Rudolph Day 2022# September

 A couple of months ago Sue used some images and dies from a company called Carnation Crafts. I have not visited this site for years and had forgotten how much I liked them - though some of their designs may be a bit 'fussy' for some folks. They sell a large range of dies, and for most of them you can also download a printed image to cut. Unfortunately the company is based in UK so I am wary of ordering from them in case I get caught for high import duties. But I did buy just a couple. 

But the last time I visited their site I found they now have a 'digital market' section where you can buy a selection of their designs as SVGs which can be used on most electronic cutters, including my Silhouette cameo. Unlike many cutting files, which only give the outline and inner windows of a piece, these have the option to cut the detail which are just lines, but do enhance the finished image. So yes, I did treat myself to a few, and here are the cards I made to try them out. 

These are using the robin family. An advantage of a cutting machine over dies is that you can choose what size the image is, so my first card uses a large robin which has three decoupaged layers. I used some torn paper effect circles to cut the window frame, and torn paper square fames from the silhouette store. The branch is a part of the cutting file for the robin.

The paper is an oddment from a pad and I no longer know its name, and the surround is embossed with my snow fall folder. I don't know the make and am not sure it is still available, but I use mine a lot.

I finished the card with random drops of glitter glue, and a peel-off sticker. (I have straightened it since I took this photo!).

For my second card I again cut images from the robin family set. The brown lines you can see on the robins are tiny cut lines which make their feathers so much more realistic.

The white frames are another set from the same company, and I used the silhouette software to make a matching base card and mat. The sentiment was a file in my silhouette library. I again added a small amount of glitter glue and some snowflakes from silver holographic vinyl. They have picked up some blue in the photo but really they are fairly white.

I can see me using these print and cut files more in the future, and I already have several designs to try.

For now I will link up with September Rudolph Day Challenge over at scraps of life with Scrapy Mo.

Rudolph Day Challenge 2022 # August

Well here we are again, and as I have had various family groups visiting me for the past six weeks I had to think of a quick card for today.

Quite a while ago I ordered a Penny Black stamp that I saw on Amazon without realising it was coming from America. They said they would send it when it became available, and it should arrive before 10th October! To my surprise it turned up last week. I couldn't even remember what was in the little envelope until I opened it. Anyway it was this sweet group of children singing carols. The stamp was called 'Choir kids'.

I stamped it on a scrap of white paper, added a little colour with copic markers, and loosely cut around it..

I made a 17 x 11.5 cm base card in deep red, (a standard European size). Then I found a set of vintage Christmas music papers that I think came with a large bundle I bought from Creative fabrica, but I am not sure. I didn't recognise all the songs on the papers but I thought Joy to the World was quite fitting for this image.

The frame is from Carnation Crafts, as a print and die cut set. As it is a die I cannot resize it, and it was a little too big really. I didn't want to hide the title at the top so I cut a slit across the paper,  and a matching one at the lower edge, and tucked the two ends of the frame behind it. Then I mounted the image on top, and a relatively quick and easy card was done.

Next month when all my visitors have left, I shall try to do a run of cards again, as I think I am rather behind with my collection this year. But every one helps. So if you feel like starting on your Christmas cards, do join us for some inspiration, and link one up at Rudolph Day Challenge for August, on Scraps of Life by Scrappy Mo.

I am also linking with the Peace on Earth Christmas Challenge #22, where  - 'Anything goes as long as it is for Christmas.'

Rudolph Day Challenge 2022 # July

I recently saw a post on one of the Silhouette pages I follow on Facebook, where a lady named Sabine Harris, showed a card she had designed, and she generously shared the cutting file for the template. I like it, and it is very versatile as the circles could have flowers or butterflies etc for a birthday card, a sentiment on each one, or of course Christmas images and BP. So I went for this option to try it out.

I chose three fun images from the Silhouette store. They were each layered cutting files but as I wanted to use them quite small, I kept them as a one-layer complete image each, and used the print and cut option on my Cameo. I used some plain red paper snippets to cut the mats for each circle. Then I found solid green lightweight card snippets to cut the inner circles and some of the outer pieces, and chose a backing paper to cut the rest. To give some contrast I used plain white card for the centre circle background. (I think the BP was some offcuts from a magazine giveaway).

I glued all the pieces in place and added perfect pearls in white for the fur trim on the hats, and gold and yellow glitter glue for the stars on the centre wreath and the lights on the third image. I also cut one small piece of holly from the BP to add interest to the dark green lower panel. I haven't decided whether or not to add a sentiment to the upper panel as only half of it will show when the card is closed.

The card folds up over itself to give a small 8½ x 17cm card. Fortunately the designer added a file to cut a matching envelope.

I have since enlarged the file to make a card that will fit nicely into a standard slimline envelope.

I will link this with Rudolph Day# July over on Scraps of Life with Scrappy Mo, 

Also in the Snippets Playground where the theme is anything Christmas related,

And My Time to Craft Christmas have the theme "Cutesy Christmas" so I am linking there too.

Rudolph Day Challenge # June 2022

Recently I saw a card I liked on a Facebook page. The lady who posted it had made a design for her Cricut machine. This is similar to my Silhouette Cameo but I think the software is much more restrictive. Anyway I cannot use Cricut files in my Silhouette, so I looked up the link where she said she had found the original design. This was by a designer called Iced Images, and the card design is called Z-fold pop-up block card. She does not design for a machine but measures and cuts everything by hand. Her video tutorial was good, so although she was working in inches, which I left behind many moons ago, I followed her step by step and made a birthday card that I was quite pleased with. (Unable to show it yet).

But I realised that it would be a lot easier if I cut it all in cms on my machine, so I set about making my own file for Silhouette, changing the dimensions of each piece slightly to fit my usual base card (17 x 11.5cms). I used this to make a second birthday card and was very happy with the results, so I now have a file in my library that I can use at any time. And I used for my Christmas designs this time.

For my first card today I chose a sheet of scrapbook paper from my extensive collection on the computer, and down sized it to give the effect I wanted.

The santa was made from some clipart pictures merged together, resized and cut from glossy black vinyl.

I cut the background twice so I could continue it across the front and side panels. I chose some navy card snippets for the mats, and finished it off with a silver peel-off sentiment and some randomly placed stars.

I then decided to have a second go while I was on a roll and this time I used some dark red card for the mats, red patterned paper from a magazine, and a pale pink sheet from a give-away. It has probably been in my files for years.

All the panel designs were cut using files from my Cameo library, mostly bought from the Silhouette store, using green and red vinyl.

So I will be linking these up to The June Rudolph Day Challenge at Scraps of life by scrappy mo.

Rudolp Day Challenge#May 2022

Here in S.Spain we have jumped from Winter straight into Summer. Apart from an unprecedented amount of rain during April, Spring didn't really happen. So now it is very hot and not the weather to inspire the making of Christmas cards. However I am no sewing expert, and being frustrated trying to make well fitting cushion covers for new outside furniture all week, I decided to take a day off and see what I could come up with. 

Too hot and sticky to do much with pens or glue, I settled on some png files I recently downloaded from a site called pngwing.com. They are designed to create the illusion of torn paper.

I have at last discovered the trick to 'Print and cut' on my silhouette machine, which involves setting up an image in the silhouette software with registration marks to assist the machine to find the image later for cutting. You then print it, and put the printed image back into the machine which will then cut it out.

So I successfully cut two of the torn paper strips. Then I brought two nativity images into the software and resized them to fit behind the space. I printed them out, mounted the frame over them, and then mounted the complete design onto small A6 size base cards from my stash, and here they are.

A stamped sentiment (very old Chocolate Baroque stamp) on one, and a peel off on the other finished them off.

Flushed with success at the print and cut, I then tried a second file from the same company, this time one that looks like a torn hole in the paper. Using the same method as above, and an image from a card I received last year, I made this 15cm square card.

Again I finished it off with a gold peel-off sentiment and some randomly placed stars.

So now I am off to link up with the Rudolph Day Challenge for May, over at scraps of life with Scrappy Mo.

Rudolph Day Challenge #April 2022

My cards are made, so I am writing this almost a month early, because next month I will be visiting family in UK. I go next Friday (29th March), for five weeks. Although I will have wifi access most places I go, I am so used to posting on my PC and my fat fingers are not nimble enough to write a good post on my phone. So I will schedule this for 25th April, and then I will just have to link it up on the day.

I have spent quite a bit of time lately, looking at cards on the internet and taking inspiration from them. A lady on my Silhouette Cameo group, recently posted a cutting file to make this three diamond edge card. But when I took a proper look I decided I could do it just as easily with my large paper cutter so that is what I did. 

For the first one I used a snippet of paper I found in my box. I thought it was from an old Joanna Sheen CD and eventually I found it so I was able to enlarge one motif a little for the central topper, and cut two for the side diamonds. I cut a cream base card. It was a bit of a fiddle to make sure I had the three diamonds correctly positioned.  I used gold peel-offs on the diamonds and gold glitter glue around the topper star.

I found a lot of suitable paper offcuts so I had another go, this time using a stamped image for the topper, coloured with copic markers. I used an ivory base card, two toning DPs, and added red perfect pearls to the stamped berries, and red gems on the diamonds.

Then I found a topper of a robin that I made a while ago, using an image from a card I received. It was a good size for this card so I made one more. This time I made the base card from dark red, and added an ivory mat with some snippets of holly paper. I die-cut a sentiment from the red card for the centre diamond and highlighted all the berries with glitter glue.

So there we have it, another set of three useful cards added to my box. So I will link this up with Rudolph Day Challenge #April over at https://scrapsoflifebyscrappymo.blogspot.com/2022/04/april-rudolph-days-challenge.html.

Sorry I cannot link properly as I am using a new tablet that I have not learned the ins and outs of yet.

Rudolph Day Challenge # March 2022

Rudolph nearly caught me out this month as I had not prepared my post, but I have made some cards so here they are. Two cards using the same idea, but very different elements.

I happened to see a card I liked on the net with a braided spine, so I investigated how it was made and it used the old idea of lattice cuts. I did some of these maybe twenty years ago, I think using a stencil for the cuts. They were cut, folded and tucked in, to form a flat ornamental strip along the edge of a card. But for these cards, the cuts were made centrally along the spin of the card, folded and tucked, and then folded in half to make the card with a braided spine.

Of course, my hands not being very nimble these days, I try to do most of my card cutting with my Silhouette Cameo machine, but it took me a long time to make a cutting file that just cut slits. (Normally it would cut along both sides of my lines to make wider slits and I didn't want that). But after a lot of fiddling around I finally had my file, so now of course, I can use it whenever I want to, and it is just effective for cards for different occasions.

For my first card I used blue printed card from Lilds which was white on the back. Then I added some embossed pearl blue card, and used a Memory box die to cut the teardrop nativity scene from gold mirri-card, and cutting it a second time from blue paper to infill the design. I finished it with a die-cut sentiment in gold and some peel-off star strings.

For my second card I chose a very different theme, this time using some more Lidls card with snowmen and pine trees printed on it, a panel of bokeh paper and my absolutely favourite snowman stamp (Fun stamps). I cut him out with a frame die that was bought with a winter scene stamp by Flourishes. I added some colour to his hat and scarf and white perfect pearls to the pom-pom. As I like a bit of sparkle on Christmas cards I used glitter glue to highlight the snow and added a silver sentiment and a few silver snowflakes.

I think my efforts in the Silhouete software paid off, and I can see this file has the potential to make many more cards. So these two will now be linked up to the Rudolph day Challenge for March over on Scrappy Mo's blog.

Rudolph Day Challenge # February 2022

I mentioned last week that not many of the cards I received this Christmas really inspired me to make any, but I had one that I liked and I decided to make my own version of it. This is the front of the card I received.

And this is the one I made.

I started by scanning the card into my computer and making a cutting file for the town skyline, adding some different, more solid palm trees, and welding it to an oval aperture so I could cut the window out. Then I positioned this over a base card and cut it out. I did this five times but with the first one I made a mistake. I had added a dashed line for the central fold and forgot that when I made my image into a compound path in the cutter software, it turns it into a solid line so it cut my card in half. Not wanting to waste the side with the image on, I just cut it again on the other side and when they were assembled I glued them onto a plain navy base card, so I ended up with six cards instead of five. That might not make a lot of sense to anyone who has never used a plotter-cutter machine, but I am very used to using my Silhouette cameo for most of my cards, so I knew how to save the situation).

Next I cut snippets of yellow paper to go behind all the windows.

For the sky I found a paper from an old scrapbook kit and downsized it to fit six onto an A4 sheet of paper.

I glued one behind each opening in my cards.

On the original card  the script and the figures were printed in silver, but I used black glossy vinyl which cuts so well in my Cameo machine. I generated the script using Passions Conflict font, which is quite fancy but just 'solid' enough to cut out, as long as it is not too small. I have several sets of the Mary, Joseph and donkey in my Cameo library so they were easy to make. 

And because I like a bit of sparkle on Christmas cards, I added just a touch of glitter glue to the larger stars.  You can't see it in the photos but it is there. 

And thereI have it. Another set of six cards for my stash. I am off to a good start this year.

So I am linking up with Rudolph Day # February   and

Peace on Earth Christmas Challenge#10