Whirlpool of Imagination

Butterfly Pyramid

My plan for today was to make a pyramid card. I already had an image cut and adhered together but for the life of me, couldn't find it. (Yet another reason why my studio needs a spring cleaning!). Luckily I already had another sheet printed out so I shifted gears just a bit.

The butterfly set of images was printed on photo paper to give it that shiny look. The challenge with the pyramids is that their final size is essential the same shape/design and I'm trying to come up with different ways to design a card around them.

For the background on the top, I used alcohol and reinker to create a nice background without being too busy. The bottom cardstock is embossed with the swiss dots CB folder and I used a sentiment from Verve Visual to finish it off.

Dare I say it, we actually had a semi spring-like afternoon here. The kids played outside for a couple of hours so I'm hoping for early bedtimes and good sleep (for all of us!). Have a good night!

A New Type of 3-D for Me

I had plans for posting this last night but I got caught up watching American Idol and Mo had shut off the computer by the time I came upstairs! After giving pyramid cards a try, I decided to wanted to try 3-D cards. I don't think I did this one right but it does look better in person than on the screen.

Like pyramid cards, you start off with images on the cardstock that need to be cut down. In this case, there is more cutting as your building pieces of the scene up rather than a rectangle of the image.

For this card, the lighthouse was cut out several times, sometimes with the rocks, sometimes not and layered to give the card its depth and dimension. I'm not sure if I was supposed to pop dot one layer but if so, I couldn't tell you which layer so I didn't do this. Since the cardstock is well, cardstock (and thicker) it does seem to build the layers nicely.

I definitely need practice cutting and doing more of these but it was fun to try something new. I used my new favorite CB folder ~ swiss dots along with a little stamping to finish off the card.

We're stuck with the rain today. I would love to stay in my pajamas and stay inside all day but no luck. Hope its nice wherever you are!

Building A Pyramid

Thanks so much for the kind words on my last pyramid card. They are super easy to do so here's the quickest tutorial on the face of the earth....

Here is what a sample pyramid sheet looks like. I'm not very computer savvy so I don't know how to make these sheets yet. The fabulous people over at the Circle of Crafters Card Making message board generously offer up these sheets. I definitely would like to learn how to do these myself though - a project for a rainy day I guess. This great sheet was created by Tracy Churchill.

You print off your sheet and then cut it up. I use my paper cutter except for the really tiny one. You then build a pyramid by layering the pictures on top of each other exactly where the picture lines up. I've seen these done with mounting tape in between each one if you want a large pyramid. So far I've only printed the pictures off on my cardstock and layered them with my double sided tape.

Once you make your pyramid, use it like any image block and design your card.

And here's my finished sample. The couple had that slight blue layer on the bottom layer so I tried to match that up with my blue cardstock. I have to say, I'm really liking this one. I find these colors very soothing together. The sentiment stamp is from Spunky Stamps.

It's vacation week so that means I'll either got a lot of crafting done or none at all!

Springtime Anyone?

I am itching for spring to come. This winter has been a constant of damp, cold and rain and I am ready for some flowers and sunshine! To get me in the spring mood, I made a pyramid card with tulips today.

As soon as I saw this sheet, I wanted to do this one up. The colors of the flowers lent itself to a red and brown color combo, just like yesterday. I am really into the brown lately so you may see more of it in the days to come!

The brown layer is punched with a Fiskars border punch and stamped with a background from Cornish Heritage Farms (one of the newer ones - love it so you will be seeing more of that too in the future). I then built the pyramid and added a few more brown and red layers.

And there you go. Hopefully spring is indeed coming soon.

Going 3-D

I find it quite interesting to explore the kinds of card making and crafts that are popular in other areas of the world. I'm so focused on stamping that sometimes I just feel the need to wander away from that. One place that is great for ideas is the message boards over at Circle of Crafters. This was where I originally learned about iris folding and tea bag folding. I hadn't given 3-D cards a go before this but some of the pyramid sheets are so pretty that I thought I'd try one.

Here's my first go at it so be gentle!

The flower image is from a pyramid sheet created by the generous crafters at CoC. I couldn't completely give up the stamping so the background stamp is from Cornish Heritage Farms and the small sentiment is from a recent set from Papertrey Ink.

I'm really glad I gave this a try. I'm sure I'll be back for more.