Embroidery Hoop Birthday Card

Happy New Year everyone! I hope all of you had a wonderful holiday!  It always flies by so fast, the weeks of preparation and then it's over.  I've also been busy creating a few things for the Tim Holtz CHA booth.  I know he's had a couple of sneak peeks on his blog, and I'm sure you will agree, the new collections are awesome!  I am very fortunate that I will be attending CHA this year along with Lynette, for Urban Scrapbook.  It's always very busy, tiring and a lot of work, ordering for the store, but also so inspiring.  The hardest part is not being able to order it all!

I have a card to share with you today featuring a new die from Sizzix's Eileen Hull.  She has a new collection called, Stitchlits that is sewing themed.

I've used her new Embroidery Hoop Bigz die for the main piece in my card.

I die-cut the hoop using Sizzix's Little Sizzles mat board.  I love using this mat board, it has a nice finish to it and when used with dies that have score lines, it scores so nice and doesn't split.  I traced a circle using the outside of the inner hoop, on a piece of patterned vellum.

I used Glossy Accents to adhere the vellum to the top of the inside hoop.  Glue the two hoops together. I die-cut another hoop from cardstock and using the large outside hoop, stamped it with Distressed Linen distress ink and a woodgrain stamp.  This was adhered to the mat board hoop.

The other embellishments on my card were an embossed ruler from Sizzix's 660318 Buttons, Ruler & Vines set, flowers from Sizzix's Tim Holtz Tiny Tattered Florals (660227), and Happy Birthday from Sizzix's Rachael Bright Card Basics Set.  The flowers were die-cut from patterned paper and vellum, Happy Birthday was die-cut from kraft gold foil Tim Holtz cardstock, the ruler was patterned paper.  The laser cut butterflies are from Bo Bunny.  One of the them was painted with Tim Holtz Gold Paint, and the other was embossed with Lindy's embossing powder.  My patterned paper is from Blue Fern Studios and the vellum is from American Crafts.

Here's another look at my card.

Thanks for stopping by,

See you after CHA!

Jan

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SIZZIX TUTORIAL

Hello everyone!  Thanks for stopping by here and hopefully you will join me over on the Sizzix blog today too.  I have a tutorial there showcasing this Train Case Box:

Have a great weekend!

Jan

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Sizzix Inspiration

Hi Everyone!  Today I have an inspiration post on the Sizzix blog:

Hope you visit me there!
There's lots of amazing new Sizzix product released at CHA, you can see some of it here.

Have a great day,

Jan

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Mother's Day Gift

With Mother's Day fast approaching, I thought I'd get my card made early, instead of leaving it to the last minute.  But when I got these new Susan's Garden dies, I decided to do something a little different. My mother loves flowers, but then don't we all?  With the Sizzix Gerbera  and Zinnia Susan's Garden dies I decided to make a small bouquet to fill a jar, made with Sizzix's Eileen Hull 3-D Canning jar die.

With the Sizzix Gerbera, Branches and Zinnia Susan's Garden dies I decided to make a small bouquet to fill a jar, made with Sizzix's Eileen Hull 3-D Canning jar die.

I made my canning jar first.  I cut out four jars, two of patterned paper and two of white chipboard. For the inside, I cut out one chipboard and one patterned paper.  The lid piece was a piece of cardstock, layered with adhesive backed foil paper and then die cut out.  I scored lines across to give it some interest.  I then painted the foil with black paint, then rubbed off the excess, leaving it just in the embossed areas. The paper was adhered to the cardstock on all the pieces, then I lightly inked the edges.

Once I finished all the pieces, I adhered the inside piece to both sides and then finished it off with the lid.

This is what the inside looks like. 

To finish off my jar, I die-cut a small label from Sizzix's Fancy Flip-it Framelit card set and adhered my "Mom" letters, die-cut from Sizzix's Tim Holtz Typeset die in the middle.

 Now onto my flowers!

I followed the directions on the flower die packages and there is also a pdf that can be printed on the Sizzix site for the flowers.

Once these flowers were assembled, I cut strips of wire for the stems.  With a hot glue gun, I adhered the wire to the backs of my flowers and then glued the leaves over top.

Once my flowers were finished, I hot glued a small piece of styrofoam to the bottom of my inside jar.  I filled halfway a small amount of dried moss, and then stuck my wired flowers into the foam.  To cover up the wires, I added more moss.

Your small Mother's Day bouquet is finished.  This would also be a great little gift to give someone who has allergies or is sensitive to scents.  

Hope I have given you some inspiration for your own Mother's Day gift!

Have a great day,

Jan

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Sizzix Inspiration - Artist Blocks

Let's start off the week with some Sizzix inspiration on the Sizzix Blog!  I have a short tutorial there today featuring this project, hope you visit me there.

Don't forget to enter a comment on my previous post, for a chance to win an autographed Tim Holtz Compendium of Curiosities Volume Three book.  Thank you everyone for the kind words and wonderful comments, they are so appreciated!

Thanks for stopping by,

Jan

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A Peony Gift Box

Ever since I made my Sizzix pansies project, I have been hooked on the flower dies from Sizzix's Susan Tierney Cockburn (Susan's Garden).  The flower I have used for this project was made with the Peony bigz die.  All of these flower dies have their own video, just below the die photo, on the Sizzix site, to show exactly how they are made, which is great!  I used light pink card stock, and shaded the petals with PanPastels.  This is the largest of the flower dies and it made a great topper for this Eileen Hull Square Box.  Eileen has a great little video on how to construct this fast and easy chipboard box on her blog here.

I used Prima's Delight paper from the Firefly collection.

I used buttons for little feet on the bottom of the box and on the flap.  To keep the flap closed, I used a small magnet.

This box is a nice size, perfect for a small gift and so easy to make!  Once you start making these flowers, you will be hooked too!  I have a card to share, using the poppy flower die, but that's for another day!

Until next time,

Jan

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Happy Valentine's Day!

Today Sizzix is celebrating Valentine's Day with a blog hop featuring the amazing "From the Heart" dies by Eileen Hull!
The Sizzix design team members have been busy creating projects with these dies, so please visit their blogs,  they are all incredibly talented!
For my project, I have used Eileen's Valentine Scoreboard XL Box die, Easel Pro die, and Flowers with Heart Petals die.  Here's my project:

The easel is my first Pro Big Shot die that I have used, and I love it!  I think this easel will be used a lot, especially for small gifts.  I started by cutting out the easel with Sizzix's Sizzles 12 x 12 Mat Board.

I then covered the front and back with Ranger's adhesive Metal Foil Sheets.  Next, I embossed the entire easel, doing this in sections (top, bottom and each side) with Sizzix's Daisy Blast & Paisley Palooza Textured Impression set.

I've used this technique quite a few times, I never get tired of using it and it always comes out different, depending on the products you use.

Paint the entire surface with black paint and then swipe the surface with a paper towel, removing the paint on the raised areas.  After the paint dried, I lightly sanded the raised parts and alcohol inked the bare metal with Espresso Alcohol ink.  After the easel was dry I glued the side pieces to the front.

There's my easel, now the heart shadow box.  I cut out the Valentine Scoreboard XL Box with the white mat board and assembled my box.

I then cut out the heart (not the sides) twice from patterned paper.  Instead of die-cutting out the sides again, I cut out strips the same width, for the inside and the outside of the box.  Cover the inside and the outside rim of the heart, then the back and inside with the heart shape.  Ink the edges.

For the gathered trim, I cut out strips of paper about 1" wide.  Machine gather the strips, wet the paper, blot it lightly, and then carefully gather.  Once this dried, I glued it around the outer edge of the heart.  Add a bow to the top. Now you are ready to decorate the inside!  

For the inside, I die cut flowers using Eileen's Heart Petal Flowers.  I made two, one larger than the other.  I also die-cut the film strip and tickets with Sizzix's Tim Holtz Mini Filmstrip & Mini Ticket Decorative Strip die.  Tim's mini ticket stamp from his collection, "Going Somewhere" fit perfect.

I adhered some light acrylic, stamped with white Stazon and a Dictionary stamp from Stephanie Barnard behind the filmstrip and then curled the one end.

There's my finished heart.  I've started making a heart shadow box every year for Valentine's Day, so eventually I think I'll have a nice collection!  Hope you enjoyed this tutorial and check out Eileen's other dies, I know there's quite a few that are my favorite ones to use!  I should mention that the papers I used were from Basic Grey's True Love collection.

When you visit the Sizzix blog, don't forget to leave a comment for a chance to win a Eileen Hull prize package!  Have fun visiting the Sizzix Design Team blogs for lots of inspiration!

   Eileen Hull

Amy Friend

Anna-Karen Evaldsson

Gretchen Schmidt

Hilary Kanwischer

                 Jan Hobbins  that's me!

Jeanne Streiff

Richele Christensen

Shelly Hickox

Tammy Roberts

Tammy Tutterow

Tiffany Johnson

Sizzix Blog

Happy Valentine's Day,

Jan

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