Vote for Me!

The Paper Wishes contest this month is using their new Color Me papers - I absolutely love these! They are made to resist ink and have beautiful designs. When heated, the resist areas can also take glitter! Oooh - the possibilities! Here is my submission. Voting starts tomorrow, Monday, September 27 - please vote for me! If I win, I get $100 in Paper Wishes product!

Go to www.paperwishes.com and click on the contest tab to vote.

Mosaic Card Class

Date has been set - I'll be teaching the Mosaic Card class at Stamp and Scrap Nest in Simsbury on Saturday, October 9. Hope to see you there!

Design Team!

I got selected for The Character Cafe's Design Team! Just got the word - more to come!

Mosaic Cards!

People always get excited at crops when they see me working on one of my mosaic pages. Susan at Stamp and Scrap Nest in Simsbury, CT gave me a challenge - the bulk of her customers are card makers so she wanted to see if I could put together a card class. Well! I'd never made cards with this technique but I love a challenge so....I went to the Mosaic Moments websites and got some ideas and this is what I came up with. One (the gift card holder is a direct lift from the design blog at Mosaic Moments.) The class will probably be some time in October.

For more information about card making and scrapbooking with mosaics, click the link I have on the right side of the blog.

Strips and Stripes - Seminole Patchwork

Here's another fun thing to do with strips and stripes! Seminole patchwork comes from the Seminole Tribe and is used in making clothing and decorative fabrics. Do some searches - there are many interesting patterns and they all have a story behind them!

Again I'm cutting my pieces, but you can use striped paper easily enough. This time I'm cutting 1" strips.

Just as in the Bargello technique, glue or tape your strips down to a base piece of paper or cardstock.

When all of your strips are applied, cut away the excess:

Then cut 1" strips across your stripes:

We're going to be laying these down at an angle like so:

Here's a way you can be sure you're getting the first piece laid down at the right angle: Draw a straight line exactly perpendicular. Then lay your first piece down so that the corners are directly on the line.

Then lay down all your additional pieces until your card panel is full.

Next, cut two 1" strips of coordinating solid paper and place them along the top and bottom of your design:

After looking at this on my base card, I decided I wanted the black strips to be a little narrower, so I trimmed them down:

And then all that's left is to add some artwork and a sentiment!

Strips and Stripes - Bargello

This month in the Paper Wishes swaps it's all about strips and stripes! One of the fun things you can do to make great backgrounds for your cards is taking strips of paper and making Bargello patterns. Bargello is a needlework term and you see a lot of Bargello embroidery and tapestry work. Google it and see what you find!

In this demo I'm making strips of paper 1/2" wide. You could also use a striped patterned paper and get the same effect for less work! Once you get a good collection of strips, glue or tape them down to a piece of background paper or cardstock.

Then, cut 1/2 inch strips crosswise. I find that I do best when I mark the lines on the back and just cut with scissors. If I try to do it in my paper trimmer, the layers of paper are just too thick and sometimes the trimmer will lift up what I've pasted down. If you've used thin papers it might work.

Here are all my cut strips:

Before you decide how you want to glue them down on your final card panel, you can play with them at this point. It's fun to rearrange them and see what kind of patterns you can get!

Once you find a pattern you like, glue or tape them down to your card panel. Then trim off the excess:

Here's my final card panel:

...and the final card. Here I just added a strip of vellum, and a cutout from the Hot Off the Press Classic Creative Cardmaker's Pack:

What's coming up next month?

Thought I would give you a little teaser as to what's coming up for the October technique swap on Paper Wishes. It has to do with Strips and Stripes! Hmmm.....what's Nancy cooking up?