All That Scraps Blog

DT Make It Monday - Alphabet and cubes

 

Welcome to a new issue of DT Make It Monday. Today it's my turn and I want to show you how to make a cute gift with C.C. Cutters dies.

 

I needed a gift for Mother's Day and bought a beautiful pot of flowers. Now I still needed a matching card. But why always giving away cards? Then I saw the C.C. Cutters Cube Box die and Christine's cute baby tower came into my mind. That's it!

 

I took the C.C. Cutters Bubble Alphabet die. You see that it is one big die but of course you can also cut single letters. It's so easy!

 

Just cut your cardstock into little pieces and only cover the letters you want to cut with it.

 

Run the die with the cardstock pieces trough your cutting machine.

 

And you will get single letters.

 

I needed 'MAMA' which is Mum in German.

 

Then I cut four C.C. Cutters Cube Boxes, adhered them together and decorated the cube bar with different die cuts.

 

And this is the whole gift set. My mother liked it a lot!

Hugs,
Jay Jay

 

DT Make it Monday - fussy cutting hints & tips

Hello everyone!  It's Mary J here with a few hints and tips of how I do my fussy cutting - I've had a lot of questions about it so I hope this will go some way to help you!  First off, here is my card where I used this technique...

 

 

Isn't she beautiful?  This is Drozy's Darlings Letter For You and I also used a sentiment from the  .  AmyR Stamps Sunny Sentiments set. As you can see, I have cut around her and also in between the gap of her leg and wing.  Here are the tools I use...

 

In order from left to right:

1. Serrated scissors (Tim Holtz)
2. Craft knife (Xcut)
3. rounded sanding tool
4. flat sanding tool

I don't think I need to tell you how to actually these tools!  But here are a few things I do to get a good result:

• First of all, I always cut around the image, say 2cm all round so that I don't have large pieces of card getting in my way as I cut round.
• Don't try to get a perfect cut out using your scissors the first time you go round.  You can always go back to trim more off but you can't put it back!
• Make sure your craft knife is sharp - you should be able to cut with quite light pressure.  If you find you are having to press down hard to get a cut, they are not sharp enough.
• Don't worry if the edges aren't completely smooth and rounded (especially around those tight corners) - this is where the sanding tools come in.  For the outer side of the cut out image, I use the flat sanding tool to smooth it out.  I use the rounded sanding tool in the inside cuts.

That's it!  I hope that was useful.  If you have any questions, leave a comment to this post and I will get back to you.  I'm off now but I'll see you again for another Make It Monday in the future!

Mary J

 

DT Make it Monday - how to store your dies

Hi there, it's Simone here today to show you my new favorite die storage idea! You may already know the Clear Binder Box to store mounted rubber stamps? I really love them. The stamps are so easy to store, they are protected and you can grab them easily or take the whole Binder with you to crops =) 

So I was really happy when I saw the Magnetic Panels in the ATS-Shop because they also fit in the Binder Box and hold a huuuuuuge number of dies! The Magnetic Panels comes in a pack of 3 and 12 Panels filled with dies fits easily in one Binder.

Organize and store all your metal dies securely with EZMagnetic 2-N-1 Panels which magnetically grip on one side. For added versatility, 2-N-1 panels hold clear and cling rubber stamps on the reverse side! EZMagnetic 2-N-1 panels fit perfectly in the Mini Storage Binder for quick identification and compact portable storage. Package includes three (3) EZMagnetic panels 5.5" x 8.25".

 

I'm so happy with the Magnetic Panels - look how organized my dies are:

I have sorted my dies, for example every Theme got an own Panel: "Banners", "Winter/Christmas", "Halloween", "Alphabet",... 

To have a better look at all my dies I cut them out of white cardstock and glue them on black cardstock. I wrote the name of the dies under the diecut - so if I write a post on my blog it's easy for me to find the name of the die. I store these black sheets in an A4-Binder for a better overview. 

...I also use these diecuts for meassurements...

Let me know if you like this idea? For me it works perfect!

You can find everything in the ATS-Shop: "Stamp Binder Box", "Magnet Panels" and 

"Inserts". 

Thanks for stopping by - have a nice week =)

Simone

Design Team Make It Monday- coloring bluebirds

Hello ATS fans!

Amy Y. here with a new Make It Monday tutorial. Today I want to share a Copic coloring video featuring the Sweet November Love Birds stamp. We'll be turning these feathered friends into a pair of bluebirds this time around so I hope you enjoy the video.  :)

Thanks for stopping by!

 

DT Make it Monday - Paper piecing with digital stamps

 

Hello everyone, Francine here! 

Today it's my turn for another MIM. I really enjoy paper piecing so I want to show you how to paper piece an All That Scraps digital stamp to add dimension and texture on your projects.

 

Supplies you’ll need:

• All That Scraps digital stamp
• Design paper
• Smooth cardstock compatible with alcohol based inks like Copic markers (but you can also do it with watercolor paper)
• Regular copy paper
• Removable double sticky tape or masking tape/transparent adhesive tape
• Glue pen
• Sharp scissors
• Other usual cardmaking supplies to create your card

 

First, choose a digital stamp in the shop or on your computer. For this project, I used Garden Girl Gertie DIGI (Sweet November Stamps). Be sure the areas you want to paper piece are not too small because it could be difficult to cut and assemble. Adjust the size of your digi image to fit your needs.  

Now print your digi stamp two times (and take notes of how your printed paper comes out because later, you’ll need to be able to lay your paper down in the same position):

1. on one sheet of smooth cardstock or watercolor paper (this is the base image you’ll need to assemble your paper piecing),

2. on one sheet of regular print paper.

 

 

Cut a big enough piece of design paper to cover the part you want to paper piece. Then tape your  patterned paper over your digi on the regular print paper sheet. To do that, you can use removable double sticky tape (that’s what I usually do) OR masking tape/transparent adhesive tape. It’s very important to adhere for sure the top of the design paper that goes into the printer first! Personally, I’ve never had problems with jam. Put this paper again on your printer and print the same image out. 

 

Your paper piece is ready to be cut ! Use sharp scissors. 

To give a beautiful finished appearance and to keep the outlines, run a black marker around the edges.

 

Final step: color your base image with your alcohol markers (I did it with Copic markers) or Distress Inks if you use watercolor paper. And only then glue the cut-out piece on the base image. Make sure to add enough glue but not too close to the edges! Finish your layout. You can match your paper pieced image to your background paper as I did. Here is my card:

 

I hope you enjoyed this tutorial. Thank you for stopping by.

Wish you a creative day!

Francine

Design Team Make It Monday - Faux Stitching

Happy Monday everyone! Laura here with a quick how-to on creating faux stitching on your projects.

I love the look of stitching and piercing on my cards, but it can be tedious, and some of the tools for creating this look are spendy! So, I recently thought of a cheap, quick, and easy way to acheive a stitched look on my cards, and today I'm sharing it with you!

You only need a couple of tools to do this (and you might already have them on hand!) - a ruler (I like the Tim Holtz Ruler because it is see through, and has marked grid lines at every 1/8", which comes in handy for this technique), and a tracing wheel (you can find these in the sewing department of your craft store. I picked mine up at Walmart for under $2).

Color up your image, and get all the layers of your card cut and ready to go.

Place the first layer to be "stitched" on a cutting mat or foam pad. Line the ruler up against an edge of the panel to mark a 1/8" border.

Then slowly, but with firm pressure, guide the tracing wheel against the edge of the ruler along the entire length of the panel.

Turn the panel, re-align the ruler to mark a 1/8" border on the next edge, and repeat.

Repeat on all edges of all layers that you want "stitched". Here are the 3 panels I "stitched" for my card.

Then, assemble your card as usual. My card features Sweet November Bufly Brynn with a sentiment from AmyR Winged Greetings.

And there you go... a faux stitched edge in a a fraction of the time! I hope you will give it a try!

DT Make It Monday - converting JPEG and TIFF files to PNG to make scenes

Hello everyone! It's Delphine here! As some of you may know, I love merging images and making little scenes but to do so, you need to have PNG files, not JPEG or TIFF. However if some of your images are not PNG (old images since all images are now provided in PNG too at All That scraps), you can very easily change them to PNGs as I'm going to show you.Special thanks to my friend Madeleine who I discussed the problem of png files with and who helped me understand how to convert them :)!

To do that, I use Paint.NET, which you can download for free.

Step 1:

Open Paint.NET and at the top, click on "File" and "Open". A window will pop up, select the folder where your image is and then your image. The image I'm going to use for this tutorial is Bouquet Birgitta (TIFF).

 

Step 2:


In the "Tools" category, click on the "magic wand" (circled in red on my picture).

 

STEP 3:



The idea is to have no white around your image, to make the background transparent. So now, click on the first part you want to make transparent, then holding the Ctrl key, click on all the parts you want to make transparent. All the parts you click on should turn blue. As you can see, of course I clicked around Birgitta but I also clicked on the parts between her face and wings, and between her legs which must be transparent too.

 

STEP 4:


Now click on the little rectangle (circled in red on my picture).

 

STEP 5:


On your keyboard, press the "Delete" key, and your background is now chequered in white and grey, which means it is transparent!

 

STEP 6:


You now need to save your new image as PNG, so click on "File "  at the top, then "Save As".

 

STEP 7:


A window pops up. Select the folder where you want to put your image, give it a new name (I chose Bouquet Birgitta PNG) and select PNG, and that's it! You can now merge your Birgitta with another image!

If you don't know how to merge your images, look at Christine's tutorial HERE!

And here is a little example of what you can do when using PNG images, which you can't do if your images are not PNGs...

See? Birgitta can now sit on the Field Fence without hiding it:)!
I hope you have found this little tutorial helpful for you and it will give you ideas to make little scenes! Thank you very much for your visit, have a lovely day! Hugs,
Delphine xx

Design Team Make it Monday: Double Winged Butterflies

Hi Friends! It's Mae here and it's my turn again for another MIM. I know it's not Monday but February Stamps will be previewed this week, so we had to schedule this week's MIM earlier.

Today I'm going to show you how I made double winged butterflies.

For this project, I used CC Designs Butterfly Wings Stamp and CC Designs Cutter Wings.

I stamped each butterfly in different colors and I also stamped a 2nd generation image to make it lighter.

1. Cut the butterflies using the Cutter Die.  2. On the darker  butterfly, apply adhesive to the center of the butterfly and on the lighter butterfly, cut out the middle part.  3.  Align the cut wings and adhere to the darker butterfly.

Next, use a small piece of twine and wrap it around a few times to hide the adhered part of the butterfly.

Finally, use some 3D adhesive foams and adhere the butterflies to your card.

I hope you like my simple project today. Thank you for taking to time to visit the ATS blog and we hope to see you again soon.

Mae

 

Design Team Make it Monday -- lining up solid metal dies

Happy Monday everyone!  It's Mary J here with a with my Make It Monday project for All That Scraps and today I'm going to show you how I line up a neat row using solid metal dies.  First of all, here is the made up card using Sweet November Forest Pals and C.C. Designs Cutters Key & Lock Embossing die...

 
As you can see I've lined up the hearts in a neat little row and here is how I did it.  To start with, I created a little template using thin printer paper that is the same size as the patterned paper I wanted to use, i.e. 10cm x 4cm...

 

As you can see, I marked where I wanted the vertical centre of the hearts on the paper (1.8cm in from both ends and 5cm in the centre) and then I marked where I wanted the top of the hearts to line up (0.8cm from the top). 

I then cut out this template and used repositional glue to stick the template on top of the patterned paper...

Next I lined up the heart over the centre marker and up to the edge marker.  Using low tack tape to keep the heart in place, I then ran this through my die cutting machine.  I then repeated this for the other two hearts...

 
Lastly, I glued a piece of co-ordinating pattered paper behind and voila, it's done!  The great thing is that I can use the "spare" hearts and also  keep the template to use again!

Here's the card again from a different angle...

I hope that was useful - any questions, leave a comment and I'll get back to you.  TTFN!

Design Team Make it Monday

Hello!  Happy 2013 everyone!!  I know Jay Jay had shared a tutorial for a calendar card, but since it is still January I thought I would share a different kind of calendar project. 

These would make cute New Year's gifts and would be perfect to sit on top someone's desk.  I made a bunch of calendars to give to teachers during Christmas too.

These are the supplies I used.  The most important is the base cardstock which is 4.25 in x 11 in.  So basically you could make 2 small calendars per sheet of 8.5 in x 11 in cardstock.  I chose to use the cute digi version of Meoples Celebrate.  The sentiment is also from the set and I cut each letter out after coloring them.  I bought the calendars from a local store where I live but you can easily put together your own as Jay Jay had mentioned in her tutorial. 

Take the cardstock like above and score at 4 in, 8 in, 9 in and 10 in.

Fold like the photo.  The bottom is like an accordian fold.

Add tape to the very bottom of the accordian fold end but don't tape it yet.

Decorate the middle rectangular portion.  That is your front.

Then tape the two ends together so that it stands like above.  You can fold them flat and maybe tie a simple ribbon or twine around it to fit in an evelope.

Hope you will give this a try!  Thanks for stopping by!

Eva