Having Fun with Vinyl

 

Thought the Pucca cut looked so cute on Patti's card that I decided to try a few more of her, this time in vinyl. Found an image of Pucca with her boyfriend, Garo that I liked and rendered it into a cutfile in MTC. Unfortunately my stash of vinyl is limited to only a few basic colors so Pucca and Garo's faces had to be very very pink!

 Adhered them to a plastic scrapbook supply case and personalized it with Patti's name...

 

 Also tried the same Pucca and chopsticks image that I used on Patti's card in vinyl and adhered her onto a clear red acrylic cup. I used Oracal 651 and Scotchcal 220 vinyl for my projects since these are permanent vinyls which differ from most of the vinyls typically sold in scrapbooking stores which are usually only intended for "indoor use".  The permanent vinyls have a more durable adhesive on them which can withstand higher temperatures and detergents and therefore are more suitable for cars, windows, cups and food storage items that need to be washed.

Having successfully finished Patti's cup and case, I was feeling pretty confident and decided I was ready to try a more "permanent" project...decorating my netbook!  I had been wanting to do this for quite a while but was always too afraid that I'd mess up...LOL, everything else can be dumped if I made a mistake, but I wouldn't be able to throw away my netbook...!

 

 I started by drawing an image of my doggie Latte...just couldn't find a cute image of a Maltese that I liked so finally decided to draw my own...and saved it as a jpeg image. Used MTC (Make the Cut) to render it into a cutfile and had my Silhouette Cameo do the cut in vinyl. Happily it turned out just as I hoped...it brings a smile to my heart and reminds me of my little doggie everytime I use my netbook!

 And finally, here's a pic of our little Latte (minus her top knot)...haven't posted a photo of her in quite awhile, but she's the reason for the white doggie you see in many of my card projects created for dh and dd.

 

 

Meet Pucca!

Have you met Pucca (pronunced: puka)? Originally created by Korean animation company Vooz, she's a cute young Chinese girl, whose character has taken Asia by storm. Typically sweet and shy as an Asian girl should be, Pucca also posseses super strength ninja powers and an explosive personality when the need arises. LOL, she reminds me a little of my dear friend Patti of Creations by Patti, and I have been itching to do a card for her using little Pucca!

After creating a cutfile for Pucca using MTC, I decided to try my first center step style card. There are tons of different sized center step templates on the web, but for my card I decided to go with the one created and shared by Sandy Hulsart.
I used Spellbinders Label 9 for the center step, embossing it with  Crafts-Too's Blossom Mums folder.After attaching it to the center step, I trimmed away the excess from the center step to allow the front panel to stand out. Label for my sentiment was created by welding a rectangle from the George cartridge to the modern cube from the Paper Lace cartridge in Cricut Design Studio. Font used was WonTon, and patterned paper is digitized washi paper.

And here's how the card opens up...

I added another image of Pucca, this time with her best friend Ching, both created in MTC. This was a fun card to put together, although I did run into a problem with the weight of all the layers on the front center step not allowing the card to stand up properly. I ended up having to glue an additional layer of card stock to the base card to try and balance the weight of the card and that seemed to have fixed the problem somewhat. Have to remember to use a sturdier cardstock for my base next time around with this type of card.



Baby Brooke's Shoes

This was the baby card I recently came up with to celebrate the arrival of my cousin's brand new grandaughter. For this, I knew before I started that I wanted to try some stitching. I love the look of stitching on cards, but have always been too afraid to try it. So when I came across the Sew Easy tool byWe R Memory Keepers, I bought it right away, thinking I could easily add fancy stitching on my projects without having to take out my sewing machine. I spent quite a bit of time practicing with my new toy on scrap pieces of paper, but wasn't too pleased with the results. I had a difficult time trying to get the tool to pierce consistently through cardstock. I used a foam type mat underneath, and when I used enough pressure to pierce the cardstock, it left unsightly crease marks....not happy!
I ended up taking out my sewing machine afterall, and found that it wasn't as difficult as I had thought it would be. Still haven't quite figured out how to properly adjust the tension and stitch length/width to vary the stitch length, though. (If anyone can give me any advice on how to do this, it would truly be appreciated!) I was pretty happy how the stitching turned out for my first attempt at this...only wish I had used a different colored thread so it would have shown up a little better...

The baby shoes were cut using a MTC cutfile I had created a last year for another baby card. This time I sized them down a bit so they would fit my card and added tiny blossoms punched with a mini Punch Bunch punch. The lacy border behind the shoes was made using  Martha Stewart's Valentine Lace edge and EK Success Large Scroll Pattern edge punches. Added a pink satin bow and baby's name to complete the card.

Kept it simple on the inside with a repeat of  the patterned paper and theValentine Lace edge border.

FYI, just did a search for reviews on the Sew Easy Tool and to my surprise, found that mostly everyone else who purchased this tool absolutely loves it! Hmmm...maybe I need to play around with it a bit more...







Make the Cut Swing Card

This was actually a personal challenge to myself...at first I thought it couldn't be done...Well, it took me quite awhile, but I think I finally figured out how to create a cutfile in MTC for a swing card (aka flip it card) with a fancy label shape. Decided to test my cutfile by using it to make a birthday card for my dear friend, Pat. (Please pardon the color discrepencies in the photos caused by poor lighting...)

The cutsie hedgehogs are a cut from Cricut Create A Critter cartridge, and the grass and flowers are quick cutfiles created in MTC.

Used Cuttlebug Swiss Dots folder to emboss the back panel and added stickles to the flower petals...

On the inside, I added a couple more hedgies and a mini birthday cupcake cut from an EK Success mini cupcake punch. This was a pretty quick and easy card to put together, once I figured out how to get the swing card base onto MTC. Not sure exactly what it is about these cards, but something about the way they open up just intrigues me! So far I've created (but have not yet tested) the circle, diamond, heart and flower shapes for the swing elements. Looking forward now to testing the files to make sure they actually cut and work correctly and maybe trying out more different shaped swing elements before novelty of it wears out for me.

Sakura Spell Out

Have you seen Dandelion Designs' adorable Sakura Alphabet set? It features tiny kimono clad girls each holding sakura bearing an alphabet. Uh, did I mention these are tiny? Coloring them up are pretty quick because they are so teensy, but better make sure you have both a sharp pair of scissors and eyes to cut them out!

Nevertheless it was fun putting them together to spell out words...for this card, I lined them up and had them spell out "A-R-I-G-A-T-O", which means "thank you" in Japanese.

Used foam tape to pop the girls up and placed them into another recessed window card. For the backdrop, I scattered mini sakura cut from my mini Punch Bunch punch onto red cardstock which had been spritzed with Tsukineko Gold Shimmerz. After adding the gold and red border accents, my card still felt like it needed something more. Went thru my stash and found some gold mizuhiki cord, and decided it was finally time to learn how to do something with it. Found a tutorial  over at Zakka Life and was able to make my very first "awabi musubi" or Josephine knot, a Japanese symbol of good luck. It was just what my card needed!

On the inside, I used Chopin and Gabriola fonts for my message and embellished with a border of sakura cut with the WikiCAPS die and Nellie Snellen flower centers punch.
I must say it was quite satisfying to get this card done. Had a chance to get my hands inky from stamping again, and even learned to do a mizuhiki knot...LOL, and guess what, no electronic cutting machines used to create this card!

Origami-fold Tote...Supersized!

Not too long ago my sweet friend Ev did a tutorial for us at one of our monthly Cricuteer Club meetings for a little Origami fold tote bag. Using only a piece of 6x6" cardstock, ribbon, a hole punch, some adhesive and a few quick folds, Ev showed us how easily it was to make her adorable treat bag.  The best part is that no cutting was involved in constructing it!  The finished size of the mini bag was 2-1/2" x 3", the perfect size to hold a snack size candy. I really liked the mini-size but wondered how it would turn out using a larger sheet of cardstock?  At our next meeting, Ev had the same Origami tote to show us, only this time she had used a 12x12" sheet of cardstock...I totally loved this larger sized bag (5x6") even more, and knew I'd have to make a few too...

Originally I wanted to post a link to a tutorial for this tote, but after exhaustive searching online neither Ev or I could find the original tutorial. Ev did find a video tutorial by Kim Burmeister for a "gift card purse" which uses very similar folds which you can view here.
Only difference is for Ev's mini tote bag, she scored at 1-1/2" and 1-1/2" for the first set for scorelines and 2-1/2" and 2-1/2" for the second set of scorelines. For the supersized tote which uses 12x12 cardstock, we scored at 3" and 3" for the first set of scorelines and 5" and 5" for the second set of scorelines. Follow Kim's video for instructions on the folding. Then on the inside of the bag, the side panels were adhered to the front and back panels so the bag would sit upright.

As always, adding the embellishing touches was the funnest part. The little panda and shadow on the front were created in MTC, cut in several layers and popped with foam tape. Red sakura flower was handcut from the patterned cardstock and adhered to the front of the bag with more foam tape. Red flower shaped eyelets were used on the holes for the handles to give it a finished look.
Really liked the larger size of this tote, as it turned out to be the perfect size to fit the bags of yummy macadamia nut puffed rice candies I wanted to share with my friends. Loved that these bags were so quick to construct and that they can be easily made in different sizes by simply using different sized squares.
*edited to add: Just received an email from reader Janis U. who found and shared a link to instructions for this tote bag by Jonathan Phillips. Thank you, Janis! It has good illustrations to help explain the folding for this tote, but you'll probably want to use the scoring instructions provided above.

Fenghuang: the Auspicious Chinese Phoenix

As you might imagine, coming up with a card worthy enough to send  my blogging pal, Patti for her birthday was quite a challenge for me. If you've seen any of Patti's amazing creations on her blog, you know what I mean! For starters, I knew it had to be RED (her fave color) and Asian (her fave theme).
After much deliberation, I finally chose to go with a tri-fold screen card. I knew I had to fix and tweak the original cutfile I used to make my first tri-fold screen card to fulfill an earlier cutfile request, so this gave me the opportunity to test the file before sharing it.
For my background papers, I chose papers from the Garden Zen collection from Lettering Delights(red) and the Dreams of Japan collection from Jazzy Patterns (pink). The seal on the bellyband is simply a Chinese long life sticker framed with a Martha Stewart Caning Pattern punch.

And here's what the card looks like in the inside... I decided I wanted to use an image of the auspicious phoenix, a legendary symbol of good fotrune, opportunity & luck to Asian cultures. It took many hours searching the internet but I finally came across an image I liked and felt would be suitable for rendering into a cutfile. Cleaned it up in Photoshop and MTC easily created the cutfile.

Metallic & glittery mylar sticker paper adhered to cardstock were used to cut out the phoenix, which I popped up with dimmensionals onto a background embossed with one of the folders from the Cuttlebug Asian Bundle.

I especially loved all the intricate cuts on the phoenix, and it was such a joy knowing my Silhouette machine would not disappoint me!

Inside sentiments are computer generated and printed, using AR Decode and Chopin fonts, then cut into panels by the Silhouette. Added gold Robin's Nest dewdrops to the feet of the center screen as a final touch.

Had fun putting this card together, and amazingly I was able to get it finished and in the mail in time for Patti's birthday! Hoping she likes it as much as I had fun making it....