Stay Wild Hanging Heart

Earlier this year I downloaded the Copper Tiger digital paper set by Digital Curio (via Creative Fabrica).  

I plan to do a series of tiger-themed crafts throughout the year to celebrate the Year of the Tiger.  I finally sat down a couple of weeks ago to make this hanging heart idea that I had.

I have used the paper set exclusively.  The only extras I used were the gem for the flower centres and the letter dies that I used to make the words.  You could also use a digital cutting machine to cut the letters.  Apart from the slightly wonky lady, I really like how it turned out ☺.

PROCESS

• Prepare the heart base.  I used 4 layers cut from old cereal boxes and glued together.
• Choose one of the papers for the background.  Print it out and trace around the heart base, then cut it out and glue onto the heart.
• Go around the edge of the heart with a sanding block (optional).
• Print out a couple of the leafy papers and fussy cut a variety of leaves.  I cut nine leaves. 
• Print out the art deco style black and gold paper and cut 5 of the fan shapes.
• Print the lady and the sitting tiger clip art making sure to resize them to match the size of the heart base and cut them out.
• Use the uppercase die set to cut the letters S, T, A, Y from the copper textured paper.
• Use the lowercase die set to cut the letters w, i, l, d, from one of the tiger skin paper.
• Position the lady and the tiger towards the centre of the heart.  It doesn't matter if the tiger overhangs the edge a little bit.
• Position the lettering in the top right of the heart.
• Add one of the smaller leaves underneath the words as a flourish.
• In the top left corner use the art deco style elements to create a flower.  Glue them down around a central point leaving the edges free.
• Add a gem in a coordinating colour to the centre of the flower you created.
• Arrange a few of the leaves around the flower, slotting them in behind the petals.
• Add some string or other fixing method to the back of the heart.

SUPPLIES

• Heart base.
• 10mm acrylic gem
• Copper Tiger Digital paper set
• Altenew Fine Alphabet Die Set
• Sizzix Brush Lowercase alphabet

Friday Favourites - House Plant Laser Cut Files

I like to keep a regular check on new products added to the Design Bundles Plus products pages.  Under the "Crafters" - "Laser Cutting Designs" filter there are literally thousands of cut files designed for laser cutting with new files being added daily.  I don't have a laser cutter (yet!) but I still like to stalk the pages for items that would work with card or greyboard on my ScanNCut.

There are a load of layered house plant cut files that I really love.  They would look wonderful in their own right as wall art, but would also make great toppers for cards, scrapbook embellishments, fridge magnets and so on.

Head over to Design Bundles to take a look.  The files are part of the Design Bundles Plus membership, so you would have to become a member to download them.  However the first month is just $1 and you get 10 free Plus credits as soon as you sign up.  And you get to keep any Plus purchases even if you cancel the membership.  Each of the files above are just one plus credit each, so you could buy them all and have credits to spare!

Geometric Watercolour Heart - Metallics on Black

In my last post I painted a geometric watercolour heart with metallic watercolours.  I wanted to see what the finished result would look like if I used black card instead of white.  

I used exactly the same method, but as I didn't have black watercolour card I used plain crafting card.  I also decided to stick with purely metallic shades - gold, silver, aztec gold and copper.

As the card was not watercolour card the paint didn't flow in the same way as it would have with watercolour card.  I'm not sure if I like it 😄.  Perhaps I'd like it more with solid, even coverage 🤷🏾‍♀️.

As the method is exactly the same, take a look at this post for step-by-step instructions.

SUPPLIES

• Black card (black watercolour card if you can get it)
• Metallic watercolour paint (I used Arteza metallic watercolours.  At the time of writing they were not available in the UK, but were available in the USA.  For the UK check Craftstash and Cass Art for alternatives).

Geometric Watercolour Heart

14 days of hearts - no. 4

My ScanNCut is being tempremental so I've forgone any cutting for today's heart.  I've pulled out my Arteza metallic watercolour paints to create this pretty geometric heart.  The colours I used were Cactus Green, Sky Blue, Plum Purple and Watermelon Pink.

• Cut a heart from watercolour card.
• Cut lengths of masking tape into thin strips.
• Arrange the strips onto the watercolour card to create a geometric pattern
• Wet the entire surface of the heart.
• Drop colour into the sections allowing the colour to flow.  You might need to re-wet the surface if sections have dried.
• For more of a watercolour effect don't completely cover the sections with paint.  You can also add more than one colour to a section and let them blend together.
• Let the paint dry (use a heat tool to speed up the process).
• Carefully remove the tape.
• You could leave the heart at this point, but if you like, paint over the newly revealed white channels with gold paint.
• Let the paint dry.
• Place in a frame and hang as wall art.  It would also make a nice gift.

Watch the process video:

SUPPLIES

• Watercolour card - I used Crafter's Companion 300gsm watercolour card.
• Metallic watercolour paint - I used Arteza metallic watercolours but these are currently not available in the UK.  At time of writing this they are available in the USA.  Alternatively Altenew also do a metallic watercolour set. Also check Craftstash and Cass Art for alternatives.
• Masking tape

Filigree Heart

14 Days of Hearts - No.3

I saw this pair of hearts, designed by Nic Squirrell and thought that they would work really well with gems or pearls on the round elements of the design.

Two Filigree Hearts SVG Cut Files

I used the heart on the left and made a slight modification in Canvas Workspace to add a little hanging loop to the top.

• Add the file to your cutting machine software and set the desired height.  I chose 150mm.
• Cut four layers from cardstock and glue them together.  This will give a sturdy structure.
• Paint the stack.  I used "Glowing Peach" iridescent acrylic paint by Arteza.  (It has a pinkish base with gold shimmer.  The colour changes depending on the angle from which you view it.)  I painted both sides, but that is optional.
• Once the paint is dry glue a selection of gems to the various corresponding elements in the paper cut.  I used horse eye, round and oval gems.
• Add a ribbon or string to the hanging loop.

Process video (short):

Supplies

• Arteza iridescent acrylic paint - Glowing Peach
• Filigree Heart cut file
• Flat-back acrylic gems - round, oval and horse eye.  Sizes depend on the size of the heart.
• Glue
• Ribbon

Rolled Paper Flower Heart

For the second heart in the 14 Hearts series, I decided to keep it simple with just a few rolled paper flowers and some foliage.  I really like the combination of bright colours with Kraft, so that was the colour scheme I chose.

• Cut 2 scalloped hearts (145mm) from Kraft card and one from pink card.
• Glue together.
• Cut 2 hearts (125mm) from Kraft card and glue together.
• Glue the smaller heart to the scalloped heart.
• Cut 3 rolled paper flowers with the heart-shaped petals from pink paper.  (I used 135gsm. The large flower was set to130mm width and the smaller flowers were set to 100mm width.)
• Cut 2 rolled paper flowers from purple paper (I set the size to 100mm width).
• Cut various types of foliage from green card. Use different shades for added interest.
• Make the flowers 
• start from the outside and roll towards the centre
• Keeping a loose hold of the top and bottom of the rolled flower allow it to unfurl a little.
• Add glue to the end of the flower and hold it firmly against the bottom of the flower (use hot flue for quicker adhesion).
• Glue the foliage down.
• Glue the flowers down starting with the large pink flower at the centre and arranging the smaller flowers around it.

Process video (short):

Supplies

Rolled Paper Flowers

Foliage 

Heart/Scalloped heart cut files - pre-installed on Brother ScanNCut

Kraft Card

Coloured Card

Snowflake Wood Slice Ornaments

Here's a quick and easy project using wood slices, glitter paint and a dimensional medium to create sparkly, festive ornaments.

To make the ornament:

• Spread an even layer of diamond paint on to the wood slice with a paintbrush.
• Leave to dry (it only takes a few minutes).
• Repeat on the other side.
• Draw a snowflake pattern onto the painted surface using the Crystal Drops.
• Add some small dots around the snowflake using the Crystal Drops.
• Leave to dry thoroughly (a few hours or overnight).
• If desired do the same on the other side.
• Thread some ribbon or sparkly twine through the hole at the top of the wood slice.

The glitter paint comes in lots of different shades - from gold to hot pink! Check out the range here.

Supplies:

Wood slices https://shrsl.com/3aw8l

Aladine Izink Diamond Paint https://tidd.ly/3DRvFL9

Tonic Nuvo Crystal Drops - White https://tidd.ly/322QAxC

DIY Hanging Hearts - No Craft Supplies Required!

Back in March I released a Skillshare class about crafting with digital supplies.  The class is about making use of digital supplies to create physical items - in this case hanging hearts for home décor.  

I made a few samples, but I just realised that I haven't shared them on the blog!  I used old cereal boxes for the heart base, and the background and embellishments are items that I downloaded, printed and cut out.  

This was the prototype that I made when I was feeling out the idea for the class:

I wanted to show how the same basic ingredients could be used to produce different results, so this was an alternative arrangement that I designed:

I also had the idea to make the butterfly a real statement, so in this example I put it front and centre surrounded by the flowers and foliage to give a wreath-like effect.

For the final example I wanted to use a different papers from the sets that I used to make the hearts.  I also wanted to show a slightly different way to use the elements and still achieve a nice result.

 

The only supplies used were old cereal boxes, printer paper, scissors and glue.  All of the digital resources that I used in the class are available to download for free!

Free Watercolor Jewel Tone Papers

Free Mixed Media Painted Butterflies

Free Rose Gold Floral Sprays

Free Fantasy Watercolor Digital Paper Set

If you want to find out more, head over to Skillshare and check out the class here.  If you aren't a member you can get a free 14-day Premium membership trial which will allow you to watch this class and hundreds of others.  While you're there, take a look at my Easel Card class as well.

Friday Favourites - Layered Floral Letters

Some affiliate links used. If you follow a link and then make a purchase I will receive a commission at no additional cost to you. 

All of the products mentioned in this post are products that I have bought and paid for myself.

Welcome to a new feature - Friday Favourites.  Every Friday I'll be posting my favourite finds of the week.  

This week I'm loving these layered floral letters from Design Bundles.  As soon as I saw them, I was in love 😍.  Although designed for laser cutting, I wanted to see how they would work using cardstock (of course!).  And I am so happy with how they turned out.

I used 250-270gsm cardstock and set the height of the letters to 145mm.  That combination worked really well, but I haven't tried making larger letters yet .  Depending on whether they would be framed or stand-alone I would consider heavier weight cardstock for larger letters or perhaps doubling-up on each layer, or maybe using greyboard instead of cardstock.  

The letters are only available to Design Bundles Plus Members but you can get Plus Membership for $1 for the first month, which includes 10 Plus credits to spend on any Plus products.  (At the time of publishing this post there were over 125,000 plus products listed!)  You can also buy additional Plus credits for $1 (+VAT) each.

There are three membership tiers - Bronze, Silver and Gold - with prices starting at $7.99 per month.  Find out more about what you can get as a Plus member here.

New Skillshare Class - An Introduction To Digital Crafting

If you're at all familiar with this blog, you'll know that I have a bit of a hoarding problem when it comes to art and craft supplies! This also applies to digital products.  I have literally hundreds of digital papers, textures, clipart, fonts and cut files.  

I was looking for a way to use some of my extensive collection of digital assets in real life and not just leave them languishing in cyberspace.  But then it occurred to me that there might be people like me who might be looking for ideas about how to use their digital products and thus this class was born!  It's also a perfect introduction to crafting for those who might want to give crafting a try, but don't have any supplies.

In this class you will learn:

• where to find digital resources that you can download (for free)
• how to combine the printed digital elements to create a beautiful piece of home décor.

PLUS

• a bonus mini class on how to create your own floral embellishments

There's no need for stamps or dies or inks or patterned papers.  The only supplies needed are:

• a computer
• a printer
• copy paper
• heavier weight printer (photo) paper
• scissors
• glue
• and a pencil.  

This class is suitable for all levels.  Whether you're a complete beginner, a seasoned crafter looking for something new, or someone looking for ideas about how to use your own collection of digital artwork, I'm sure you will take something from this class.  

Head over to Skillshare to watch the class. You'll need a Premium Membership to watch the whole class, but if you're not a member yet you can sign up for a 14-day free trial.

If you want to craft along with me, these are the resources that I use during the class:

Free Watercolor Jewel Tone Papers

Free Mixed Media Painted Butterflies

Free Rose Gold Floral Sprays

Free Fantasy Watercolor Digital Paper Set

Note that you may need to create an account to download some of the resources. 

Friends Are The Flowers in The Garden of Life - With Free Download

I made this for a friend a while ago.  It's been a while since I've seen it, but the adhesive failed so she asked me to fix it and now that I've seen it again I really love it!

The base is an MDF shape that I picked up at a craft show.  I covered it with a couple of coats of silver acrylic paint.

The flowers were made using Tattered Lace's Floral Layers Rose die, which makes really lovely layered flowers, but sadly has been discontinued.  However any floral dies would work.  Same for the foliage.

I designed the sentiment in Canvas Workspace, positioning all the letters so that there was some overlap, then welding them together so that the sentiment was a single piece.  I cut 4 layers from 300gsm card and glued them together to get a solid, dimensional appearance.  Download the SVG cut file for the sentiment here (personal use only please).

To arrange the flowers I used hot glue to affix a piece of acetate to the back of the watering can that extended from the top to the handle and then used hot glue to stick down the flowers. Then I cut cut some foliage, doubling up the layers again to give them some rigidity, and just slotted them in around the flowers.

Fonts:

King Basil
Lily Bloom Regular
The Bravery

Beachwood Sans

Rhinestone Heart Mandala

Recently I've seen a lot of mandala dot art on Pinterest and Instagram and I really like it.  So I started a Dot Art Pinterest board for inspiration and took a couple of classes about it that I found on Skillshare.  I was just about ready to give it a go, but then while tidying up my craft stash I came across some acrylic rhinestones and gems that have been sitting around for a very long time.  I bought them about four years ago planning to create lots of sparkly Christmas decorations, but, as is so often the case with me, I didn't do anything with them.  Anyway, I thought why not use them to create a mandala instead of the paint?  So I did and this is the result.  😍

I was so eager to get started that I didn't map the mandala out first.  I basically stuck the large gem in the middle (approximately) and then played around with the design as I went.  At least I had the good sense not to glue down the rhinestones until after I was happy with their placement, but because I was designing it on the fly it took much longer than it probably would have if I'd mapped it out first.   I also might have gone a teeny bit overboard with the decoration, but then again can you really have too much sparkle?  No. No you can't.  Overall, I'm very happy with how it turned out.

As I was working on the design I noticed a few gaps in my rhinestone collection - I wanted more teardrops and horse eyes (the pointed ovals) and more of a gradation in size, so of course I went and ordered a bucket load more! 😄  Surprisingly I haven't found many references to rhinestone mandalas online, which is kind of surprising considering how pretty they are.  But I guess that just means that I'll have to create some more myself!

In case you're interested here are the mandala Skillshare classes (if you aren't already a member you can get 14 days of free Premium membership):

Learn Beautiful Dot Painting - Mandala Design

Dot Mandala for Beginners

Mini Dot Mandala

The third class has a good lesson on designing a mandala.  

Magnolia Fridge Magnet

Remember all of those decoupage flowers taht I made a few weeks back (mentioned in this post)?  I'm still not sure what to do with them all and then I had the idea of making fridge magnets.  

I decided to use one of teh die sets rather than the cut files becouase it was much quicker for me.  I gave the assembled flower a couple of coats of spray varnish to seal the paper and make it more resistant to moisture and staining but the gloss finish ended up giving it a glazed ceramic look, which is really pretty.  Then I simply cut out the base layer from a mganetic sheet and then glued the two layers together.  

It's a really simple idea, but very effective and it opens up a whole new way of using my die cuts.

Quick and Easy Hanging Heart

If you've read my last couple of posts you'll know that I now have a LOT of die cut flowers in my stash.  I don't really have any plans for them, but it would be a shame to leave them bagged up and in a box somewhere.  So I made up a quick and easy hanging heart to display a few of them.

• I cut out the heart from old cereal boxes (I used a Sizzix Framelits heart die).  [Incidentally, 4 or 5 layers of cereal box weight card glued together makes a good, rigid base comparable to chipboard or lightweight MDF.]  
• I painted the background using cerulean blue and titanium white acrylic paint (I used a stencil brush for the clouds).
• I chose a selection of flowers and arranged them at the bottom of the heart. (I used a selection from my many Tattered Lace 3D decoupage flowers - Bell Flower, Hydrangea, Blossom and Bloemen Primula).
• I added a butterfly in the top left corner (downloaded from thehungryjpeg.com).
• To finish I attached some twine to the back with hot glue as a hanger.

Simple, but very sweet.

Tattered Lace Sensational Flower and 3D Flower Pot Dies

*This post contains affiliate links.  If you click on the link and subsequently make a purchase you will not be charged extra, but I will receive a commission.

A few weeks ago I managed to snag a great deal from Create and Craft.  The offer was to get the Sensational Flower and Flower Pot die sets at effectively half price (BOGOF).  It looked so cute and I like the 3D element and I like miniature stuff so.....

The flowers and pot come with Charisma (which for the uninitiated is a pre-coloured image that fits the die perfectly that can be downloaded from the Create and Craft website).  The flowers come in yellow and purple, with a couple of additional stems and flower heads so that you can decoupage or fill out the bouquet.  If you have access to a graphics program the colour could be changed to anything you like!  So you could have sunflowers, gerberas, daisies or other similar flowers. I actually recoloured both colour options using alcohol markers because they came out a little more pastel on my printer and I wanted a bold colour. 

The pot comes in terracotta only but again could be recoloured and the die set comes with some additional lacy details that could change the look completely.  I'm going to see if I can get a glazed ceramic look by using Glossy Accents.  You could even stick two halves together to get a free-standing pot and flower display.

The BOGOF deal is no longer available but at the time of publishing you can still get the Sensational Flower die set and the Flower Pot die set for £14.99 each from createandcraft.com.

Tattered Lace 3D Miniatures - Hot Air Balloon

This post contains some affiliate links (denoted by *).  If you click on a link and make a purchase there will be no extra cost to you, but I will receive a commission.  

Tattered Lace recently released a new collection - the Butterfly Garden Collection.  Part of the collection consists of seven die sets that create miniature items.  There's a hot air balloon, a violin, a jukebox, a teacup, a perfume bottle, a dresser and an alarm clock. 

Now, I love die cutting and I love all things miniature so there was really never going to be any other outcome than making the set mine, plus all seven sets were available at a ridiculously good price (just over half price) from Create and Craft*.  At the time of writing said multi-buy deal is still available at Crafting.co.uk, but only a couple of the individual die sets are available on either site.

I decided to try out the Hot Air Balloon first.  The set creates half of a hot air balloon.  Charisma (Tattered Lace's pre-coloured graphics that work with the die set) artwork is available to download for each of the die sets for free.  If you wanted you could cut the pieces out twice to make a fully 3D miniature, but I love how it looks in a box frame.

I made an A6 box frame and painted the inside blue using watercolour paint.  I die cut three clouds and then used a fineliner to draw in some bird silhouettes.  The end result is really cute.  I'd also like to try cutting the balloon from plain card and making up my own designs and also having multiple designs in a larger box frame.  It would look really sweet in a nursery or kid's bedroom.

Note - this is not the die set for you if you have poor eyesight or any sort of issues with manual dexterity. 

Purple Flower Embroidery

I so enjoyed doing embroidery again that I went out and bought some 4" and 6" hoops.  I liked the way it looked on denim and as I still have a massive pile of denim scraps I've used that as my base fabric.

I love the flower! I used buttonhole wheel stitch for it, with black French knots at the centre.  I'm still working out how best to do leaves so there are quite a few different versions here.  But from where I started (bottom right leaf) I can definitely see a lot of improvement by the time I got to the last leaf.  I also like my attempts at a palm-like frond and a pine leaves.  I used an open leaf stitch for both.  The leaf clusters are simply lazy daisy stitches on a stem. 

These little projects are so much fun.  I see more embroidery in my future!  The 4" hoops are very portable and stitch up quickly enough to satisfy my impatient nature.  I'd like to try some different subjects like birds and butterflies as well as more florals of course.  I might even try my hand at designing a little project.

Space Themed Name Plaque

This post contains affiliate links. If you click the link and then make a purchase it won't cost you any more, but I will receive a commission.

Last weekend my youngest had a birthday party to go to. I decided to make a name plaque for the birthday boy.  I know he likes football, but I wanted to go with something different. I had the Star Studded font in mind and so a space theme seemed like a good fit.

For all the components I glued 4 layers of 280gsm Kraft card together using PVA glue.  When the glue dries the resulting stack is nice and stiff and has the feel of chipboard or MDF.  I left them under something heavy while drying to prevent warping.

I started by creating the plaque base with my Brother Scan N Cut by welding rectangles and semi-circles together on the mat.  Rough dimensions were 20 x 10 cm rectangle + 25 x 7.5 cm rectangle + 2 x semi-circles with 50mm diameter.  Added 2 x 0.5cm holes at either end for hanging.  I also printed out the space background from a digital download collection from Creative Fabrica and cut one plaque shape from that.

I then cut the letters and saved the starry waste to use as small embellishments.   The actual font was a little more squat than I wanted so this is a slightly elongated version to fit the plaque better.  I used silver acrylic paint to cover the letters and stars.

The moon and planet were from the library of files that come pre-loaded with the Scan N Cut machine. Again I used acrylic paint on those.  Then it was simply a case of assembling the components.

Resources:
Star Studded Font
Space Watercolor Backgrounds

Floral Friends Box Frames

I bought a few of the girls from the Tattered Lace Floral Friends die collection - Lily, Jasmine and Poppy.  I've been calling them flower fairies, but I think that they are actually just girls wearing floral costumes.  I do like the idea of them being fairies though so maybe I'll just stick with that.

The dies are 3D decoupage dies, which means that they have multiple layers that can be stacked together to give the finished die cut added dimension.  I bought them with the intention of using them in box frames to make cute wall art and I finally got around to putting a few together.

          

It was difficult to capture in the photos, but I've added some glitter accents to some of the dresses and flowers. These would look really sweet in a kid's bedroom.  I'm going to make a couple to my nieces-in-law for Christmas.  They are dancers and  I think they would love these.  All four are now available in my Folksy shop.

Halloween Tea Light Covers

I don't really do Halloween, but the kids enjoy it and so I thought that it would be nice for them to have some Halloween decorations this year.  Even though I've had the Enchanted Forest Bundle from CraftBundles.com for a while, I'm still working my way through it.   One of the collections within the big Bundle is Enchanted Spiders, which I had completely forgotten about.  But then my friend asked me to create a poster for her kid's school's Halloween disco and that's when I rediscovered it.

There are a few files that I thought would lend themselves perfectly to being made into tea light covers.  One of the designs worked straight out of the box so to speak, but the others needed some adjustments (which I did in Canvas Workspace) to make it easier for the panels to be stuck together.  I added vellum to the backs of each panel.

I resized this one so that it was about 10cm (4in) wide and then cut four. Then I folded the decorative elements over and glued each panel together at those points to create the tea light cover.

This one is similar, but I had to modify the spider and web so that there were no gaps between the elements and the panel could be lifted off the mat in one piece.  That was fairly easily done in Canvas.

For these I simply welded a rectangular strip to both the left and right sides of the panel in Canvas to act as the adhesion point.  I really like the way the branches stick out in the first set.

Unfortunately I couldn't find my LED tea lights :( so I couldn't photograph them in action, but I'm pretty sure that they'll look great.

As an added bonus, I was able to make use of the waste as well by sticking double-sided tape to card and using that to lift the waste off the cutting mat.  I then sprinkled silver and gold glitter over the surface. The results could be used as toppers on greetings cards or on bunting or garlands or for other decorations.

Lantern "waste".
(I just couldn't capture it here, but they really sparkle in real life.)

These are only a handful of the 46 images in the Enchanted Spiders collection, which means plenty more choice to play around with.  And with 280 images in the whole bundle covering birds, butterflies, bears, deer, foxes, fairies and unicorns there really are a multitude of options and possibilities.  At only $9 including a full commercial licence it's a crazy bargain! Get the bundle here.

*This post contains affiliate links.  If you click on the link and make a purchase later I will receive a commission at no extra cost to you.  However I bought and paid for this bundle myself and I'm recommending it because I really like it.