Squirrels! and a Thank You. (Projects 7, 8, and 9)

I’ll start with the thank you.  Ms. Di over at Pixie’s Snippets Playground featured my Autumn Greetings card.  Thank you so much, Ms. Di.  I felt so special.  Now on to the cards:

 

So I have a fair number of squirrel stamps because my mother is affectionately known as the crazy squirrel lady.  She does wildlife rehab and has rehabilitated and released many squirrels over the years.  She currently has a permanent resident of a three legged squirrel named Tripod Nubbins.  So I’ve accumulated many squirrel stamps.

 

Card 1

 

I stamped the squirrel with Hero Arts Shadow ink in Just Right and layered it on textured cardstock squares, putting the brown square at an angle.  The top is actually orange but it looks more yellow in the picture. The purple textured cardstock is punched with a Fiskar border punch and I stamped the sentiment with the HA Just Right Shadow ink.  It still needed something, so I took the pieces punched out of the purple and attached three to the top corner. (Do they count as snippets?) I’ve got tons of little ziplock baggies full of the punched bits from when I use border punches.  I’m such a pack rat; I can't throw the bits out. I figure I'll use them eventually.  So at least I used a few on this one. The rest went in a baggie.

The squirrel is an Inkadinkado stamp and the sentiment is by TPC Studio.

 

Card 2

 

This little guy is a digital stamp by A Day for Daisies.  I used my silhouette to print him and then cut the shape out.  I colored him with chalk and sprayed with a sealer.  The pattern paper I found in a paper storage container I bought when I first started card making, about seven years ago, and that I uncovered when I was organizing my papers a couple of months ago.  So I’ve probably had this paper that long.  I originally planned on adding some paper flowers to this piece, but I just wasn’t feeling it.  I decided to leave this one fairly simple.

 

Card 3

 

For this one, I stamped the image on X-press It paper with Memento Tuxedo Black.  I stamped the big acorn on a snippet of X-Press It paper with Memento Rich Cocoa and the acorn hat on a snippet with Memento Tuxedo Black.  I colored the images with Copics (the list of colors are at the bottom of this post) and a silver metallic color pencil.  I fussy cut the acorns with my Fiskar fingertip craft knife.  I love that thing for fussy cutting.  It takes a little getting used to but once you do, the control is amazing.  I popped the large acorn with foam squares but I just glued the hat on flat.  I wanted a little dimension but I was afraid popping it up would hide the squirrel's eyes.  The stamps are by Inky Antics.  The pattern paper and textured cardstock are from my stash.

Here's a close-up of the squirrel's acorn cap.

 

Copics:

Acorns – E21

                E23

                E25

                E27

Squirrel – E11

                E17

                E19

Basket – YR20

                YR21

                YR23

                YR24

                YR27

 

I'm entering Card 1 and 3 over at Pixie’s Snippets Playground

 

Thanks for stopping by and please come again.

 

 

 

Duckies and Digi Meets Silhouettes

After my Bunny Trouble, I decided I would give cutting a digital stamp with my Silhouette another try.  And I decided to keep it simple this time.  Here is the finished card.

I used a digital image by A Day for Daisies.  I just found this company last month and I really like their images.

I printed the digi stamp and used my Silhouette to cut a label shape around the image. I’ve included step by step instructions for doing this, with pictures.  I then cut a mat out of pattern paper to mount the image on.  Here’s what they looked like after being cut:

 

 I colored the image with Twinkle H2Os (the eggs) and colored pencils blended with baby oil (ducks).   I actually included the mat and image in my kit for the April Kit in an Envelope (KIAE) swap I participated in over at 2Peas.  I layered it on a piece of patterned paper.  Then I added Flower Soft to the flowers to give the card some texture.  And that’s it.

Here's a close-up of the Flower Soft:

 

Step by Step - Using Silhouette to Cut a Shape Around a Digi Stamp

Step 1

Open your silhouette studios software.  To hopefully assist in identifying which icons I’m talking about, across the top, there are 12 groups of icons on the toolbar.  Down the side, there are 7 groups.   And along the bottom, there are 5. I’ll use these numbers to help identify the different icons for the functions that you will need to use. For the toolbars along the top and bottom, I’ll count from left to right, unless otherwise indicated.

Now that you’ve got the software open, go either to file and then click open or click on the little open file folder icon. The open file icon is icon #2 in group #1 along the top.

 

Step 2

 

In the file open window, pick the folder where you have your digital stamps.  When you do this, the window will probably be empty.  Here's a picture of what happens when I go t open the digi:

 

The first time I did this, I freaked for a second before realizing that I needed to adjust the file type.  You need to go to the bottom of that window and change the file type setting.  When you first opened the window, it was set on silhouette studio (*studio).  If you change it to all file types, your digital images should show up. 

 

Then just pick the one you want to use.

 

Step 3

 

Once you have your digital image open, you may need to resize the image.  Since my ducks are just fine the way they are, I’ll show you another image that is a bit too large for a card without resizing.  This is A Day for Daisies digi stamp that measures almost 5x5 when first opened.

 

To resize, click on the icon to open the scale window.  It is icon #3 in group #10 (or the third group from the right).  If you haven’t clicked on the image, the values for the dimensions will be blank.

 

Once you click the image, you will see in the scale window the dimensions for your image.  Before you adjust the size, be sure to click the box to lock the aspect ratio.  If you don’t, you will distort your image.

 

Here's the resized image:

 

Step 4

Going back to my ducks, once your image is the size you want, you will want to click on the icon to open the registration mark window.  It is #3 in the last group along the top.  Once it is open, you will want to check the box for show reg marks.  When you print the image, the registration marks will print too.  Then your silhouette will read the registration marks when you go to cut.  This is supposed to ensure that your image gets cut out properly.   Here’s what that looks like.

 

At this point, you will want to move your image out of the grey area.  Since you will be putting a shape around it, for now it might be easiest to move the image to the very center. 

 

Step 5

Now we add the shape.  Go to your library.  It is icon #2 in group #6 down the left side and looks like an open book.  Once there, pick the shape you want to use.  I used a file that had several label shapes.  Once you click on the shape, it will open in the same document as your image.  If it is grouped with several shapes, like mine was, right click on the shapes and then pick ungroup.  Or you can click on icon #2 in group #1 at the bottom.

 

Once they are ungrouped, separate out the shape you want and delete the rest.

 

Place the shape over your image.

 

You will probably have to resize it.  You do that the same way as in Step 3.  It may take a couple of go rounds to get it just right.  And it will be easier if you zoom in (icon #1 in group #5 at the top – the magnifying glass with the plus sign in it).  Sometimes the zoom in gets carried away and brings you too close, just click on the zoom out (icon #2 in group #5 at the top – the magnifying glass with the minus sign in it).  I just eyeballed lining it up.

 

If you are going to move your image, to ensure that everything stays lined up the way you want, you will want to highlight both the shape and the image.  Then right click and choose group or click on icon #1 in group #1 at the bottom.  Now that they are grouped, the image and the shape will move as one.  You can also make copies if you want to do more than one or open a different image and start at the top.   You can put as many images and shapes on a page as you can fit.

 

Step 6

Now you are ready to send it to your printer. Either click on file and print or click the send to printer icon.  It is icon #1 in group #2 on the top.

 

Step 7

Once your image is printed, put the paper on your cutting mat and load it into your silhouette. Go to the cutting screen and select the applicable settings for the paper you used. (Icon #2 in the last group at the top).  Then you get to cut.

Step 8 - Optional

 

If you want to create a mat for your image, go back to your silhouette studio and ungroup your image and shape.  And you can just get rid of the image.  Then make a copy of your shape.  You will want to keep the original to figure out how big to resize the copy.  Resize the copy as described in step 3.  I just eyeballed it until it looked big enough for a mat.  To help with deciding on the size, I lined up the two shapes, so I could see how much bigger the mat was.  Once you get the mat the size you want, get rid of the original and then you can cut it out of the paper of your choice.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

   

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Bunny Trouble

Every have one of those projects that does not want to cooperate with what you have planned. And you are left with a choice of either forcing it to get with your plan or letting go of the plan and listening to what the project want to do. Well this was one of those projects. That cute little bunny did not like my plan. The planned card would have had the bunny on a cut out label shape with Fran-tage embossing powder and color fragments around the edges. As you can see, that is not what happened.

I started out by opening the bunny digi stamp (by a Day for Daisies) in my Silhouette Studio, resizing it, opening the label cut file, sizing it around the bunny, printing the bunny with registration marks, and then attempting to cut it out. The first time, I loaded the cutting mat wrong and the cut went through the middle of the bunny.

 

Attempt number two was successful. So I colored the bunny with colored pencils and blended them with baby oil. I then inked the edges of the label with Versamark ink and added the embossing powders and color fragments. Because the fragments don't stick to the piece, you have to heat it from underneath. Here's where it went horribly wrong. I scorched the paper in two places. So I set bunny aside and stated working on the background.

 

For the background, I decided to do an embossed resist technique. I started by stamping the Inkadinkado swirls with Versamark and embossed with clear embossing powder. You can kinda see the pattern I created on the paper.

I then added Distress Ink in milled lavender and tumbled sage. I thought the lavender was a little to pink, so went back and added some watered down dusty concord. Here's the final result.

 

 

Once I got done with the background, I went back to the bunny. I had two choices: start over or fussy cut the bunny out. I really liked how the coloring came out. So I decided to fussy cut the bunny. I used foam squares to attach him to the base. It still needed something. This weekend, I had made some flowers, leaves and butterflies using Martha Stewart molds and air dry clay. So I pulled out a couple of flowers and leaves and painted them with acrylic paints. Then I brushed on some Twinkle H2O paint to add a little sparkle. I used glue dots to add them to the corners, and viola, the bunny card was finished.

Here's a close up of the flower:

 

Thanks for stopping by and checking out my troublesome bunny.  Have a great day.

Challenges entered:
Crazy4Challenges - Number 228 Shake Your Thing
Emergency Crafters - Flowers
A Day for Daisies - Challenge 92 - Pretty Pastels