Rubber Stamping

Halloween Card by Viki Banaszak

Cut a 4-inch circle out of Amethyst Stardream paper using the template supplied with the Fiskars circle punch. Cut a 6-inch circle out of Emeraude Micro Sparkle paper. Punch your circles with the Friskars circle punch. (See Picture)

Stamp Halloween cat by Cow Town Stamps on the small circle using embossing ink. Heat emboss with black embossing powder. Color the cat’s eyes in with a yellow Glaze pen.

Attach to the center of the large circle and then to a sheet of Amethyst Stardream paper. Trim to a square, then measure and cut the corners at an angle. Fold a sheet of Emeraude Micro Sparkle and attach the trimmed design to it. Carefully trim around the edges being careful not to cut through the fold. Stamp Happy Halloween inside your card.

Lacé Cherry Blossoms by Heather Taylor

In this project I prepared a lacé pattern. The basic idea is to start with a grid that you divide down the middle, then onto which you draw parallel diagonal lines to form larger and smaller "V"s that will give you the characteristic lacé triangles. You also want to leave an outer margin to give the pattern strength, but all these widths are entirely variable.

1. Take a piece of grid paper that is slightly larger in length and width than your final pattern will be. Mark a dividing line down the middle lengthwise, then halve the halves and mark those lines as well. You now have a grid pattern divided in fourths.

2. On the left-hand half of your paper (if you're right-handed; left-handed people should use the right-hand side), mark lines from left to right that will form squares in the 2nd 4th of the paper, marked in pink on my diagram. (See pattern)

Note that mine weren't squares, so I had to adjust my diagonal lines to fit within a square (my final sheet ended up, therefore, not so wide as my original pattern).

3. Draw diagonal lines now, starting at the bottom middle, all the way through the square marked off by the pink lines, and halfway into the next grid square. The line above that will only be half as long; make sure the lines are parallel. Continue with longer and shorter marks all the way up to the top.

4. Take two sheets of decorative paper (I used yuzen washi and a gold-patterned paper for contrast) and glue them together with a glue stick. Cut to the size of your lace pattern.

5. Fold the decorative paper in half, and fold your pattern in half. Insert the decorative paper inside the pattern. Start at the top with a sharp pair of scissors and cut a full diagonal off, so that if you unfold both pieces you'll have a V notch cut out. Then continue cutting very precisely along your diagonal lines until you reach the bottom. Carefully peel away your pattern, then flatten out the decorative paper.

I tucked my long V's under the short ones, but there are different variations. Essentially you fold every other V up and tuck one under or over the other into a pleasing pattern. (See front)

Depending on your choice of papers, you may prefer the back. (See back)

I trimmed mine to fit the front of a regular 5.5" x 4.25" card, edging the sides with Krylon gold then layering onto a strip of metallic gold paper, then over black, then onto a card base of metallic gold. I also cut out 4 cherry blossom petals and arranged them to fill the blank space at the top.

Geodeco Thingie Pin and Card by Linda Strawn

I was doing a swap on CCSwaps of what is called a Geodeco Thingie and thought I would try and make one into a card for Out of the Box Cards. The idea is from After Midnight Stamps and there are several samples found on her site. The URL is www.amstamps.com

1-Start with a rectangle of any size, the sample was 3 ¼ x 4”, Use a piece of double sided cardstock. (See Picture 1)
Fold the rectangle very lightly to find the center. (See Picture 2)

2-Fold the corners into the center, making sure they are even (See Picture 3)
then fold the corners you folded in to the center back out, this is your basic shape. (See Picture 4)
Cut off extra to form the size you want. (See Picture 5)

3-To do this step you must use Opals embossing enamel, using UTEE will not work as the UTEE is not flexible enough. Coat the entire piece you folded with Versamark ink, opening up the folds to get a good coverage. (See Picture 6)
Cover the entire piece with Black Currawong opals, tap off extra. Heat your heat gun up till hot then melt the opals on the piece. (See Picture 8)
When the opals are very hot lay a piece of mylar over the top and quickly tap down to stick. (See Picture 8)
and (See Picture 9)
Use your heat gun to and quickly go over the mylar to crackle it and make it adhere to the piece. Repeat with the back. (See Picture 9)
and (See Picture 10)

4-Add 3-4 colors of opals in various places to piece using versamark and heating very well to melt in. (See Picture 11)
and (See Picture 12)
I used purple, blue and green and gold in the sample.

5-Use a bone folder at this point to recrease your Geodeco. Ink up a decorative stamp with versamark, I used collage type stamp #1997-2003 from Make an Impression. Heat up your geodeco and immediately stamp and apply firm pressure. Wait till cool and then remove. Repeat for any other areas you would like texture. (See Picture 13)

6-When satisfied with the colors on your Geodeco Cut off the top about ½” and use the strip to add to the Geodeco, see finished piece.

7-To make the Bellie Center piece for the pin, choose a charm you like and cut off the tab, set aside. On a Teflon pad pour about ½ cup of clear UTEE in melting pan and add about 1 TBS of Flex (See Picture 14)
and heat till melted.

8-Cut a piece of foil and lay colored side down on pad, pour hot UTEE onto foil into a shape you would like for your geodeco, for the sample I poured a triangle. Let cool and peel off. (See Picture 15)
and (See Picture 16)
You will see you have a colored blob of UTEE. Add a scotch tape holder to the back as in Picture 17
and quickly dip front into hot UTEE, set on pad and let cool. (See Picture 18)

9-Using a heat tool heat up your blob of UTEE and when hot place your charm into it and use a dowel to push it in further as you heat it. You will notice that your piece starts to crackle. This is what you want. (See Picture 19)
You can shape your piece while it is still warm and use a scissors to further cut it into the shape you want. Just be sure to reheat it when done.

10-Use a small hole punch add punch a hole into the bottom and attach a jump ring and charm. See finished piece. Glue this to the center of Geodeco. See finished piece.

11-To make card, use a piece of scrap cardstock, I used dark blue and tear strips of masking tape and lay down in long strips all going the same direction. Then tear strips and add them going the other direction. (See Picture 20)
and (See Picture 21)

12-Use distress ink to add some color and texture, the sample used frayed burlap, old paper, walnut, and tea dye inks. (See Picture 21)
This will make a papyrus looking paper.

13-Fold a card using DK navy blue cardstock and mat with your faux papyrus paper.

14-Add your geodeco thingie to the top using removable tape, see finished card. Send along a self adhesive pin back for the person to transform the geodeco into a pin.

15-Using frayed burlap and lt green cardstock scrap, stamp #D31051 onto the scrap and cut out into a rectangle. Mat this with a piece of blue cardstock and attach to center bottom of card. See finished card.

NOTE: This Designer would like to thank Adrianne Goodnough one of the moderators from CCswaps and amstamps, After Midnight for the basic idea of the Geodeco Thingie, they are fun to work with and makes for a good afternoon of playing. Have fun.

An Old Fashioned Birthday Card with a Modern Twist by Lis Whiting

1. Cut a piece of ivory colored cardstock to 5 ½ x 8 ½. Fold in half to form your base card.

2. Cut a piece of decorative scrapbook paper (Foo Fa La used here) to 5 ¼ x 4. Mount this to the front of your card. Since the card will open from the bottom, have the stripes (if any) going vertically)

3. To make your Happy Birthday sign for the front of your card.

a. Cut a piece of pine green cardstock to 3 ¼ x ¾.

b. Cut a piece of ivory cardstock to 3 x ½.

c. Stamp “Happy Birthday” on the ivory cardstock piece in Pine Green [Marvey].

d. Mount the ivory cardstock onto the green cardstock.

4. Cut a piece of plaid ribbon [Mays Arts: brown, pink and olive green used here] to about 5 inches. Shape the ends.

5. Mount the ribbon on the bottom of your card.

6. Mount the Happy Birthday sign on top of the ribbon.

7. Make a 1 ½ inch bow from the same plaid ribbon. Set aside.

8. To Create the Top decoration on this card:

a. You will need 5 1 inch square pieces of clear plastic that is 1/8 inch thick. If you do not have this, you can use transparency or vinyl. You won’t have as 3-d an effect.

b. Take a one inch punch [paper shapers] and punch out 5 squares of pictures from a piece of scrapbook paper [Da Vinci Collage form Design Originals used here].

c. Run the five pieces of paper through a Xyron pattern side DOWN.

d. Mount the papers on the disc.

e. Use glue dots to mount the plastic squares onto the top of the card, staggering them a little.

9. Attach the bow over the 2^nd plastic square.