Tuesday 26 February 2013

Hexagons Layout

To celebrate that the Fresh Moments dies that I designed for Sizzix EU are arriving to the shops around, I thought I would a series of tutorials and projects featuring the collection in the last few weeks in three blogs that I post - Sizzix EUTubo and this very one.
Today Be sure to visit the blog from Tubo as I made the blog post for February.


As a companion piece I thought I would share this 8 x 8 layout made with the left over Hexagons I got left from the card. All papers and embellishments are from My Minds Eye Indie Chick collection.

Friday 22 February 2013

Lovely Doilies

To celebrate that the Fresh Moments dies that I designed for Sizzix EU are arriving to the shops around, I thought I would a series of tutorials and projects featuring the collection in the last few weeks in three blogs that I post - Sizzix EUTubo and this very one.


Today I am doing a project using the Lovely Doilies set of dies. 


I started by die cutting several doilies out of yellow, pink and grey Bo Bunny's Double Dot papers. Then I used both Circle Framelits set - the original set 1 and the second one which has the missing sizes, no repeat sizes.I place them on top so that I can see which sizes will I need. Then I die cut them using the same papers. I layer them and attach them together.


I place each of the circles up side down, placea big line of hot glue gun on the back and place the painted kebab stick to it. Put a dot at the top and push the decorative paper clip at the top. Let the glue get cold and add some more to make sure it is well attached.


To make the faux grass I die cut loads of bunches from the Bunch of Flowers die set out of several shades of green. Then I attached one and then use double sided tape around the same height. Attaching a couple at a time I finished covered the whole mini watering can all round.

I finished it with some ribbon from CraftFairy, where you can find loads of great ribbon at very good prices. I die cut some Instant Frames and place them over some of my favourite photos and attach them to the paper clips. And there it is:


There is plenty more you can do with the doilies, like the card bellow done with the one die that has not a circle outer blade. 


Wednesday 20 February 2013

Food Flags

To celebrate that the Fresh Moments dies that I designed for Sizzix EU are arriving to the shops around, I thought I would a series of tutorials and projects featuring the collection in the last few weeks in three blogs that I post - Sizzix EUTubo and this very one.

I thought I would do another post using the free downloadables from yesterday. And continuing the sweet theme, I thought I would share this way to make the


Place the cocktails sticks on a foam (I use the ones that come with the Texture Impressions packs). This way is easier to manage them as well as keeping a part of them unpainted safe for food (If I was doing this for proper food that I was going to serve I would use food safe paints, but I didn't have any at the time). I painted the sticks and let them dry.


I printed the free download from yesterday and die cut the messages that are more separated in the middle. (That spacing is made un purpose so that they work as flags.) Place the die, secure it with low tack tape and die cut using your Big Shot.
Fold it in half and attach it to a cocktail stick using tacky glue or your adhesive of choice.

And there they are:


I needed a little plate to put sweets on. So I thought this might work. it kind of does but still is not perfect.


I die cut one of the larger hexagons. Draw lines across each point and place a smaller (the second smallest Hexagon) in the centre. Then I scored the lines from the smaller hexagon going all out. I folded them as shown on the photo.



I place low tack tape on the the sides of the drawn lines and pinch them up so they stay in place. Then remove the low tack tape to make sure it stays as plate rather than a bowl. 


Forgive the photo, you can see the foam but I had run out of jelly beans by this stage!

Monday 18 February 2013

Fresh Moments Downloads

To celebrate that the Fresh Moments dies that I designed for Sizzix EU are arriving to the shops around, I thought I would a series of tutorials and projects featuring the collection in the last few weeks in three blogs that I post - Sizzix EUTubo and this very one.

Today I would like to share a first for me. A free printable download! I thought it would be nice to have a printable that matches the Fancy Banners Framelit set from the Fresh Moments collection.



Click here to download.
You will need to print at 100%, borderless and with no expansion! And remember that is free for personal use. Any other use contact me!

PS: As it is the first time that I do this, there may be a few issues, just let me know.

So here you have a small project made with the free download!


I printed the free download and placed the second smallest die over the printed banner (on the freebie you get two sizes without any messages so that you can stamp your personal one). Then I die cut the banner and score it at 1 3/4" from the straight edge.


I put some jelly beans (colour matches of course!) and attached the bag to the paper using the Tim Holtz Tiny Attacher. Then I used double sided tape to secure the top flap on to the plastic bag. This will create the white card comes round the back.


Alternatively, you can trim off about an 1" from the bottom to remove any back flap.


I just think they look lovely all together ready to give away as little thank you's for a birthday party or wedding.

Friday 15 February 2013

How I store my Framelits - Updates 28/04/13

As you know I am mad about storage. So mad that I started this little blog Crafty Storage. So today I would like to share how I currently store Sizzix Framelits. 

I use CD cases for some of the Framelits sets, specially those that come with matching stamps, but for Fresh Moments I wanted something different that I could carry around easily.


I store my whole Fresh Moments dies (all fourteen sets) in three Stampin Up empty DVD cases. These ones came with unmounted stamps. I still have the stamps but I keep them in a EZ Mount binder from Crafters Companion

But you can get the DVD cases empty from any shops that supply Darkroom Door rubber stamps, including SirStampalot - one of my favourite craft shops in the UK -, or  Simon Says Stamp.



I cut pieces of black thick card to fit in the box and glue a thick magnetic sheet, it doesn't need to cover the whole thing. 


I place all the dies from the set on the magnetic area and mark each area with a white permanent marker. This is important to me as I taken away sometimes for demos so I need to make sure quickly that I have all the dies from a set packed safely.


I have the cases labeled with a number so I know what sets has each case.


And then I store the cases on the top of my die cutting bookshelf.

Wednesday 13 February 2013

Edge Framelits



To celebrate that the Fresh Moments dies that I designed for Sizzix EU are arriving to the shops around, I thought I would a series of tutorials and projects featuring the collection in the next few weeks in three blogs that I post - Sizzix EUTubo and of course this very one.
This is a mini tutorial on how the Edge Framelits work. Basically they are a framelits designed to go on the edge of a card. Some of them will cut a decorative edge and some will cut smaller details a long a vertical line (like the flower on the left of the photo bellow).


There are two sets of Edge Framelits in the Fresh Moments collections. 
Today I will feature the Dotty and Flower set. The other set is called Flowers and Hearts.

All the Edge Framelits that actually cut a decorative edge can be cut two ways, positive or negative. 


The negative way is basically getting the edge on the opposite side that it was designed or originally thought, but often equally as decorative.


The positive way is to place the side with the decorative blade on the right side of the card edge like the above photo shows. 


To decorate the front I die cut a vase (Flower Vases), flowers (Bunch of Flowers) and sentiment tags on which I stamped the message - from Simple Flowers.
I placed inside of the card a pice of stripe paper and a the scallop band die cut using the Circle Wrappers
You can see bellow how the scallop band of the Circle Wrappers works with the edgelit looks rather nice, dont you think?



Monday 11 February 2013

Intricate flowers: 3D



To celebrate that the Fresh Moments dies that I designed for Sizzix EU are arriving to the shops around, I thought I would a series of tutorials and projects featuring the collection in the next few weeks in three blogs that I post - Sizzix EUTubo and of course this very one.

Today I am going to show a quick and easy way of making 3D flower using the Intricate Flower dies.

To begin with, I die cut several flowers out of Coffee filters and coloured them in using Dylusions sprays, one of my most favourite ways to add vibrant colour.

(Be sure to go to the Sizzix blog for a further tutorial on how to get the flowers with this colours using the Dylusions and coffee filters. Plus, there is a mini tutorial on how to make a flower garland.)
I took one of the flowers and folded in half and then I made it to roll into a bud.
I did the same with about five of them and hold them together. I turned them upside down and trin the botton off of all of them. This may seem stupid but it is important for this quick and easy way of making 3D flowers.


Place a flower on a heat resistant mat and place a blob of hot glue in the centre. Place the the bud created before in the centre and add more layers bellow (I think I added 2 more) and it is ready to be used.
Now I used to make them with tissue paper and it took forever, with this quick way I can assemble them in 2 minutes.


I just made this simple card to incorporate the flower, but as you can imagine there are hundreds of more inventive ways to use them.

Saturday 9 February 2013

Over at the Sizzix blog



To celebrate that the Fresh Moments dies that I designed for Sizzix EU are arriving to the shops around, I thought I would a series of tutorials and projects featuring the collection in the next few weeks in three blogs that I post - Sizzix EUTubo and of course this very one.

Check the Sizzix EU blog for a Flower Garland tutorial.

Saturday 2 February 2013

Busy busy bee

January and February are typically the busiest months of the year for the life of a craft designer in the UK. Stitches, the nicknames for the Craft, Hobby and Stitch Trade show at the NEC takes place in the middle of February and prep for it takes a big chunk of my time. I have been demonstrating there since 2006 so its been a while.

This year though we had also Paperworld or Creativeworld as the section where all the craft companies were at. And because it was at the end of January it meant that most of deadlines were brought up by a few weeks.


It was great seen my two of my new Sizzix collections - Fresh (Spring, available right now) and Winter Moments (Christmas, available from July I think!) - for this year was huge milestone for me. I made apost with more photos over at the Sizzix blog.

I still have loads to do in the two short weeks till Stitches, so off I go and finish them off.




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