Another November Challenge from SOS

Recently, I bought a texture boutique. I have been wanting to have the ability to emboss. I love that I can use almost any brand name embossing folder in it. One of the things I stumbled across in my quest for embossing folders was a cricut kit to make your own embossing folder. Essentially, what you do is to cut a design on the provided sheets and then adhere the design to the plastic folder. This produces a custom design of your own.

What you will need: a cricut machine, the cricut embossing kit, 1 pack of extra sheets to cut( optional, but I highly recommend it if it's your first time. I messed up a few times and ended up using 3 sheets), a design to cut

I HIGHLY recommend thinking out the design you want to use very carefully. Choose something you just can't find in an already made folder. I bought my embossing kit at Joann's for $10 and then another $10 for the spare sheets. So this can be an expensive folder to make. The design needs to be unique for it to be worth the cost. Also, I won't lie...this was a lot of work. At least for me on my first folder. I think my mistake was in choosing such a small design. I had these chipboard people and I had decided to make an embossing plate to match them. I found a dingbat font of a man, woman and boy holding hands...which matched my chipboard people perfectly. It was a small design though! So it took me 3 hours to make the folder!( now that I know what I am doing, it will be a lot less next time- I hope!)


Step 1: choose your design and set your cricut to do a double cut. I used SCAL and a dingbat font. I do not have a deep housing blade. One is not necessary if you use the double cut. I didn't use the double cut the first time...so I had to use another sheet. thank goodness I had some!
Step 2: carefully remove the design from the cutting mat. the negative space will be on one side, so you will remove the backing and adhere, then run it through your embossing machine to make sure it sticks.
Step 3: take the parts that were cut out, remove the backing and stick them to the opposite side of the folder. this is where I had some trouble. Take the image that was cut out and put it back inside the negative space, then remove the backing on the image. Run it through the embossing machine and it will stick...in the right place to the opposite side of the folder.

As you can imagine...with such small images, this took me quite some time. It was especially hard to get all the little heads poked out and then adhered to the folder. I do think it was worth my efforts though! I used one of the November sketches to make a title page for an album.

I embossed 3 sheets of carstock and inked the edges on colorbox black ink. I used naked chipboard from K and company and Maya Road. Basic Grey June bug embellishments were added for a hint of color. Hand stitching softened the hard colors of the red cardstock and making memories 5th avenue ribbons.In place of the photo, I used a sheet of vellum with the title for the album. The word family was a die cut given to me by a friend. To create a visual triangle, I used a silver hat pin slipped inside the stitching. It helped balance the silver on the chipboard people and the silver S( for our last name) on the tag. The silver S was a find at a thrift store. It was inside a tin marked We R memory keepers for $1. A great find as I have a lot of metal letters now. You can see that I shifted some of the sketch elements around to make it work for my page.

As far as the cricut embossing folder kit...I do plan to try it again. Now that I know what I am doing, I think it will take me less time and effort. I am very happy with the results of the folder I made. It's unique to me and to my page. That's what made it all worth it!

If you have a page to share, post it at Scrap Our Stash Show and tell Sunday!

Love my Box Babies

I am really excited to be a guest designer at Scrap Our Stash. Today, My take on their 2nd June sketch posted. it's a challenging sketch...but has wonderful results. I hope you'll stop by and check it out.
http://scrapourstash.blogspot.com/2010/06/scrap-our-stash-sketch-2.html

I used the sketch for the left page.

Crazy About Stars

I recently read a tutorial about making folded paper stars...and now I am hooked. I just have to figure out what else I can fold or crease. I will admit, that on my last 3 layouts, I have found an excuse to add a paper star.
To learn how to make a folded star, go here:
http://scrapbookandcardstodaymag.typepad.com/scrapbook_cards_today_blo/2010/06/paper-stars-with-kimber-.html

For the current Studio calico blog challenge :
 http://studiocalico.blogspot.com/2010/06/be-bold-challenge.html  and for the challenge over on Frosted designs: http://frosteddesigns.blogspot.com/2010/06/tgif-and-you-know-what-that-means.html , I created this layout about my son and his obsession with me taking his photo while he's underwater. All of the photos were taken using a disposable underwater camera. While I wish I had a nice digital underwater camera or the adaptor for my digital one, I find these cameras work pretty well. I love the bold turquoise color of the photographs...and when I matched the red cardstock to my son's red shirt, I loved the boldness of the color combo. So I chose to stick with these two colors for the whole layout. I cut the star using my cricut, but you could use any die cut or star punch. You could also trace a star cookie cutter. Use your bone folder to crease and fold the star. I folded and refolded a few times to make the creases more pronounced. I chose to add diamond stickles to the star so they would match the chipboard alphas(manufacturer unknown).it doesn't show well in the photo, but the alphas have glitter on them. To help the star keep it's dimension and to help adhere it to the page, I glued part of a cotton ball inside. The ribbon is from Cosmo Cricket's Honey Pie. Since the colors and title were so bold, I chose to keep the layout more simple.

I hope you'll be seeing some stars on one of your next layouts.
Update: and thanks to a comment from craftygirl...I just submited this Lo to Pratical scrappers. Thank you for the tip!

Ribbon Scraps and a sick kid

Recently, My son was feeling under the weather. I took the opportunity to snap some photos of him, even though he wasn't at his best. I saw a sketch challenge on the Studio Calico blog and thought of these photos...and my stash of ribbon scraps. It seemed like the perfect opportunity to use both.
http://studiocalico.blogspot.com/2010/06/sunday-sketch.html


I felt that I should use brown, green and yellow to convey the "sick" feeling that the layout needed. I also got to use up some old chipboard letters from  my stash ( alphadots). The title was made using Sassafrass Earthy chipboard letters and some diamond stickles.

Cockatiel Hair

Sometimes my son's hair sticks up in the back. Today was one of those days. I only had my phone camera with me, but still wanted to catch DS being silly while DH teased him about it. The camera in my phone is just not that great. So sadly, the photos are very grainy. I converted them to Black and white to help. They looked a tad bit better than in color...not much better, but at least I have the photos.   I used a paper napkin band( on the left side) from Bennigan's since that is where the photos were taken. the ribbons are Cosmo Cricket- jack's World. I used a K and Company citronella journal tag. The alphas are Sassafrass Lass chipboard in juicy. I inked an MM chipboard arrow with colorbox Blue Lagoon ink. I inked the edges of the PP in Colorbox chestnut roan. The PP is Sassafrass Lass- take a chance and golden love. the flower is sassafrass Lass- in a stitch blossoms:blue.

Once again, I used a Sketchy Thursday sketch. This time, it's for the 5-20 sketch challenge:


http://sketchythursdays.blogspot.com/2010/05/520-sketch-challenge.html

I handmade the bird accent. I got the idea from Club CK to make something if I couldn't quite find the right thing in my stash. The bird that inspired me was a DCWV chipboard bird from the green stack collection. You can see it here with my bird:

I sketched the shape by hand and cut...2 times. I used 3-d adhesive foam to make the accent have more dimension.I did the same for the wing. I used a yellow marker to add "stitches" to the edges and a black marker to make the eye. I used my orange pencil to color the beak. The legs are just scrap pieces of orange CS.To make the plumes, I cut thin strips of scrap CS. I then rolled it and let the roll come undone until it looked as I desired it. My zig glue pen came in very handy here. To adhere the plumes to the head and to make the tail, I twisted the paper to make it flat, added glue and stuck it on. I used a dot of glue between each tail plume to keep them from coming apart. You can see how I twisted the paper here:

And finally, the big reveal:

Add a Comment