Making A Mouse Out Of Paper Punches

I've seen a lot of paper punch art but only have only once seen a mouse. It was on a card so I thought I'd give it a try. (eeek!) Hope you enjoy!

Don't forget to visit my blog for more fun! Thanks Bunches!

Running out of felt pads for your applicator?

No problemo.

If you can't wait to buy the new ones or the craft store is closed and you need desperately your felt, you can make your own pad just with baby wipes.

I use baby wipes to clean my stamps and usually they dry in a few minutes. Don't throw them away after using them.


Cut a piece of the wipe a bit bigger than the velcro and add a piece of double side adhesive

Wrap the wipe and you'll have two layers of the felt.

Just adhere to the applicator, and that's it. You can keep on "inking".

If you like to see my work, please fell free to visit me at Hecho a mano

Thank you, Cuchy

paper Hibiscus

It's another cold wet winter day here in Oz but warm at heart with this paper hibiscus. Ive been so inspired by Joannes no tool flowers and asked her some time ago if it was alright to post a few of my own designs and this Hibiscus is one of them. This was also the last card i gave my mum in law when she was last in hospital.

you will need:

light weight card
inks
coloured pencils and markers
Med sun punch
glues
emboss mat
Pattern.
The Hula girl is a sizzix sizzlits die

Cut 5 petals from the pattern, 1 sun punch, 1 thick end of the stamen and 1 thin stamen top with 2 slits cut in the end ( refer to the pattern for measurements). ink all these.

next to add more colour to the petals i simply used a crayola pencil and a regular texter or marker.starting at the pointed tip and flicking the colour towards you.

to shape the petals i used my makeshift deet tool which is a knitting needle glued into a piece of dowel. start at the point pressing firm drag the tool along the petal and fan this out as you go always starting at the point

emboss all five. this kind of embossing will create the curl in the petals you want without doing any other shaping.

Cut a circle of scrap about 1" round and this will be the base to glue the petals to. You can draw some dividing lines as a guide if you like.

A range all five petals and let the glue dry.

Now roll the thicker bottom of the stamen and glue up.

colour glue and slide in the center the of the roll the top longer stamen with the slits.

Cut a circle from the center of the sun punch and apply some glue to the center. place at the top and roll the sun frill around ...

Glue closed and bend down the long center stamens...once dry with a strong glue attach to the center of your flower

add glitter to the stamen and some crystal glitter to the base if you can see some glue

leaves are easy using your emboss tool make a line down the center and veins on the sides and add some inked edges to highlight the embossing. make at least 3 leaves.

Use foam tape 3 layers think to support the petals. Remember to let all this dry before attaching to you card......follow this link for the Video Tutorial .....I hope you have enjoyed its been a labor of love ..Valita

When i taught this in my class my friend Joan came up with this double hibiscus! isn't it beautiful!! thanks Joan for your inspiration.

Making A Flower From A Fabric Favor (Organza) Bag

You know those little bags we get at weddings with jordan almonds in them, or we get them with our prima flowers in them from the craft store? Well.........re-use them! Make them into flowers! The victorian girl is made out of wood.  This post was also great at Going Green Greetings. Sneak a peek at that blog for more re-usable crafts. Thanks for watching!

Don't forget to visit my blog for more fun! Monica

Making A Pumpkin Out Of A Scallop Punch

I made this card the other day with a pumpkin made from a scallop punch. I wanted to give a quick tutorial on how to make it. Thanks for watching!

Don't forget to visit my blog for more fun! Thanks! Monica

Masking Technique

Thought I'd share a little technique I accidentally came up with (although I'm sure someone else actually intended to and did a better job than me!!) but it kept me amused for a hour or so and most importantly its easy peasy!!

So here goes:

Using some whisper white card stock and the largest nestability scallop circle die, I ran it through my big shot.

Using a circle cutter (I got mine for £1 at a craft fair) I cut a circle to form the 'mask' from some copier paper.

I adjusted mine to just under 9cm but you can measure it against the scallop circle to get a size that fits in nicely. (Which means you can do loads of sizes!)

Then I put it on top of the scallop circle an held it up to the light so I could position the 'mask' in the centre of the scallop. I then used some low tack tape to temporarily hold it in place.

I found some designer paper that I wanted to use on my final card and collected some inks that co-ordinated with it.
I used Stampin' Up!'s Old Olive, Certainly Celery, Cameo Coral and Bashful Blue.

(I apologise for the colours looking drained in the pictures, for some reason I couldn't get the camera to pick them up, hmm?)

I then chose a large image that would roughly fit into the scallop circle and inked with Old Olive.

With the 'mask' held in place with tape, I stamped directly on top of it trying to aim it so the majority of the image would be inside the circle.

I then carefully removed the 'mask' to reveal the stamped image.

Using the Cameo Coral on a sponge dauber, I positioned the circle which was cut away from the centre of the 'mask' and placed this over the stamped image.

It's pretty easy to position with the image already in the centre, you just need to cover this up.
I then colour tinted the scallop edges.

Using my acrylic block as a palette, I picked up the ink with my water brush and applied to the image.

To finish off my scallop circle, I tinted the edge of it with Old Olive.

When I had covered my base card with the designer card stock and some co-ordinating plain card I then positioned my scallop circle to one side of the card, cutting off two sections that would over hang.

I applied (quite a few - lol) dimensionals to the back of the scallop circle.

I then adhered it to my card base and added some ribbon.

I stamped a sentiment and punched out, then tinted the card with Cameo Coral and edges with Old Olive.

(The sentiment used is from a Stampin' Up! set called Fun and Fast Notes. I used some tape to cover the bottom of the image and inked up the wording, then peeled off the tape and stamped onto whisper white leaving just the sentiment - and in the words of Aleksandr Orlov famed for his appearance in the Meerkat adverts - Simples!! Hehe I Love that advert!!)

And finish off by adhering the sentiment!

I love this technique so much already, here's another card I made using the same technique with a different colour scheme.

On this one I didn't use the negative from the mask and opted to sponge the colour freehand for a different look.

On this card I used some jewels and added clear accents to the image.

You can do this with some many different stamps and I think it adds a bit more interest to some stamps you may have used to death!!

I'll photograph a card I made with a Stamping Bella image and upload during the week.

I'd love to see your creations if you decide to give it a go!! Leave a comment with a link to your blog and we can check it out :o)

You can check out my blog here.