Close to My Heart Balloon Ride Cards - Technique Paper Piecing

I love all the new paper packs in the new catalog, but this one I think is unique and one of my favorites - although I can't say that next week I won't have a new favorite and so on until all the paper packs have been covered for this book.

Paper piecing is a technique I saw around the internet last fall and have been wanting to try. I decided the stamp set that coordinates with the Balloon Ride paper (D1581 Give a Lift) would work perfectly for this technique.

To start you stamp your image on cardstock and then multiple times on several different patterned papers (you chose depending on your image). You could either pick a portion of the image to highlight or pick patterns to cover the entire image.

You will then trim out the pieces of your image that you want to use from the patterned paper. You may also want to trim out your image from the cardstock depending on your project. Since my paper was two sided I stamped each image twice on the patterned paper and then mixed and matched until I was happy with my combinations. One tip for "fussy cutting" as some people call cutting images by hand, move the paper as you cut around the image not your scissors. You will have more precise cuts this way.

Then just grab a little glue and start attaching your pieces. I found that a liquid glue like our Bonding Memories adhesive was nice because it gave me a little wiggle room as far as moving a piece before it dries if I don't get the placement just right.

I tried taking a wide shot of all the cards, but my "assistant" was determined to stay in the shot. He seems to have a sixth sense on when his assistance will be needed. ;-)

I did the coloring on the basket and flowers with watercolor pencils and a blending pen.

I forgot to take a picture of the inside of this card, but it uses the phrase "Friend you lift me up" from the stamp set. 

For the base of this card I used one of our white daisy die cut cards. There is a card on one of our Cricut cartridges (Artiste I think) that mimics this pretty closely, but rather than figure the cut out in Cricut Craft room, I just traced around the edge and cut it out by hand. As much as I love my Cricut, I will have to say that cutting something by hand can sometimes be easier if it is something small and you are only doing one or two.

One thing with this technique you need to watch is the placement of your stamping on the patterned paper. On one of the balloons I ended up re-stamping one of the center medallions on the opposite less "busy" part of the paper as I could not differentiate between the pattern of the paper and the pattern of the stamped design on the "busier" side of the paper. Just something to keep in mind.

Hope you enjoyed the cards as well as the new technique. If you give it a try, email me a picture and I'll post it on the blog.

Happy "krafting"!

Melissa

Artbooking Made Easy: Trailblazing Travel Albums

With spring break coming up for many I thought this would be useful for planning ahead for when you get home and want to scrap your pictures (or is you are unlike me and super organized you can have the album premade and ready to go for when you get home).

Looking forward to spring!
Melissa

March Stamp of the Month - Happy Place

I had my reservations about this stamp set, but now that I have played around with it I'm loving it. Made this to send to my mom. You'll note that a few hexagons from a previous post made it into the inside of the card. I almost feel as if someone needed to step in and give me the "less is more" high sign as I kept adding elements to this card, but I think I managed to step away just in time LOL! The houndstooth washi tape was the final touch. If you are interested in this adoreable stamp set you have until the end of the month to snap it up, just click here for more details.

Sparkle and Shine Paper with Honeycomb

Do you ever feel as if your creative mo-jo has up and left you to never return again? I've been in a slump since Christmas. Can't really put my finger on why, but I am happy to say I was able to do a little creating this weekend - finally! Here are some fun things I've made. Hope you enjoy. :-)

I had the base of this swing card sitting around since Christmas (minus the hexagons and flower embellishment). I just couldn't decide what to do with it, but I loved these patterns from the Sparkle and Shine collection.

I ended up gluing a portion of the "swing" down in the front and making the card a half card on the front. I love the pop of the Ruby on the Juniper. I am really drawn to shades of teal, mint and aqua right now, but it seems I still need a pop of my favorite red.



 

I still had some hexagons left, so I came up with this. I utilized one of our new embossing folders - Quatrefoil on the black. Keep your eye out for those hexagons, I still had a few left after these two cards, so they might just make another appearance.

 

Happy crafting! Melissa



Studio Savings

This month's Studio J promotion is an awesome deal even if you are not into digital scrapbooking. Let me tell you why. Are you frustrated in your efforts to get decent prints of odd sized photos at an economical price? (or even standard sized photos?) Now, not only can you create awesome layouts in Studio J, but Close to My Heart has added many custom photo only layouts for photo developing. At the normal price of $6.95 per two 12 x 12 pages ($3.48/page) this is already a great deal, but for the month of March you can purchase two 12 x 12 pages for $5 ($2.50/page) no limit to how many pages you can buy. This is an especially great way to print pictures from your phone and Instagram. I've linked another video below that shows you how to create your own custom photo wells on layouts or use the "No Limits" pattern to start with a blank canvas to print photos the sizes you want and/or also add journaling boxes to print to add to your pages. The print quality is phenomenal! I promise you won't be disappointed. Head on over to my website to try it today. If you are new to Studio J just give me a call and I'll be happy to walk you through it.