Transparency Card part II: Encouraging our New Service Men

I went a little crazy with the spray adhesive on this one so now I'm typing with sticky fingers. I made a huge Silhouette Studio discovering with this project - Auto Trace! Yep, the new version provides auto trace with imported JPG images. KILLER! See the silhouette of a police badge? Yep - an imported JPG image that's been traced.

I made a blunder though - my blade lost it's oomph cutting the transparency papers. I'm not sure if the paper did it or it was just worn down already but I'm pretty disappointed that it's only been 3 months and the blade has already crapped out on me. OH well, blade #1, It's been a good run.

Card: Happy New Years in a Transparent Kind of Way

I think it's absolutely genius that the company that markets the Silhouette Machine ALSO has a blog of fabulous ideas! I fell in love when I saw this post about creating a card using transparency paper. It took me two months to convince myself to buy the transparency paper but $32 & 100 Write-Only transparency sheets later, my creation was made.

Cards made out of transparency paper has it's downfalls though.

1. It's probably not the greenest of products.
2. Fingerprints get EVERYWHERE!
3. The Silhouette has to be on the highest force setting possible to cut the dang transparency paper.
4. Damn that paper, especially if you want the inkjet printing compatible version, is SUPER expensive.
5. Whatever you choose to affix on it has to be glued on discretely or very neatly.

On the plus side, It doesn't warp when peeling it off the Silhouette cutting mat like paper does and it doesn't leave residue (that I can see at least) to further de-stickify the cutting mat. And ultimately, it's unique and pretty stunning in my opinion!

Tools used for this project:

1. Silhouette SD (both in cut only mode and print & cut using Registration Marks)

2. Double sided tape to tape the ribbon

3. 3M spray adhesive

Green Christmas Wrapping

Happy New Year!

A little belated but here are the beginnings of my Christmas Wrapping circa December 13th. The bigger, finished pile didn't get photographed but all the wrapping accessories got returned to me! Everyone felt bad throwing the ribbon, etc away SO I got most of it back. Maybe next year they'll get photographed, if I'm feeling 'green' again. :-)

This year's wrapping was inspired by ideas such as Design Sponge's recycled gift toppers and Paper Crave's creative wrapping embellishments.

Wrapping Paper: My creativity FINALLY came to me! I put away the left over paper from last year and pulled out reams of brown paper. The brown paper is courtesy of all the companies I ordered from that used these reams to stuff their packages.

Embellishments: I coupled the brown paper with an assortment of last years ribbons, the breakdown of my gold floral crown from last halloween's Greek Goddess costume and pieces old jewelry.

Gift Tags: Ornament gift tags were courtesy of my Silhouette SD & Lori Whitlocks 3 Ornaments design.

A Dino-mite Birthday Card?

Inspired by some Member Gallery photos on Two Peas In a Bucket, this dinosaur birthday card was 4 evenings in the making.

It's not my best work, not even good work. To be honest, I don't like it at all. Maybe it was the choice of colors but it looks like a kindergarten project. But, it did take me a while and is probably the most involved card I've made to date.

The paper used for the trees were printed with an argyle pattern. Then each dinosaur and tree was cut using the Silhouette SD then colored using Distress Ink - Antique Linen. A little bit of gold pigment ink was added to the dinosaurs and then finally I used a happy birthday stamp to randomly stamp the dinosaurs using distress ink again. The banner was made using Illustrator based on instructions found on the web and were touched up with distress ink as well. I got the depth perception I was looking for but SOMETHING is missing. What is it???

On the bright side, I got to finally use my stamp from China. Looks neats!

Google Search: How to make a banner in illustrator

It's been a while, but I'm back at it again - card making. Good thing everyone has a birthday!

Bad thing is I'm tired of googling images that only meet 75% of what I envision and cleaning them up for use. Gimp used to be my best friend for the clean up task but now that Illustrator is in my life, I feel the need to create. So, today, after I created some of the raw pieces of the dinosaur birthday card, I realized the card needed a little umph. Perhaps a 'Happy Birthday' banner will do the trick. The creator in me googled 'how to make a banner in illustrator'.

Bless Google for returning this blog as the first search result and bless the soul of The Design Playbook for such detailed yet easy to follow instructions.

Now, my creation will be complete! While I work on the banner, the cutouts are laid out to dry.

Repurposed Supplies to Christmas Gift Tags

I think it's a fair trade off. I spend a little money on my very cool Silhouette SD and I skimp on some of the silly things I can now make like gift tags and wrapping paper.

The string: Originally purchased for my DIY Greek Goddess Halloween costume, is now used to hang the gift tags.

The cardstock paper: Just look at my previous blogs. But finally, an occasion where I can go crazy with red without feeling guilty.

The stamping: A cute little set of typeface rubber stamps I happened to find in my brothers room. After a little nagging, he gave up and let me have the brand new, still wrapped, set.

The gift tag shapes: I'm finally using the $10 gift card that came with my purchase of the Silhouette SD. I figured it was time especially with the Thanksgiving Sale of 50cents per shape.

Now, if I can only get creative enough with my wrapping.

Farewell Card: So Long, Farewell

Auf Weidersehen, goodbye. Yet another co-worker departs. This time it's the Mexican Bagpiper.

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