Sharing ... Anything But A Card Design Team Project

Hi there!  It's time once again for a design team project for the Anything But A Card Challenge!  This month's theme is a 'Tic Tac Toe' challenge.  You have to pick three items in a straight line that goes up and down, across, or diagonally to make a tic tac toe!  Easy Peasy!  And here is the board for you to choose from ...
 

For my project this month I chose the center line horizontally, which is bling, hearts and mists or inks.  I had a heart shaped candy box laying around and decided it would work perfectly for my heart shape from the center of the board.  I also used up some old bling I had been holding onto for ages!  Here is my project ...

For the edge of the box shape, I guess you would call it the 'band' of the box, I added some yellow card stock and painted it with a glittery paint.  Then I added some tulle trim in a mauve color, and some brilliant blue seam binding ribbon.  For the top of the box I traced the top onto some matching blue card stock and adhered it to the top.

 Next I took a paper doily that I had misted with three different colors of mist and let it dry.  Then I cut the doily up into several pieces and decoupaged it onto the box top, leaving the center of the doily as the center of the box.  Next I painted the top of the box with a glittery paint, let it dry, and added the bling.  And I think I may have gone a little overboard with the bling, but it's okay!

Then I added a pretty bow of the blue seam binding and added a cute heart shaped button.  And that was it!  I think my box is pretty, and I think it would be a very cute treasure box for a young girl!

Oh, and does anything look familiar on this project???  Well, it should, because the doily I used on top of the box is the one that was on the board above!  When DT Leader Susan contacted me and asked me to help her with the images for the board, I just knew I wanted to use that doily in my project!  Here is a pic of the original image used on the board ...

And I used the piece of paper that I used to do the misting for the bottom of the box by simply tracing around the box, cutting it out, and adhering it to the bottom of the box.

Thanks so much for joining me today!  If you haven't already, why don't you go play tic tac toe with us, make a project and share it on the Anything But A Card blog!  Blessings,

Products:

• Card stock - Bazzill Basics
• Mists - Art Anthology Colorations - Heart, Glorious, and Waimea Bay
• Paint - Art Anthology Sorbet - Frost (clear with multicolor glitter)
• Ribbon - Schiff's Hug Snug Seam Binding
• Tulle Trim - Maya Road
• Bling - and assortment of Prima, Want 2 Scrap, and Recollections
• Heart Button - Buttons Galore and More
• Doily - Publix Supermarket

Sharing ... Crafting ... After The Fussy Cutting, Then Comes The Assembly!

Welcome!  Do you remember THIS POST a few weeks ago when I talked about fussy cutting, and how you do it?  Well I am finally getting around to following up on the tags I made with the fussy cut images and how I assembled them.  This is one if the little puppy images, fussy cut and inked around the edges with a soft (and inexpensive) brown pigment ink pad.  I like the softer, less expensive ink pads much better than those 'famous', firmer ink pads that you have to use a blending tool (another expense) to get the softer look.  Just putting it out there!

As I was making a number of tags at once, nine to be exact, I played around with a few ideas, and then decided on a red paper with white polka dots, blue die cut scalloped circles, embossed with a cute swirly folder, and lots of Stickles! Once I decided on the elements for the tags, I cut out the pieces for one and put it together, just to see how it worked before cutting out all the multiples of pieces.  Here is what it looked like with the pieces all being placed but not glued down ...

Looks good to me, let's move on! Next up is cutting, embossing and inking the edges of all the pieces.  Once that chore is done, I started the assembly process.  Adhering the patterned paper to the white card stock I was using as the base of the tags.  That done, I added the circles of blue card stock.

Next up is the puppy images.  Because the card stock I used to print the images on is kind of flimsy, I want to add a scrap of card stock to the back to make it a little more sturdy.  I cut a piece of card stock slightly smaller than the image and just glue it on ...

... that adds just enough sturdiness so the image won't buckle if it's pushed in a bit.  Next up, I add some dimension.  Foam squares, pop dots, whatever you call them, they are great for dimension.

After they are attached I add some Stickles ... Christmas Red for the heart and Diamond for the blue bow.

An outline here, some filling in there, and the Stickles makes everything shiny and pretty!  Add a small hole punched in the top and some simple twine, and you have a tag, ready to give to someone special!

Aren't they cute?  And in a couple of days, I will be giving away five of them in my Facebook Followers Giveaway ... are you a follower of my Facebook page?  Better move on over there and 'Like' my page so you can be in on the action.  Blessings,

Sharing ... Crafting ... Moving On to the Next Holiday!

Well, Christmas is past (sort of) and today I have a day to myself to do whatever I please, and what pleases me, of course, is crafting!  And since I make crafts to (attempt to) sell, I have to look ahead to the next holiday ... Valentines of course!  And I just LOVE making Valentines tags using vintage images! 

Where do I find those images, you ask?  Well, these days I primarily find them on Pinterest, but I don't pin them, but instead save the images to my computer and use Picasa to edit and print them.  (The link on the word Picasa will take you to where you can get the free download)  For the Valentines tags I print 9 images per page, set at 'Wallet' and 'Shrink To Fit'.  Here is an image just for you ... simply put your cursor over the image, right click on your mouse and choose 'Save Image As' and save it to your computer.

This is one of my favorite vintage Valentines images because it is so sweet and simple!  Once you have saved this to your computer and printed out numerous copies (In my case 9 on one sheet) you want to 'fussy cut' these sweet puppies out from the white background.

What is fussy cutting?  Well, according to definition.net, it is to cut pieces of fabric (or paper!) so that a particular part of the printed design is centered or featured.  In the case of these images you can simply cut around the whole image, removing the white around it.  

The only really hard part of doing this is leaving 'just the right amount' of white outside of the printed area.  It really does make a huge difference if you do this!  Here is what I mean ...

I know the picture isn't great, but it's hard to get a very up close photo without it being a bit fuzzy.  But do you see what I mean?  Just a tiny bit of white outside the printed area is all you need.

One thing that I do suggest you have for this process is a pair of good 'detail' scissors.  The pair I have now is great!  I bought them at the 2012 Scrapbook Expo nearest me for $1 and they work great.  They have think sharp blades and a pointed tip.  When I went back to the 2013 Expo they had gone up in price to $2 ... but still a great value for these wonderful scissors!

The scissors I use are about three to three and one half inches long.  The blue ribbon tied to one of the finger 'holes' is because there are several of us at my LSS who have them, and with the blue ribbon I know this pair is mine!

And what do you get when you do the fussy cutting?  Well, you get a neat and clean image, ready for turning into something pretty!

Do you see how pretty those little images are?  They will look great on some valentines tags once I have inked the edges and prettied them up a bit.  But that's for another post!  Thanks for visiting today, and I look forward to showing you more about how I make some really sweet Valentines tags!  Blessings,