Le Flower Burst

Well it's been a month since I last posted but I've been busy. I thouhgt I'd share my new purchase with you today. I purchased the EK Success Le Flower Burst punch this week and love it. It's quite versatile.

I've used it on a page inside of this little book as a "tab". You can see it sticking out the right side of the book. I have also played with it, punching it repeatedly on both sides of a strip of cardstock, with a narrow rectangle in the middle that you can stamp a phrase on. Then I've also taken a strip and punched the flower on 2 opposing sides but close enough together to form a whole large flower.

Another idea that I haven't tried yet, but will soon, will be to cut a rectangle of cardstock and punch the flower burst once on the top and once on the bottom, to use the entire piece as a layer on a card with the stamped image in the center.

In the second photo, you can see how I used the flower as a tab on the "notes" page and then also used a second punched flower to fill in the area that is cut out of the upper part of the page.

This book was made from a Puffs tissue box, so I had to work with the shape that was already cut into the box.

This punch was rather expensive but I see a lot of uses and versatility for it. The one downfall of this punch is also why I bought it! It is a very large punch and will only "fit" on some items. I bought it anyway because the large-ness of the flower is what gives it such impact.

Hi All,

Today I went to an all day crop. I assembled these Get Well cards for my stamp clubs' swap.

All of the individual pieces were cut with my Cricut. The iron gate and shadow were cut from the Ornamental Iron cartridge. The flower was from the Picturesque cart. The border with the Hurry and be well phrase was designed in Design Studio using a border from the Martha Stewart Elegant Cake Art cartridge. Basically, I used one border right side up and one upside down and merged them, then elongated them to fit the card front.

The shaded images were edged with Tim Holtz's Distress inks and applicator.

This was a fun card to make and I enjoyed all of the steps. I had spent time with a ball stylus "cupping" all of the flower petals but once put in an envelope they lose a lot of their dimension.

Merry Christmas!

I know that it has been awhile since I posted on this blog and now I am receiving strange emails telling me that I need to post on the blog and I am allowed only one blog, etc. They say they are from the blog host and maybe they are, so I am making sure to post today, but the emails looked weird and I'm not responding to them in case they are "fake".

So Merry Christmas to all and I hope that you find time to play between the holidays. I don't think I will have much time for playing as my days are pretty booked up.

HOw about a little HAUL information? I went to Michael's looking for crystal Martha Stewart Tinsel glitter. They were out of it but a K & Company paper stack called "Let it Snow" called to me and it was 50% off because it is Christmassy. Later in the week, I went to another Michael's and found the glitter, plus two boxes of decorated background cards by Recollections, also on sale at 50% off and I can't wait until I have time to play with them and start my 2011 Christmas cards.

And, I received an order that contained Distress Stickles in Brick Red and Peeled Paint, a Scotch 2M Advanced Tape Glider kit, and the Tim Holtz Snowman die! It's been a Merry Christmas for me already!

Embossing with the Cricut

Today I decided to play with something I had seen in a You Tube video from Joys life.com, which is embossing with my Cricut Expression. I just played and don't know if I will actually use this technique, but here are my experimental results. It was fun to try.

The blue sample is cardstock, which is so-so and the machine actually tore the paper a bit. The silver sample is foil paper and it shreds. The pink sample is Shimmer Sheetz and it does a nice job on that. The gold sample is thin metal foil which didn't give all smooth lines. Finally, the copper is thicker metal foil and embossed well. Unfortunately, you do get marks from the rubber rollers in the machine and there are some stray lines made by the blade as it moves to a different position and doesn't raise high enough over the already embossed portion. The roller marks can be avoided in your design if the design is small enough to fit between the rubber rollers.

To do this technique, you simply remove the regular blade from the blade houseing unit and then re-insert it upside down. You need to place some kind of embossing mat on top of your regular Cricut mat. The video I watched suggested a Spellbinder embossing mat, but since I didn't have one, I used some old Ellison embossing rubber. I am not sure if it is the same exact thickness. The material that you want to emboss is taped on top of this embossing mat and you put it into the Cricut machine and proceed as usual. Warning: This is not a technique from Provocraft, so it has the potential to damage your machine and void your warranty.

Updated the ribbon flowers!

I realized that I posted the photo of the ribbon flowers last night, without the stems!

Here's the photo with more flowers and the stems. I think the stems flourish with this die set is fabulous! I think I will be using this stem with other flowers and also as a stand alone in designs.

Shimmer Sheetz and die cuts and ribbon, Oh My!

Well, last night I decided to play with my new Creatables ribbon flower die set. I cut the flowers out of some shimmery cardstock and then pulled out the Shimmer Sheetz and cut some out of metallic red and White Iris. You thread ribbon through little slots in the die cut and fasten them together with brads. Of course, I had to stop at Michael's today and buy some more brads because I have all mini brads at home and needed larger. Aren't they fun? I can't wait to start using them on cards. I plan to take them with me when I go to stamp camp to use.

Trying again. I think it worked this time!