards but I find that they don’t sit up well as they are too soft along the bottom.A spellbinders die set was used  to create the second layer, tone on tone and the third gold card layer. I cut a fourth layer in cream the same as the gold layer and carefully trimmed back the edge of the card, You could simply cut it out in cream and use gold to distress the edges, which I did do for the last oval with the sentiment. Under the sentiment is a filigree layer in gold from the same spellbinders set.

The greenery was cut using a branch punch by Sullivans that I got in Lincraft, the roses are mulberry paper roses  and the ribbon some gold edged cream satin I picked up in a dollar store.

Cutting intricate designs using spellbinders, or any other make I guess, is not easy as the card tends to stick in the die. I’ve seen people say to use waxed paper between the die and the card, but I’ve tried half a dozen supermarkets and no one seems to carry it these days. Glad Bake does work to a certain extent. I did see today a post where someone suggested using thin viscous fabric. I haven’t tried it yet, but if it cuts the fabric then it’s quite an expensive option. If not then it sounds like a good option…something I’ll have to try out.

welcome

Welcome to my world!

This is my blog transferred from dellisembellies.com. 

I'm transferring my site here due to the ever increasing amount of spam trying to take over my blog.

 I am also trying to find a way to make my digital stamps free without attracting web bots (which is why I originally had them at a nominal price on my website). Will keep you posted on progress!