Orchid Paper Sculpture

Have you ever heard of paper sculpture? If you Google the term, you'll find that paper sculpture runs from the simple to the extreme, and that paper artists perfect a myriad of techniques to sculpt their projects. It shouldn't have been a surprise for me to learn that QKR Stampede and Eureka Stamps have made beautiful and do-able paper sculpting projects available to us. Deb here today with paper sculpture as the topic for this week's Technique and Tutorial posting.

When you order a digi or rubber paper sculpting image from the choices at QKR or Eureka, you'll also receive a full set of instructions to complete your project. I won't repeat those instructions but, in this short post, I'll tell you what I did outside the instructions.

The Orchid was my selection, and I knew I wanted this beautiful flower to decorate the top of a small gift box. My first step was to choose two patterned cardstock sheets for the box along with a coordinating sheet in a solid color for the flower.

I trimmed my solid sheet to 8 1/2 x 11 inches to fit the printer, and printed the orchid in grey, rather than black, at 4 inches wide.

After cutting out each petal, I painted them with a Mica powder mixture (2 parts Mica, 1 part Binder, 1 part water) with red in the centres fading to a purple iridescent at the ends.

I set aside the petals to dry while I made a simple 4 inch square box and a die cut doily shape. I beaded three head pins (from my jewellery stash) to use for the stamen - looking at it now, I think it's a bit heavy and one probably would have done the trick.

I shaped the flowers with my fingers and the tools pictured. The flowers hadn't totally dried yet, and moisture made the paper more pliable and made for easier shaping. As I glued each piece, I held it in place with a small clip until the glue set.

When the flower was dry, I set it all alone - without ribbon or further embellishment to steal its thunder - on the box top.

I hope you give paper sculpting a try cause it's easier than it first looks and gives beautiful results. I completed this project in less than an hour, even with a bad chest cold hampering my thought processes and pretty much eliminating my patience - lol. I do suggest printing or stamping your image onto a scrap paper first so you can play with the construction process and get to understand how the pieces fit together before working with your good paper.

As always, after you have a good look here, you are welcome to visit my personal blog for more ideas.

Color It Up

It's Wednesday, and that's Technique and Tutorial Day again at QKR Stampede and Eureka Stamps. Deb with you today and I'll be focusing on another technique for your paper flower stash - changing their color. I'll be working with flowers available with these links at both Eureka and QKR. If you're used to seeing my post pop up on the two blogs earlier in the day, sorry about that - chest cold had me totally forgetting what day it was yesterday. If you see any errors in this post, I hope you'll be forgiving - lol.

So, I'm working today with the same purple selection of flowers today as I used in my post two weeks ago. As I mentioned then, you get a generous amount of flowers in each selection, so you can do a lot of experimenting. I've used four basic methods of coloring here: Copics, Distress Re-Inkers, Distress Pads and Smooch Spritz. Let's look at the results with each method.

I applied the Copic marker directly to the flower. Colors used here are: YR 20, 21, 23, 24.

A really easy way to add saturated color is to spritz the inside of a small baggie and add a drop or two of Distress Re-Inker. Spritz each flower with a bit of water, add them to the bag and massage till the flower is well colored. Remove the flower carefully as it will be very delicate when wet. The following photos show the results of this technique.

With this next flower, watch how the dark tips stay dark:



And with this flower, using Squeezed Lemonade, the centre goes to a perfect brown.

Fingers are getting more and more inky as I do small flowers for the centres...

For this one, I applied the Distress Ink Pad directly to the flower, then spritzed the flower with water.

And finally, I tried Smooch spray. I didn't think of this until my card was completed, so this flower is not in the bouquet.

After the flowers were completely dry, I added dots of Liquid Pearls and some glitter. Here's a close up of the results. By the way, the vase was cut with a Spellbinder Christmas ornament, run through an embossing folder, sponged with a VersaMark pad and heat embossed with clear powder. The leaves were all cut with various Spellbinders.



I hope you take the time to do more exploring here on the Eureka Blog and, when you're done, pop on over to my personal blog for more projects.

Caught in Candlelight

Deb with you today. Candlelight evokes romance, at least in my mind. And I'm told that every woman looks more beautiful by candlelight. So I definitely want more candles around me! If you love candles, too, consider this project. The results give you a soft dreamy look - very romantic. This project illustrates this week's technique for Eureka Stamps - adding images to candles. At this point, I must confess I didn't make up this technique. I read about it on the internet, but I don't know where so (sadly) I can't give proper credit. You won't believe how easy this is!



To begin, smooth a piece of tissue paper over a piece of cardstock. Fold the tissue to the back of the paper and tape it down securely.



Front





Back



If you are using a digi image, adjust the color so you print in grey scale rather than in solid black. Size the image so it will fit the size of your candle. I've used Eurekas Gladiola and Hummer sized at 5 inches high for a candle that measured 5 1/2 inches high and 9 1/2 inches around. Run the package through your printer.

If you are using a rubber stamp, just ink up your stamp with grey ink and stamp onto the tissue.

Color your image with alcohol-based markers. Below, I've used Copics:

Bird: C5, YR61/65, RV 63, 66

Flower:YG 23/25/45, YR23 and V01/04/05/06/09



Remove the tissue from the cardstock and trim. You can see that I trimmed the solid line at the bottom left corner.

Drape the issue over the candle.

Cut a piece of household wax paper larger than the size of your image. Place it over the image on the candle and wrap it tightly. Continue to hold the paper as you use your crafting heat gun to warm the wax paper and the candle surface. Heat only until the surface gets shiny and you can see the tissue being incorporated into the wax. If you heat too long, your candle will start to run, and you really don't want that. Peel the wax paper off the image. 

Hold wax paper tightly

Voila!

Decorate your candle any way you wish. I've added ribbon and some pearls from my jewellery making stash.

And, finally, The Boss offers to help with today's clean-up.

Even More Bodacious Backgrounds

It's that time of the week when the Eureka Stamps and QKR Stampede feature Technique and Tutorial Posts. Deb here with another look at what you can do with the fabulous Background Stamps available at Eureka.

For these projects, I chose 32101 Abstract Flower and 58401 Fern as my background stamps. I also used a phrase from the 46002 Best Wishes Werdz set and QKR's 17505 Rose.

As you might have guessed, this card uses the Fern Background and the Rose image. I stamped the background on some green SU cardstock with Distress Ink's Forest Moss. I trimmed to the stamping and mounted that panel on a darker green cardstock. I colored a white ribbon with Copics and tied it around the panel. I think that made a great background contrast for the flower.

I stamped the Rose on X-Press It Blending Card with Memento Rich Cocoa and colored it with Copics. Then it was cut with Spellbinder's Beaded Ovals and sponged with the Distress Ink. I then mounted this onto an oval cut with Spellbinders from the dark green.

All layers were mounted to my 5 3/4 inch card base. Next I added dots of liquid pearls around the rose and along the right side of the card. The design seemed to want more, so I added a small design under the background panel.

And now for the second half of today's presentation.....

Who says you have to use stamps in the way they were designed? This stamp is the Abstract Flower. But, when I looked at it from the side, I saw a bird. And who says it has to be a background? I thought it made a nice focal image. What do you think?





Anyway, the bird/flower was inked up with VersaMark, stamped on watercolor paper cut larger than I needed, and then heat embossed with silver powder. I then sponged Distress Ink in Broken China, Seedless Preserves, Peacock Feathers, and Evergreen Bough. After sponging, I spritzed the paper with a bit of water to start the magic of the Distress Inks, and let it dry.

Finishing the card was simple. I trimmed my image and mounted it on magenta card, mounted that to a piece of gray card and added a strip of ribbon. That was all adhered to a black card base cut at 5 x 7 inches. I then cut a Spellbinders Fancy Framed Tags 2 from the magenta. The Werdz greeting was stamped with VersaMark on a scrap piece of the colored water paper. Dots of liquid pearls complete the look.

That's it for me today. Remember to scope out everything there is to see on the Eureka Stamps Blog. Last week's Tutorial by Sara on Digital Coloring images with PhotoShop Elements was a doozy. And, as always, I hope you'll visit my personal blog for even more ideas I Love It.

Bodacious Backgrounds

It's Wednesday, and you know what that means - time for the Techniques and Tutorial Team to step up to the plate.

Deb here today with a tutorial on background stamps. I love me a good background stamp cause you can always create designer paper (DP) in colors that match your project, even if you don't have a store-bought paper that works. I particularly love Eureka background stamps because you can often match up background images with focal images. Check out the project  below.

This card features Eureka's Filigree Background 39201 and Large Filigree Heart 24601. See what I mean by matching background and focal images?

Let me show you how his card came together. First of all, cut a base card from Stardream metallic cardstock at 5 1/2 by 7 1/2 inches - yup, that's a pretty large card. I like Stardream because it's substantial enough to hold up to the weight of multiple layers without sagging when you try to display the card.

I selected a piece of smooth, cream card, just a bit larger than the finished size I had in mind. After inking up my background stamp with black VersaFine ink, I stamped it off on a piece of scrap paper (to give a lighter colored impression) before stamping on the right of my cardstock. I try to line up my stamp with the paper keeping in mind where the actual image begins so I can place the second image pretty much in line with the first. And I repeated that whole process on the left. You can see the fine line between my two impressions. I try to do better than that but, in this case, that was good enough due to the card design I had in mind.

As you can see in the photo above, I cut a piece of Recollection metallic cardstock in a gunetal grey and decorated the bottom edge with Spellbinders Classic Edges 2. I then cut a 2 1/2 inch strip of the gunmetal paper the width of my cream background. I cut the scalloped border with the Spellbinder, and embossed the whole piece with a Cuttlebug Hearts folder. All layers were then adhered.

Another piece of the cream cardstock was stamped three times with the focal image, twice in Distress Worn Lipstick and heat embossed, and once in Distress Festive Berries and heat embossed with a sparkle powder.

I wanted to pop up my focal images so, as you can see in these two photos (above), I cut a heart with my Cricut from scrap card and traced a heart shape around my focal images then hand cut them.

I adhered the darker heart to a piece of the gunmetal card and hand cut around it to create a small border.

The two pink hearts were adhered to the card, and I used pop dots to attach the middle heart. A bit of ribbon and along with Liquid Pearl and glitter glue dots completed the project.

* * *

Above is another project using the same background technique. This card measures 6" square. For this project, I used Eureka's Heart Background 57901, Love Potion Bottle 35802 and, for the inside, Cascading Hearts 14707

Below, you can see how the background and inside images looked.

That wraps up today's tutorial. As always, I look forward to your comments.

Don't forget to scope out what my Techniques and Tutorial partner, Joann, aka Sassy Raggedy has presented today on the QKR Stampede Blog. And remember you are always welcome at my personal blog Paper Crazy Lady. See you next Wednesday!

Card Making Basics - Choosing Image, Paper, Color and Embellishments

Hello! It's Wednesday and so it's time for a new Technique and Tutorial post. 

Deb with you today to share a Valentine and continue the Basic Card Making tutorial introduced last week by my T&T partner, Joann. Last week in Part 1, Joann outlined how to make a basic card. If you are new to card making, you might wonder what to do next. Here in Part 2 of Basic Card Making, I'll share some ideas on how to proceed with choosing your image, paper, color and embellishments. There are no hard and fast rules about how to proceed with your choices and beauty is, after all, in the eye of beholder. So choose what is pleasing to you and just have fun.

Consider Purpose and Person

The first step is to think about why you are creating a card and, especially, the preferences of the person who will be receiving your card. What colors do they like? Do they seem to favour a victorian kind of style or are they more contemporary? Are they more likely to appreciate hearts and flowers, or would they get a kick out of a humorous card? Today, I want to create a Valentine and, as it's for this blog and not any one person, any style would be appropriate. I fell in love with Eureka's Digi 1001 Heart Flowers in a Frame and Digi1101 Be My Valentine.

Prepare Image

Now you want to stamp or print your image. There are so many different products and methods that take stamping to a true art, but today - since we are thinking about a basic card - let's stamp or print in basic black. As our tutorials roll out, you will see many, many different ways to stamp and color an image.

You want to stamp or print on papers that work well with the coloring medium you prefer. Or you could choose to place your image on colored paper and not do any additional coloring at all. This particular image would look spectacular done with VersaMark and Heat Embossing Powders on a colored paper.

I love, love, love my Copics markers and wanted to use them with these beautiful Valentine images, so I printed my image on X-Press It Blending card. One of the advantages to working with digi images is that you can size them to fit your project, so I have chosen to size my focal image to 5 x 6 inches which will take up most of the space on my card base which is 5 1/4 x 7 1/4 inches.

Choose Designer Paper

Generally, card makers will choose some kind of beautiful paper (I'll refer to this as Designer Paper or DP) to layer between their card base and their focal image. Again, think of your recipient and choose a DP that might be pleasing to them.

Also keep in mind the style of your focal image. Working with such a large and intricate image, I wanted to pick a DP that would compliment and not compete with my image.

Select a designer paper that will work with the colors you had in mind for your focal image. I knew I wanted to color my image with pink, purple and red, so I needed a DP to look good with those colors. I narrowed my choices down to a glitter paper and a pearalized paper, both in solid colors.

Color and Trim the Image

Now that you have your DP chosen, it's safe to go ahead and color your image. You could color your image and then try to pick a paper, but it might be harder to get a good match that way and you may end up having to color a second image. Next, trim away any excess paper around your image and adhere it onto your DP. After placing the colored image on both DP I was considering, I went with the red sparkle.

Consider Embellishments

The final touch to a beautiful project is that one bit of embellishment which takes your card from good to great. The choices for embellishments are absolutely unlimited and include ribbon, flowers, glitter, brads, pearls, crystals, chipboard, stickers and on and on. Sometimes it takes a while to decide what that final touch should be. I'm from the "less is more" school, especially with such a detailed image - but that's just me. Lay out some of the items you have in your stash, and choose what looks good to you. If you're not sure, walk away, have a coffee and come back later. In the following photos, you can see some of the options I considered.

 

 

You can see better in some photos that I added dots of liquid pearls and glitter to the image itself, along with ribbon and three brads at the top of the card. You can also see in the photo below that I didn't need fancy Copic techniques here - just a layer of color that you could do with any type of marker or crayon.

Inside the Card

The inside of a card provides another great place to personalize your project. I try to choose an image or sentiment that matches the style of my card front, and I try to use some of the same materials.



I'd love to receive your comments or questions on our tutorials. Let me know what you think or what you'd like to see! Don't forget you are always welcome at my personal blog Paper Crazy Lady.