Really Reasonable Ribbon Challenge #51 & Make It Monday #73

This is a first for me - I've looked at the Really Reasonable Ribbon challenges in the past, but  always feel a little "ribbon challenged" if you know what I mean. I'm never quite sure how to use ribbon in creative and innovative ways.

The theme for RRR51 is "children's birthday with ribbon" and I had this bright, beautiful May Arts chevron striped twill sitting on my desk that I have been really wanting to use.

This is the card I came up with:

I adhered alternate pieces of turquoise and celery chevron twill on a piece of scrap paper, trying my best to line up the chevrons.

I took a small scrap of blue patterned paper and attached a squiggly line of brads from my stash, keeping to the blue/green color palette.

The birthday sentiment is stamped onto a scrap of green check paper from the Lily Bee Design Victoria Park Tiny Tablet. This stamp is from the Papertrey Ink Birthday Bash Sentiments stamp set and one of my favorites.

I heated embossed the sentiment to balance the shine and glitter on the brads. Because I stamped onto patterned paper, I am also entering this in the Make It Monday#73 challenge at Papertrey Ink.

Thanks for stopping by,

Jacquie

Make It Monday #73 Stamping on Patterned Paper

When I saw the Make It Monday challenge at Papertrey Ink was to stamp on patterned paper (you can check out Ashley Cannon Newell's video here), I knew right away I wanted to redo a card I did for their sketch challenge a while back.

This is the card I made tonight:

Does it look familiar?

A few people asked how I did this card, so I took a few photos along the way tonight.

My first challenge is always which papers to use and what color card base. The designer papers are from My Mind's Eye Indie Chic Nutmeg paper pad and the cardstock is an orphan piece that falls into the bluey/green/gray color category.

The cardstock really did have an odd sheen to it, so I am not sure where it came from. The flower pattern is easy to work with, but I knew I would have to pay attention when using and cutting the chevron pattern to keep it lined up the right way.

My first step was to cut the circles - I have the Spellbinders Nestabilities sets and cut cardstock only in the 3 1/4" and 2 3/8" size and then one circle from each piece of paper in the 3" and 2 1/8" size die.

The finished card will be 4 1/4 x 5 1/2", so I cut a base piece of the flowered paper to 4 x 5 1/4".

On this base, I centered a 1 1/2 x 5 1/4" piece of cardstock with a 11/4 x 5 1/4" piece of the chevron paper centered on it.

I used my awesome Tim Holtz Idea-ology ruler to center and mark the second biggest cardstock circle (3") so it is lined up with the outside cardstock edge.

I mark the cut lines on each side of the circle, connect with a pencil line and trim along these lines with my exacto knife.

The larger chevron circle is left whole and the larger flower circle is lined up and trimmed to match the edges of the center chevron panel.

I repeat the same steps with the smaller circles, only this time the flower piece is left whole and the chevron is trimmed.

You can see above the outer pencil lines are made by lining the circle with the already trimmed cardstock. My Idea-ology ruler makes it super simple to add another line 1/8" in from the first one - this is my cut line.

Here are all the pieces lined up in order for assembly - the trimmed circles are the same length, but trimmed 1/4" narrower (for a 1/8" border on each side).

This is a little fiddly, but not high on the technical difficulty scale - I'd love to hear if someone else has a more efficient way of putting these layers together.

I decided to ink all my edges this time, but am not really thrilled with the final look - I might try again and play around with only inking some edges.

I am pretty pleased with the line on my chevron pieces - the flow through isn't perfect, but at least they are all going in the same direction!

I hope you have something fun planned for the 4th of July - we are taking a little day trip and plan for an early start tomorrow. It gets interesting when members of the household define early - for dear husband it would be no later than 7 am, I think 8 would be fine and the dear teens define early as being ready to leave by 11 {ha}.

Thanks for stopping by,

Jacquie

Make It Monday #72 Step It Up - Embellishments

First of all - HAPPY CANADA DAY!!!!

Now, back to our regularly scheduled program  . . . I wasn't sure I was going to squeeze in a post today, but have a few minutes while the rest of the family cleans the kitchen. Don't feel too sorry for them - I've already loaded the dishwasher, put away the leftovers and soaked the really dirty stuff in hot soapy water, so their final cleanup is pretty easy.

I am inspired by a few things today:  the Make It Monday #72 Step It Up video from Dawn McVey at Papertrey Ink and challenge to include handmade embellishments, the Frosted Designs Fabulous Friday Challenge to use circles in a project and a friend of mine that was making flowers with a circle punch on her blog this week.

Here are the cards I came up with all using a circle punch and scrap paper to make flowers.

The first is super simple:

And then slightly more involved:

And finally:

All the sentiments are from the PTI Mega Mixed Messages stamp set and the ribbons are from my stash.

The flowers on this last card are super simple to make. Poke through your scrap paper to find papers of a similar color palette. For these flowers, you really do need to use paper that is printed on both sides. I know some of these scraps are from the Echo Park Victoria Gardens paper pad and at least one is from an Authentique pad.

Gather a couple of circle punches, glue dots and brads.

You will need four punched circles for each flower and these photos show how quick they are to produce.

Once you have the four circles layered together, pinch the top layer into tthe center and expose the colors and layers below. A brad, pearl or gem in the center finishes it off and covers the hole.

You can alternate the papers or alternate which side is facing up, like I did on this flower.

The flowers are then attached to your card front to create a little bouquet.

So, let me know how I did with the challenges.

Thanks for stopping by,

Jacquie