Two of the teachers I work with are getting married next month so I was assigned the job of making a card. I struggled with coming up with an idea for this and finally I went to my favorite go-to site… www.lovesvg.com.
(By the way, I don’t get anything free or compensation for using their stuff).
I made a shape card. I used that heavy weight kraft paper from Joann for the base. I really like that stuff. It makes for a nice, sturdy card.
I thought about doing the leaves and lettering in paper, but vinyl is so much easier. Even though I’m limited on my color choices (I need to order some more vinyl from Team KNK so I have more variety!), It made it so much easier to apply and best of all, no glue mess!
Machines: Zing for cardstock (10/10/red blade) and Maxx for vinyl (f 75 v 250)
I know this is a little late, but I’ve been a little behind this year. I’m really into watercolor pencils right now so I used them to make this card. I downloaded the graduation cap from the internet. It was in two parts:
So when I stuck it on the card, I used foam tape for the top part and glued the bottom part right underneath. It’s hard to see that in the card, but I think it gave it a little pop. I use my die cuts and my machine simultaneously. Each has it’s own pros and cons. One pro of using the machine is you can easily set it to duplicate an image and you can cut out a whole sheet of something, which is what I did. Also, you are not limited to the size of the die cuts, with a machine, you can size the image any size you want.
I’m using the same card format for my daughter’s thank you cards, which we are also behind on and need to write… of course, I have to finish putting them together too.
A little hint: if you do make water color cards, they tend to warp when they dry, so it’s a good idea to put them under a heavy book for a day or so. I forgot to do that with this card and it’s a little warped.
Now that we are well into February, and many of our friends in the milder climates are even talking spring, I thought I’d change up my ornament garland on my little studio fireplace to something more appropriate for this time of year. Since pom poms seem to be popular right now, I combined them with some little pennants for a fun bunting.
Materials:
Yarn of your choice
Large needle
Ribbon, twine, or string
Heavy cardstock or art paper (I used 100 lb Bristol)
I am not a pom pom pro, but they are pretty easy to make and I was lucky to find some variegated yarn in my stash that I knew would work well. After a little practice, I was satisfied with my results. I used cotton yarn and wrapped it around 2 or 3 fingers about 40 times. Then, I removed it from my fingers, and tied a small length of yarn very tightly around the middle of the bunch. Next, I cut the loops on both ends and fluffed the balls. My pom poms didn’t turn out very uniform, so I did a lot of trimming to get them roundish.
The SVG file can be simply copied and then pasted into MTC. Each portion should be on a separate layer. I created a third layer with a rectangle surrounding the pennants which I set as the bottom layer. (I may not have needed the rectangle, but I wanted to make sure the registration marks stayed in the same exact place for the printing and cutting. By having the rectangle layer turned on for both steps, the registration marks never moved.)
I labeled the image layer, “Print Only”, the cut line layer, “Cut Only”, and the rectangle layer, “Print and Cut”. This was to remind me which layers should be turned on, and which should be turned off for each step.
Steps:
Open Pennant and Pom Pom file (or file of your choice) in Make the Cut.
Prepare for printing. Make sure the check box for “Print Registration Marks” is checked in Print Options. Double-check that your print layer is on and cut layer is off.
Print
Place printed image on mat. (I have learned from a multitude of errors, to make sure my mat is sticky enough, and scrapped clean of extra paper scraps, residue, lint, etc. This will save you both time and wasted material.)
Turn on the cut layer and make sure that the print layer is off. Follow instructions for print and cut.
Remove pennants from the mat.
If desired, turn pennant over and use stylus to emboss dots in scallops
Thread a large needle with the ribbon or twine. Start stringing pom poms by sticking the needle through a pom pom so that it goes right through the middle. Alternate pennants and pom poms, starting and ending with a pom pom.
Display your new bunting in your craft space for a little fun inspiration. It will make you smile!
Last month I made a card out of a panda I modified. At work, we had a secret cupid and I knew I wanted to do something with that panda again. So I sized it up and made a panda shape card.
The person I was secretly giving gifts for figured out it was me.
She said that she heard I was the one who “made cute cards.” So I guess I outed myself.
I stamped some envelopes to match.
It was a lot of fun and even though she figured out it was me, it was worth it.
At the school I work at, one of our sayings, since the Panda is our mascot, is that we are pandas with heart. I found a cute stamp set at the swap meet and had been wanting to make a Panda-piecing card for awhile. A few months back, I did a print and cut, but I wanted to do paper-pieced one.
