Trees for 2016 – ornaments, tags, whatever.

As I mentioned, I usually do some sort of card that incorporates an ornament.  Most years I do some sort of tree.  The simple version is to print them and stick two back-to-back. The more fiddly, but 3D version is to stick three (or even four) in a ring. The flat one obviously works best if you want to mail it.

Here are some new ones for 2016!

Colourful trees

Green Trees

Red Tress

These are 3d versions, and I’ve streamlined the process a bit.

After you print and cut three of any set, just crease slightly at the bottom

Just a bit of a pinch is all you need, rather than the full top to bottom centre score

Add a strip of double-sided tape like so, with a fat strip in the middle of one tree

Stick your hanger string/yarn/twine to the fat piece

then stick the sides.  If there is a gap at the top, you can stick a button or a pom-pom or a punched star over it.

Of course you can punch a hole at the top and use them for tags, writing the To: and From: on the back.

The back-to-back sticking is super easy, so very quick for kids!

Enjoy.

 

All the Camera Hands cards as .PNGs

I re-named them, because they are more useful than just for Selfie photos, I think. I wasn’t sure how was best to add these, so I’ve done them as a Gallery.  You can click on any of them to open it larger then save the .PNG.  They are 300 dpi so should be quite scalable.  Do let me know.  This is a bit of a new thing for me so not sure I’ve gotten it right. They seem to display with a black centre when you click on them, but are transparent when you open them in a program like PSE.

 

I think they could even make cute card toppers. Sorry for the not-great photo – it’s in fading light and the card shifted as I snapped this one – see how the top edge isn’t level?  Should have done it lying flat, but oh well…. at least it shows the SNAP hanging off the edge.

and standing up as an easel card

A bit of luck, the embossing folder having the same motif as the paper!  But the point is, think outside the box.  I’ll bet you can think of lots of cute uses for bringing photos to cards.

Have fun and if you use them do share!

Quick card from printables

After three years, my Glitter Technique post is still the one that gets more hits than any other (except the Home Page) and it’s been viewed 40,295 times.  For something I have often said I thought was a “throwaway” post, something that was cute but not earth-shaking, that still surprises me.  Anyway, I thought I would use it again as a way to get a cute and fast background for DDs cards to hand out this year.  I already created the tree (seems it’s been trees the last few years – and why not?  A tree is so easy to cut!) so the rest of it was simple.  I toyed with the idea of some sort of easel card, and I may still have a go at one of them, but this was pretty quick – quick enough to whip up a handful for her to take to her Thursday night group if she wants to hand deliver some.

It was just a quick emboss and brayer over the glitter gel, as per the original tutorial

then print and snip a couple of the trees.  Either the ones from this year or past ones, all seen here, will work

I decided to do two – one that is made up as the ornament, the other trimmed inside the lines with the text snipped off as a sentiment.

I cut a thin strip of cardstock and cut a notch in the centre.  The issue is always how best to “attach” the ornament, leaving it easy to remove, and I keep trying new methods.  Sticking that at the sides, but leaving the centre under the notch free, seems to hold it in place.

As pretty as the glitter is, once the ornament is pulled off, the card is so plain.  The second tree gets mounted under where the ornament one hangs

so when you pull that off the card, the card is still worth displaying

Easy Peasy. And I think the little tree looks cute on our big tree!

Now, I just have to make five more….

A commenter asks, I answer!

One of my frequent commenters, Paula, asked about the card with Post It note and tear-off calendar, commenting that she had just planned on making one of my CD calendars but was torn because she loved the Post it note idea.  As I was replying, the germ of an idea floated to the top of my brain.  I spent more time hunting around trying to find a clean, empty CD cover than I did making the project!

There are many ways to go with the idea and I’ll outline a few of them.  Basically, the key is a small extra piece of thick cardstock or thin chipboard scored to create a kink.

This is assuming your CD holder has edges all around both pieces.  I think some of the newer ones may have less to get in the way.

Mine is 5 1/4 x 3 1/2.  This is so it fits inside the CD case.  In order to add the pen holder, I poked a hole in the middle, just above the 3 x 3 Post it note square.  Using a crochet hook, I pulled the loom band thru to the back

and threaded a bit of chipboard the at the back, sticking it down.

I added a strip of double-sided tape to the top edge, but did NOT peel off the backing.  This way all the bits for the Calendar fit inside the CD cover.

And in fact, with a small pen or pencil, that will fit in as well.  You can see I show this without the cover decorated, because if it was, you couldn’t see how nicely it fits inside! Once your recipient takes it out, they can assemble it

For this, I made a decorated block that fits behind the cover, then stuck the tear-off block to the front.  That way you can change the background as often as you like and so long as the placement is the same, you can just stick a new year’s one on in 2016!

Two additional points: first, there is no reason you can’t use any standard CD calendar blocks rather than a tear-off one.

As long as they aren’t on super thick paper they should still fit in the CD along with the Post-it note block, especially if you divide a block in 1/2 as I did.   Second, if they feel the footprint of the calendar is too big, your recipient can always stick it to the back leg of the stand.  Technically they wouldn’t really NEED the added piece, but it’s nice to offer the option

And finally, I’ve had the odd comment or two about my Doily calendar printables.  Some folk aren’t crazy about the grungy scratch marks thru the Month names.  I liked that, which is why I picked that font, but as it only took me like 15 minutes, I went ahead and did a font swap for the same one I used for the 2016 Calendar.

This one is sized for Project Life but I used it in the sample to make the tear off.  The little ones were too small to look right on the front of the CD

 

THIS one is the smaller card topper size tear-off. You can see the three methods I use for making a stack a tear-off: glue, brads, staple.

{sigh} now I have to go back and add the link to all the places where I have the OTHER doily version …

Scandi-style PL filler and journaling cards

I just popped off and the number verification has returned for Blogger so I am going to add these, cause I did promise to do so, then carry on with my WOYWW comments.  With luck I can get thru most of my unvisited blogs today, if I am careful and Blogger play fair.

When I started uploading I thought THIS is what I would be sharing.

But a funny thing happened.  I was looking at it and thought how time consuming it would be to change the colours for the red ones so they were shades of blue, and change that lonely blue one to match the red and do two sets.  So I had a play with the HUE adjust – the problem with that is it is really hard to get JUST the right colour.  It’s a trade-off – do all the colours at once with a slider, or group and colour change each cross-hatch?  Easy answer, don’tcha think?

The blue is not so icy but nice, I think. Get the RED version here and the BLUE version here. Interestingly, the HUE adjust really bumped up the file size.  The red one, no adjustment, is only 545 kb and the blue one, with the adjustment is 1.1 mb.  I find that interesting. Also not the RED one has the simple snowflakes changed to red – they were not as complex so I did them x by x.

I think really only the top right one is a filler card only – the rest have a bit of space for journaling, some more than others.  Hopefully they will be useful.  and although these are sized for Project Life, can you visualize how easy it would be to turn them into gift tags or place cards? For place cards I’d use them as is, but for tags, I might cut them in half – the patterns are symmetrical so easy to do. what about card toppers?

Have fun!

The Greetings Circles printables – richer colour, not huge file

Nearly there on the whole back to normal thing.  Stupid car in the shop AGAIN, DDs birthday coming up, potentially prepping for DS (+ new girlfriend) home for Thanksgiving. blah, blah, blah.  But I did tweak the more richly coloured greetings circles.  And as I have them done, I should add them no –  I know that while I am not that way inclined, there are many who are deeply in the throes of making Christmas cards, and many who may be nearly done and are on to wrapping.  I envy them but not enough to actually make the change in my own life LOL!

Pretty much the same as the other set 

There is the second page of the larger 3″ circles as well.  You can download the 2 page PDF here.

Just FYI, if you select in your printer dialog box 2 images per page (and in mine I have to auto-rotate and scale to fit) you will get a single sheet with the smaller circles at about 1.25″ and the bigger ones about 2.25″ –  now, you MAY have a punch to fit or you may not, but the Nesties work to cut the full circle with the frame.  If you wanted the greeting without the striped frame, then you can use the standard 2″ punch on the larger ones and a 1″ punch on the smaller ones! Keep in mind that all the circles will be ever so slightly smaller if you scale to fit US letter rather than A4, and printing A4 on US letter paper is going to cut off some of the circles (I think – I keep meaning to get some A3 paper and cut it down to US letter size to test things …) but depending on the use you have for them the smaller size might prove handy.

 

 

Round Robins – merry, happy, dated or not

This was much more of a struggle than it should have been and I am heartily sick of them now.  I designed them, created them, then updated my program and it seemed to cause me no end of trouble.  I would arrange a page, all looking fine, then I would save it as a PDF, open the PDF only to find there were bits missing – a wing here, an inked circle there… Drove me crazy.  I think I finally worked out the “rules” and then it was better, but still.

I ended up making just two versions – a HAPPY CHRISTMAS version, for those who use happy and a MERRY CHRISTMAS version for those.  There are six WITH 2014 and six WITHOUT a date.  You can either use a mix of dated and not dated this year or print as many dated ones as you need then tuck the un-dated ones into your Christmas wrap box for next year!

I printed them on canvas paper

and on matt photo paper

The difference in the reds is more due to the angle and the light than the paper.  Here you can see the paper-piecing version and the printed version side by side

I figure they work for gift tags (just write your message on the back) or as simple card toppers (maybe just add a nice mat behind the circle or ink the edges more and pop-dot it) as well as an ornament style hanging circle.  Now I am off to locate an oven-cleaner.  Has to be my least favourite job ever, and I have high hopes for a steam-cleaner rather than stinky chemical one.  Wish me luck…

Dated robin ornament printable

A couple of people did ask for the robins with the date on the front so I am adding that today.  The PDF is just the one page so if you print the original PDF once and this one once you will have a backer to match up with each paper piecing set

Remember, this is what you see as the sample from yesterday.

Sorry if it is all too confusing – let me be clear:

The robin ornament WITHOUT the date (6 sets) and 12 backing circles (two sheet PDF) can be downloaded HERE

The robin ornament WITH the date and no backing circles (one sheet PDF) can be downloaded HERE

And to further confuse things, if you com back tomorrow I should be able to add a printable sheet that has the ornament digitally “pieced” so all you need to do it print and punch.  I expect I’ll just go ahead and do them with the date and without the date and I guess I have to do MERRY and HAPPY Christmas and probably Season’s Greetings and Happy Holidays and…..

DOH!  You see, one of the reasons I started making printables to begin with was that I hated it when I bought some set of embellishments that I loved and they didn’t have exactly what  needed – so maybe I wanted the label or tag or other item, but with a RED border and not a pink one, or I wanted no date so I could use it another year.  But no matter how I try to guess what people want there are always options I simply never think of.  And when I DO think of them, this happens – I wind up making a gazillion sets of basically the SAME thing with very slight variations.

{sigh} I suppose it’s better than moving furniture and cleaning under the fridge….

 

Christmas printables – ornament card

{sigh}  Even I am aware that the holiday season will be upon us all too quickly.  Every year I design a card with an ornament to go with it, for DD to give out at school and at skating.  It usually takes me a while to make the 20-30 that I end up needing so I figured I should do it soon so I can work on a handful at a time. I’ve only gotten as far as the “ornament” part, not the card base yet.

You can download it here.

OK so a couple of things – first the printable does NOT have 2014 on it.  But I had already printed a sheet of that version and took photos of the assembly, and wasn’t going to do it all again.  Instead, I created a back that has the date and a greeting on it:

I still have the PDF with 2014 on the front, like you see in the photo, so if you REALLY love that one for some reason, drop a comment on me and I can probably add it.

You will note that the bits have a digitally inked edge.  You can still dust it with ink to make it more obvious but you don’t HAVE to. Also, the print out has feet.  A note about them – they are always going to be prone to catching and ripping, even if you print them on heavy card.  I left them because if you wanted to paper-piece the robin as a card topper you might want to use them, but my recommendation for the ornament is to skip them.

Looking at them you can see they are basically a couple of upside down Vs – if you REALLY want to use them,  if you have an appropriate letter die you might make life easy and just cut a pile of them to stick on, or draw them on or anything else you can think of.

The large circle fits a 2″ circle punch.  Various other dies will work – test what you have.  you might lose a smidge of the inked edge, or have a small white halo, but it’ll still probably look fine.

You can cut the wings by lining up one side with your 2″ punch and cutting that

then cutting the other side with scissors OR by sticking the uncut edge to a bit of scrap and use the punch to cut the other edge

Now, you will lose a bit doing it this way, but it’s easier than hand cutting for some.

The same thing works with a 1″ punch and the wing

Sure, there are better wing shapes but I am going for ease of mass-production and there are always compromises with that. I like to add the wing flat on the red, with a thin pop dot under the top edge. You can change the wing shape by trimming it or maybe even cut or punch a shape you prefer from some of the spare backers. Punch a circle from black cardstock for the eye.

And cut and add the beak, then back it with the backing circle – there are more of those than you need so you can either print page 1 of the PDF 2x and the backer once, or print as it comes and use the extra backers for gift tags or simple card toppers.

The background comes from a Graphics Fairy piece but just certain sections of it.  I may end up using that in some way for the card base. Watch this space.

{sigh} DH is here and keeps asking me questions about HIS part of the sorting and de cluttering and I have stuffed peppers to make and pop in the crock pot for dinner … and just when I was finally being creative….

Twisted Card ATC holder

So I was looking at the Twisted card from yesterday, and as I still had some of the ATCs from last week’s play on my desk, it occurred to me that the card, with a little change, could work well for an ATC holder.  When we did the WOYWW swap of ATCs I seemed to get either just the ATC, in a plastic sleeve, in an envelope, OR I got the ATC in a card that looked like it took as long to make as the ATC did! I thought that old, unloved double-sided papers could be used to make a twisted card, starting with a slightly wider strip, and used as both protector and card.  I don’t doubt some people would still put the ATC in a plastic sleeve, but they would still fit.

The only change to the cutting is to start with a 5 inch wide strip – I used the A4 papers from the pack, but I am fairly sure a US letter sized sheet will work fine.  Try it with scrap paper and see. Using double-sided paper means no other decoration is needed, really.

Then the first part of the scoring and folding is exactly the same:

Score corner to corner on the diagonal

Fold and crease sharply

Fold in half to create the card.

Now a little change – if you slip the ATC into the inside pocket, you can see where to fold over the right edge – the key marker is that the ATC not overhang the top edge.  See the top left corner of the ATC? Still contained within the diagonal …

and that pocket, when folded, works for portrait or landscape.

I folded the front over, then folded the opposite side as well, so the edges matched

then stuck all those folded edges down –

 

 

Gee, you can really tell some of those photos were taken last night and a couple this morning!  Amazing the difference in colour. Anyway, I also ran a thin line of adhesive in the middle near the fold to secure it all nicely.

And still, the card with ATC enclosed fits nicely in a 5 1/4 inch square envelope.

So now I’ve solved two problems – using up paper I am unlikely to use for any other purpose AND making a card that holds my ATC for mailing and looks cute but doesn’t take hours to make.  Result! I added a card adapted from my ATC info backers, which could be stored with the ATC (same size) if you wanted to keep the personal note along with the actual ATC.  They would work well in my hanging display sleeves…

I also wouldn’t discount this variation on the twisted card as a card in it’s own right.  With the right double-sided papers it only needs the bare minimum to decorate it, it is sturdy enough to stand up, can hold a gift card or photos and is easy enough for a kid to make.

I just love it when a plan comes together….