Simon Says Stamp Monday Challenge....Diecutting!!

 Well, hello there!! I'm really not sure how many subscribers I have left here and that's understandable and okay.  I've been so very absent here. I apologize and will try harder.  I don't have any other excuse except I'm super lazy.  I actually love sitting down and writing blog posts but when you don't actually HAVE to do it (ie. design teams), it just seems easy to ignore/forget about it! Anyway.....

I'm entering the current Simon Says Stamp Monday Challenge which is all about die cutting!! If you know me or follow me on Instagram, you'll know that die cutting is my all time favourite thing to do so I just had to enter this one!

I love making cards but I've discovered that I can take all the same supplies and techniques and turn paper into home decor pieces! I actually have a bunch of framed "paper pieces" throughout my craft room!

I've used the Lovely Envelope Die Set from Altenew to create this floral filled envelope. I used water colour paper and used Distress Oxide Inks along with the "smooshing" technique. For the sentiment, I used the You Matter Die from Simon.

Once all the pieces were put together, I adhered everything onto a 5X7 piece of ivory cardstock embossed with the Geo Screen Embossing Folder from Spellbinders.

This is just an inexpensive frame. The panel is quite dimensional so I had to really push it in there but it worked!!

I love the way it looked and it is on my wall now!  

I do apologize for the photos. It was a little late and I was having a bit of trouble not catching the glare of the photo frame.

Thanks so much for dropping by. I hope you found a little inspiration :)

Laurie

3-D Wednesday with My Creative Time!

Welcome to another 3D Wednesday!  Today is all about home decor and die cutting!  This is a fairly lengthy post as I wanted to show you how I did what I did!

Here's how this started:

I've had these battery operated candles for a long time. Not pretty but thats what we're going to do today.  I made candle holders out of paper!!  I started by using a 5.5 X 8.5 inch piece of typing paper. I wanted to start this with cheap paper! I used the Flower Border Die on the long edge of the paper, this involves some partial die cutting, but we'll get to that later!

I loosely wrapped this piece around the largest candle and decided that a 1inch flap would would to close it.

So now it was time to work with real cardstock. For these candle holders, I used an 80lb weight, white cardstock cut at 5.5 X 8.5 inches.  

Line up the die as normal along the top of the 8.5 inch side. I left the very end plus one flower uncovered by the top cutting plate then ran it through.  I removed the die and lined up the die using one of the notches on the die..

Now place the cutting plate over so the end of the die is not covered. If this portion is covered, it will cut the border out completely.  It should look like this:

I did this three times to create all three holders.  To make the holders fit the different heights of the candles, I trimmed 1 inch off the bottom for the tallest candle, making it 8.5 X 4.5, the middle candle was 8.5 X 3.5 and the smallest ended up being 8.5 X 2.75 inches.

Now the fun part part!  To decorate, I used the Stitched Pretty Flower and Leaves Dies along with the Bunch of Stitched Doily Dies.  I went with a simple black and white theme.

I used the largest doily as a little mat and the other three as a backdrop for the flowers.

I think these turned out kind of cute.  Start to finish they took about an hour to make, that's including making a template!

Thanks for stopping by today!  I hope you enjoyed todays longer post and found a little inspiration!

See you soon!!

Laurie

Quick and Easy Craft Room Decor with My Creative Time!!

Hi friends!! Welcome to 3-D Wednesday for My Creative Time!  Today's post is all about using your craft supplies to create a dimensional project.  I love this category as it gets me thinking "outside the box" and creating something other than cards!

I love creating little things to put on display in my craft room.  So, I decided to make some wall art.  In my crafty stash, I found these Elmer Wood Slats.  I got these from Wal-Mart a long time ago.  Have you ever bought something with no idea how you would use it but just thought it would come in handy one day?? Yeah, this is one of those purchases.

The wood wasn't completely sanded around the edges but nothing an emery board couldn't fix!  I then went through my MCT dies and picked the Flower Petal Dies and the Stitched Leaves Dies.  Now, the key to making this a quick project is this:  I used printer paper for the die cutting!  Because it's so thin, you can die cut many layers at once giving you tons of leaves and flowers to work with!!

I just happened to have a real nice pale blue shade!!  After die cutting a bunch of paper, I glued the flower layers together and played around with a layout.

What was nice about this project, is that liquid glue worked for everything!!  I was a bit worried that the wetness would cause some warping or bubbling of the paper, but it didn't! And everything stuck so well to the wood slat!

After making the first one with the white flowers, I decided to reverse the colours and do one with blue.  

I also found in my stash, some wood veneers that I thought would finish the flowers off perfectly.  

To attach the twine, all I did was use some strong double sided tape.  These things are VERY light!!

I had so much fun making these and they are hanging in my craft room right now!!  I think they would look fantastic with the wood painted and using actual cardstock but I wanted to show you something quick and easy to put together!

Thank you so much for dropping by today!!  I hope you'll give something like this a try!!

Laurie

3-D Wednesday with My Creative Time!

Hello and welcome back!! Today it's all about creating a non-card. This was a bit of a challenge for me as I primarily make cards, but challenge accepted!

I wracked my brain trying to come up with good idea. Should I make a treat holder? A gift box? And then it came to me...how about a little DIY home decor?!!  Besides a few card panel scattered about my craft room, I don't really have any handmade decoration. So this is what I set out to create.

I went through my MCT stash and picked out a WHOLE BUNCH of dies!! This project has absolutely no stamping. Sad, I know, but sometimes you just gotta die cut:)

I started by die cutting 6 (second from the largest) Chunky Stitched Tag Dies along with the smaller stitched version that layers nicely on it. I die cut some leaves from the Stitched Leaves Dies and some flowers and leaves from the Stitched Pretty Flower and Leaves Dies.

I chose a pretty palette of Distress Oxide Inks,

and did some simple ink blending on my die cuts.

I guess I never made it clear what I'm making!! I decided to make a little banner that says "create". I decided instead of adhering the die cut letters directly to the top layer of the tag, I would die cut them from that layer.

So for contrast, I used Broken China Distress Oxide and inked the base layer tag. Here's a look:

I foam mounted the die cut tags with foam adhesive onto the bases. I took the flowers and leaves and tried to randomly place them on each tag. I wanted them to have more of a "scattered" look. 

I struggled with how to place the twin to each tag.  The way I had placed the upper layer, didn't leave a lot of room to punch holes and at this point, I didn't really want to risk ruining one the tags.  It's funny that I say this because my final plan almost ended in disaster!!! Read on...

I decided to die cut 6 more of the larger tags and adhere them to the back using Scor-Tape. On the top strip of tape, I will adhere the twine, just like so:

Now this is where my near disaster occurred. Check out what I did!!

That's right!! I adhered them backwards! I could not believe it. I sat there is stunned silence for a couple of minutes thinking I would have to start over. Luckily, I was able to carefully open each tag at the top.

I rearranged my word, added a bit more tape to the top of each tag and slid the twine back in..phew!!

In the end, I'm really quite happy with the way it turned out.  I have it hanging over my desk right now!!

Here's a closer look:

I hope you enjoyed todays project and found just a little inspiration!!

Thank you so much for stopping by today!!

Until next time, stay crafty!

Laurie