Puzzle Card Tutorial

Hi everyone!!!  Today, I have more Lawn Fawn goodness coming your way with a Puzzle Card!  Now, I have to say that I honestly don’t think I have ever seen this before, but that doesn’t mean that someone has not done this before me.  Today I am going to show you how I did it so that you can run out and get some of these amazing Lawn Fawn dies, stamps, and paper and do exactly what I did.  First, let me show you the final results.

 

 

 

When I was thinking of this project, I definitely had kids on the brain.  Both of my sons love puzzles, but my youngest Mason, is incredible with them.  I love to watch him put together puzzles and one day while I was watching him, I was trying to remember his first puzzle.  That is when the idea for this card hit me.  So let’s get this show on the road.  First, you want to pick your foreground paper and your background paper.  Then you want to take a thin sheet of chipboard and adhere it to the back of your foreground paper. 

Make sure that the chipboard is thin enough to be cut with your Lawn Fawn dies and your eBosser.  For my project, I am using the Lawn Fawn Home Sweet Home stamp set with coordinating dies along with the gorgeous Daphne’s Closet paper pack.  Next step is to arrange your stamps on an acrylic block. 

Once you have them in place, stamp them onto your foreground paper and your background paper without changing the placement of the stamps in between. 

After that, you will line up the dies with your stamped images.  This is a big reason why I like Lawn Fawn for this project because the opening in their dies line up perfectly with the stamped image, so you can really see where it is going to cut.  Once you have the dies lined up, you will use a little piece of tape to hold them in place.  Since I am going to use both the positive and the negative pieces, I had the tape adhere to the paper on the inside of the dies.  The reason for this is that if the paper tore when I removed the tape, since I was decorating those pieces, I knew that I would have a good chance of being able to cover it up.  I also figured that if I had to re-cut one of the pieces, would not be a big problem and cutting one piece would save me some waste as opposed to cutting the whole background again.  As it turned out, I did have a couple of small blemishes from removing the tape, but my instinct was right and I was able to hide them with the decorations.

After decorating the puzzle pieces, I then took out my trusty hole punch and I punched a small notch into the side of each opening of the background. 

I then lined the foreground on top of the background paper that I had stamped earlier and adhered it in place. 

I trimmed out the background paper with my Xacto knife and finished up my card.

I am very happy with how it turned out and Lawn Fawn’s products are just perfect for a project like this! Hope you enjoyed this tutorial and be sure to come back everyday this week to see what the rest of Craftwell’s Design Team have in store for you!

The Boys are getting anxious!

 

As you all probably know by now, I am the mom of two wonderful boys.  They are my pride and joy and I feel very blessed to be their mom.  They cannot wait for Halloween so I thought why not make them some t-shirts to express that!  Here are my two little munchkins, Jared and Mason, showing off the shirts that I made for them.

I used some of Cooler Concepts’ Dark t-shirt transfer film to make these and have to say it…love this stuff.  It is nice and thin once ironed on.  Now, I wanted to make these using my eBosser of course (because I am addicted) so here is how I did it.

 

First off, I printed some digital paper onto the transfer film. I used Echo Park’s Apothecary Emporium Collection which you can get digitally at JessicaSprague.com.  Then I turned to a die from Papertrey Ink called Modern Alphabet (Upper Case).  Here is how the die comes.

It comes on this sheet of magnet and also notice that the letters are attached with a thin piece of metal.  The reason for this is that you can break them apart.  No tools needed , just a little bending back and forth and they come apart.  That means that you can cut only the letters that you need.  When you do that, just put them on the magnet sheet for storage so you don’t lose any of them.

 

The eBosser cut the transfer paper like butter and in no time at all, I had all my letters ready to iron onto the shirts.  After removing the backing paper from each letter, I laid them out on my shirts.  I decided to go with a wonky line up just to add a little interest.  Here are all the letters laid out.

All I had to do at this point was place some parchment paper on top and them iron on.  So Easy!  My sons loved them and had to wear them the very next day.  Jared even told me that one of his teachers told him that she loved his shirt.

Now to survive the next 23 days until Halloween!

eCraft Design Team News

 

It’s official!  I am returning to the eCraft Design Team for a 2nd term and I’m just thrilled!!  You can read more about it HERE!  Also make sure you visit the eCraft by Craftwell blog everyday this week for announcements on who my fellow Design Team members are!

 

Oh….and I cannot forget to tell you about something else really exciting!!!  THE ECRAFT EBOOK!!!!  I feel so fortunate that they published four of my projects in the eBook.  There are so many inspiring projects in there, so take a look and get inspired for 2012!!!

eCraft Design Team Call!

 

Love your eCraft?  Then apply to become an eCraft Design Team Member!!!  There is now an open call.  You have until December 12th to get your submission in!  Being on the eCraft Design Team is a BLAST!

 

GO HERE for more information or to the eCraft by Craftwell Facebook page!

eCraft Design Team Video

Today is my turn to do a eCraft tutorial video for all of you and since this is my first video on the eCraft by Craftwell blog, I had to do something extra special!  Does anyone here like BLING?….WOW!  That was a resounding Yes!  Did you all know that you can cut Rhinestone patterns with your eCraft?  AND that there are several Rhinestone patterns available for purchase on eCraftCentral.com?  If you are in Halloween mode like me, then make sure to check out the rhinestone patterns that I used in my videos. 

The Ghost can be found HERE and the Spider can be found HERE.

Never done rhinestones before?  Don’t worry because I take you from beginning to end so you can follow along with me!

Isn’t it amazing how a few rhinestones can really dress up an ordinary tote bag?  You can add them onto almost any kind of fabric that you can iron.  Oh and I should probably mention that eCraftCentral.com also has some rhinestone patterns already released for Christmas!!  My mind is already coming up with all sorts of ideas for those!   Hope I inspired all of you to create something wonderful this weekend and I will be back here on the eCraft by Craftwell blog on Monday with another project for you using the awesome Square 1!

eCraft Monday Design Project

I hope all of you are in for a fun week of crafting!  This is the first week where your eCraft Design Team will be presenting projects utilizing not only the eCraft, but a special sponsor for the month!  This month our sponsor is Square 1.  Now, I will admit that I had not heard of Square 1 when we were first told that they were our sponsor, but I was immediately intrigued by this product.  Square 1 is a printable, removable adhesive fabric!  This is an amazing product, and even though it is a fabric, it is a lot like vinyl.  For this month, all of us are going to utilize this fantastic product and show you lots of ways that you can use Square 1 and your eCraft to create to your heart’s content!

 

This week, we are using Square 1 and our eCrafts to create something using the colors Orange and Purple.  Ahhh!  Purple…no problem for me!  When I think of Orange and Purple together, of course I think Halloween.  Halloween is a very big deal in our house, my kids look forward to it just as much as Christmas.  We actually already have our costumes and everything.  For this week’s project, I decided to show you how to use Square 1 instead of cardstock on your layered cuts.  Sometimes when using cardstock, the layers become so thick that it can be distracting.  This is not the case with Square 1! 

 

Since Square 1 is printable, I knew I wanted to use the Print & Cut Hinge Method with the vegetable cutting mat.  You can find a video that I did on this method HERE on my blog Purple Paper Paradise. 

I also knew that this would be the perfect time to play with the new Printable Tiles from Lettering Delights, so in Make the Cut, I set up blocks of the colors and patterns that I wanted to use and then laid my cut layers on top of these blocks.  First, I printed out the blocks without the cuts (except for the witch’s face).  One of the sheets shown below is printed on Matte Photo Paper and the other is on Square 1.  Can you tell the difference?  The print quality of Square 1 is amazing!  The colors are so vibrant!

 

 

For those of you wondering, the bottom sheet is the Square 1.  I then used the Print & Cut technique and cut out my shapes in some spare cardstock and then placed my print sheet underneath it to get it ready to be cut.

 

This color blocking technique works really great for this because there are no white edges!  Here is my witch all assembled (underwear and all!).  Isn’t she cute?  Even though, I will be covering her up, I decided to add the underwear because Square 1 is removable which means that she may change her clothes and I wouldn’t want her to expose herself!

 

Now it is time to get her dressed!  I cut out my Square 1 the same way I did the paper layer to make her a couple of outfits to choose from.

 

Now she has a few options for Halloween! It’s hard to see in the pictures, but the texture on the Square 1 really makes realistic looking clothes and adds that extra something special!

Hope you all enjoyed my Orange & Purple creation this week using my eCraft and Square 1, and make sure you come back here everyday this week to see what Debi, Lisa and Raven have!  I know that I am looking forward to seeing what these talented ladies have in mind for this week!  Also, on Friday, I will be back here on the eCraft by Craftwell blog with a whole new video!  If you like bling, you don’t want to miss the video! 

 

Supplies:

eCraft (of course!)

Square 1 printable removable fabric

Matte Photo Paper (for the witch body and the printed banner sentiments using Slap Happy font)

Papertrey Ink Orange Zest cardstock (card base)

Core’dinations cardstock (purple background) embossed with a spider web embossing folder and sanded down.  Inked edges with Distress Ink Black Soot

Lettering Delights Witch One Cut Its Set with Basic Tiles for the orange and purple patterned layers

Papertrey Ink Black Swiss Dot Ribbon

Copic Markers for inking edges of witch

eCraft Monday Design Team Project

Hi everyone! Welcome my first design team post for the eCraft by Craftwell blog! This is the first week when all of us on the design team will follow a challenge put forth to us! For this week, our challenge was to use the Fundamentals 1 SD card with a Love theme! For my project today, I decided to do a scrapbook layout focusing on a picture that I recently came across of my MIL and FIL posing with my husband. I am guessing that my husband is about 18 months old in this picture.

Notice that heart background paper on the layout right there in the middle? Well I created that with my eCraft! Here’s how I did it and I have to tell you that this is really fun especially if you love to get inky! I used eCraftshop Pro to cut out Image 11 from Category 7 on Fundamentals 1. Once on my mat, I copied the image several times and then lined everything up. I then cut it and used only the negative image. I positioned everything on my non-stick craft mat with some painters tape. Next comes, the fun inky part! I used Fired Brick Distress Ink and the foam pad on my ink blending tool and added ink to all those exposed areas. This stencil works great for this technique!

Next I cut out Image 10 from Category 7 on Fundamentals 1 and layered it on top of the inked portions.

The next thing that I did was spritz the entire paper & the mat layer with some Perfect Pearls Heirloom Gold Spray. Love the sparkle and it works really well with my background paper!

I also used my eCraft to create the title on this page. These letters are really thin and it just goes to show that when you pair up a delicate font with the right paper and the right pressure setting, you can get just gorgeous results!

Here are some details on the cuts and what pressure settings I used.
For the heart background paper, all paper cut is from Core’dinations and I used a pressure setting of 5, tab density and tab width of 1. I used my veggie mat stabilizer, multi-cut off, blade cap on.
For the Love, I used Papertrey Ink Distressed Dots, and cut it with a pressure of 4, tab density and tab width of 1. I used my veggie mat stabilizer, multi-cut off, blade cap on.
For the “brings many blessings”, I used Papertrey Ink Bitty Dot Paper and cut it with a pressure of 4, tab density and tab width of 1. I used my veggie mat stabilizer, multi-cut off, blade cap on.
For the word art shadow, I used Basic Grey Basics paper and cut it with a pressure setting of 5, tab density and tab width of 1. I used my veggie mat stabilizer, multi-cut off, blade cap on.
The other supplies that I used not already mentioned are My Mind’s Eye Laundry Line (background paper), Papertrey Ink Spring Moss and Fine Linen cardstock (mats), Martha Stewart border punch. The 1^st Son and 1^st Grandson were printed from my computer. I also used Papertrey Ink Tea Dye Duo for inking the edges. Papertrey Ink Spring Moss Grosgrain Ribbon with a Papertrey Ink Sweet Blush button and their Natural Button Twine.
Hope you all enjoyed this project and be sure to follow the eCraft by Craftwell blog!  Tomorrow is a whole new eCraft project by Debi!  I can’t wait to see it!

The Cat Is Out of the Bag!!!

Surprise!

I can finally share my secret!!!  I have been selected to join the Design Team for the eCraft!  Be sure to go over to the eCraft by Craftwell blog and see the announcement!  While you are there, be sure to sign up to follow the blog so that you won't miss the other great designers and what they have for you too!  We have some AMAZING projects lined up!