Friday, 11 May 2012

Elements of Style in Watercolor

I wanted to make a nice card for my boyfriends Mom's birthday. She's had a really rough year or so, having been diagnosed with cancer a little over a year ago, going through chemo treatments and all that and then suffered a stroke shortly before Christmas. After having suffered her stroke we all found out that her cancer had spread and the Dr's were giving her 6 months to a year to live. This has been difficult for everyone involved as she has always lead a very busy and active life. So I got out my supplies and got to work making a card I knew she would appreciate. This is what I came up with.

Stamp Sets: Elements of Style (wood mount:118611 & clear mount 120045,
Teeny Tiny Wishes (wood mount 115370)
Paper: Pear Pizzazz 119795, Night of Navy 100867, Naturals Ivory 101849
& Watercolor paper 122959
Ink: Night of Navy 102977, Bashful Blue 105209, Old Olive 102277,
Pear Pizzazz 119784 & Black Staz On 101406
Tools: Big Shot 113439, Square Lattice Embossing Folder 119976, Blending Pens 102845
The Finishing Touch: Basic Pearls 119247 & Stampin Dimensionals 104430

Saturday, 5 May 2012

Triple Heart Easel Card Tutorial

I originally came across this idea on pinterest and loved the style of card so much I just had to try to figure out how to make it. It didn't look all that complicated so I gave it a shot. My card took me at least two hours to complete but it wasn't putting the 3 easel parts together that took so long, it was watercoloring each bunch of flowers and then cutting them out by hand. Here's a pic of what I came up with. Tutorial to follow.



In order to make the triple heart easel card you'll need 2 sheets of 8 1/2x11", Stampin up's heart framelits, sticky stripe, simply scored and of course your big shot.

1. Choose the 3 sizes of hearts that you want for your card. I went with the 3 largest sizes, but you could go smaller if you wanted.


2. You can measure and cut your cardstock down to the size that you need to cut. For each easel you will need one full size heart of the size you have chosen and one heart that you have cut on a piece of cardstock that has been folded in half. For this part you'll want to take the piece of cardstock that has been folded in half (needs to be the same size as your heart). You'll want to place the heart so that the two peaks at the top are just slightly past the fold. This will give you the fold that you need to create your easel. Please see pic below for placement if your unsure.


3. You should have 6 seperate pieces cut in total now. The next step will be scoring a line on each heart that has the fold line on it. For the large heart (with scalloped edges) I did this at 2 1/2" from the peak at the bottom. medium heart at 1 3/4| and the small at 1 1/2". If you have chosen to do different sizes, you will want to score at approx the halfway point. Not sure if you can see my score line in the next pic. Also a little suggestion to make sure you get a straight score line, use a pencil and mark on either side so you can line it up with the grooves on the simply scored. Do this for all 3 hearts.


4. Once you have finished scoring the 3 hearts you'll want to fold along the score line. You'' want to have the heart folded in half with the bottom peak facing you, the scored line should be on the top heart. Fold it downwards like a beak, please see picture for how it should look. You'll need to do this for all 3.



5. Next you'll want to grab your sticky strip or whatever adhesive your using and place it on the bottom half of the heart that you just folded (triangle).


6. You'll want to grab the corresponding hearts (same size) as the ones you've added adhesive to, make sure they line up properly and adhere. You've basically just completed 3 seperate easel cards.


7. Now we need to attach these 3 easels to make one card. Start with the largest and the medium. Place them where you'd like, you'll see the bottom peak of the large heart will fit nicely into the hole where the fold line is from when you cut your hearts. Once you've decided where you want it then add adhesive to the bottom part of larger heart base. For this step I had mine just past the halfway point, being closer towards the top of the heart. Please see pic for a better idea.

8. And the last step of course is attaching the smaller heart, you'll want to do the same thing as  above, but once again place it where you would like it to be, and then add adhesive once your sure. Your finished triple heart easel card should look like this before you add your finishing touches to it.


To finish mine off I used the Bordering on Romance Stamp set, some pearls for the center of the flowers and made a flower using seam binding. This flower was used to the hold the smaller of the three circles in place.

Hope you have all enjoyed my tutorial. If you've got any questions I'd be happy to help