Craft on the Run: Moody Blues

Hello again my Crafty Friends.

I think this Moody Blues collection describes the weather for these past few Wintery months.

Who's ready for some sunshine?

On the up side; its a good excuse to stay indoors and get out your craft and create.

Here today, I am using the Uniquely Creative - BlueBell from the Moody Blues Collection - however I am only using this 1 sheet from this range, together with the creative cuts pack and some cardstock I'll be showing you how I created 5 cards, 2 note cards and 1 book mark.

Do you ever look at a sheet of designer paper and think the image is to large and wonder what your going to do with it?

Well... Chop it up!

That's exactly what I did.

1. Start by removing the barcode strip along the bottom of the page.

2. Below is the measurement's I used for each piece.

I suggest using a cutter not a guillotine - that way you can slide your cutting blade as far as you need to go without cutting into the next usable piece.

You can make your own measurement's up; but I was trying to make the most of the large mandala in the top centre of the page.

3. The 2 note cards where an after thought - I didn't want to waste any paper as this whole exercise was to prove you could use up a whole sheet.

So the L piece left over in the bottom left hand corner was cut into 2 piece's measuring

4 1/2 x 2 1/2.

4. Then once I had each piece cut I then cut up my cardstock to mat each piece.

I cut my mat piece's just slightly larger than the design paper to form a boarder right round.

5. I used 2 x uniquely creative 8 1/2 x 3 1/4 slimline cards for the long pieces and 2 x square 5 x 5 cards for the square pieces and then cut my own card to make the 2 x note cards to

5 7/8 x 3, leaving the bookmark piece to cut out of card stock to 8 1/4 x 2 1/4.

6. As the bookmark piece and the 2 notecard pieces did not end up with too much pattern or detail, I went ahead and stamped, stencilled and blended colour onto each piece to make my own pattern keeping the Mandala theme.

Here you can use any stamp or stencil if you didn't have a mandala stamp as these last notecard pieces have very little original detail.

7. On the 2nd notecard piece I used a stencil and some shimmery white embossing paste for some dimension and shine.

8. Then on the bookmark I used the mandala stencil again to give it some interest.

9. I stamped a few mages onto the bookmark as well.

10. I used the stencil with Perfect Pearls powder applied to give it little shine on one of the cards.

11. So then I went ahead once all my pieces were cut and stamped/stencilled etc and added any ribbon before glueing down to mat piece so ribbon would be tucked in behind.

12. I stamped my words onto cardstock and die cut out the shapes I wanted.

I selected the creative cuts I wanted to use, picked embellishments, lace pieces, metal hardware, tassel for bookmark and die cut pieces and started decorating.