How To: Printing Flowers with Pop Bottle

I did this activity at Easter during the girls get together with my Mom at Easter.  I see I had not blogged it so here it is.

Here is my original inspiration.

I wanted card sized flowers so I chose a smaller bottle.  I used recycled paper from a calendar so it was earthly friendly activity.  I dipped the end of the bottle in the pink paint and printed it on my white paper.  I used the bottle lid for the flower center. I painted the stems and leaves with a paint brush.  Once dry, I spattered them with silver paint.

You can check out my Card Club cards on Monday to see the final look.

Be Green Cardmaking Class

I'm holding this card class today as a fund raiser for overseas missions. The focus is recycling or reusing materials to make great looking cards.  The flower is recycling wax crayons, the Eiffel Tower is reused cereal box chipboard, and the hockey one is reusing a used postage stamp.  See the full details for cards with the following links: the Eiffel Tower , the Postage Stamp, and the Wax Crayon Flower.  Think green about your card making and be environmentally friendly.

Card - Earth Day - Chipboard Eiffel Tower

Next card in my Earth Day collection.

I cut the Eiffel Tower from cereal box cardboard with the Tim Holtz Eiffel Tower die. I applied TH Distress Stain in Antique Linen but it does not show much.  I rubbed the edges with a black ink pad.  I embossed the ivory linen card stock layer with the TH Postale embossing folder. I wrapped the layer with caramel seam binding and tied it to the left card front.  This was glued to the card front. The Eiffel tower is adhered to the card front with 3D Foam tape.

Card - Pond Hockey

Here's another Earth Day card re-using cancelled postage stamps.  We all some of these hanging around.  This one is from the 50th National Hockey League® All-Star Game published in the year 2000.
I found a pond hockey photo on-line which is the classic idea of scrapping the snow off a pond and creating a skating rink.  I wanted a little bit of red to off set the stamp so I put a red maple leaf in the left bottom corner. I printed it on vellum and let it dry. I trimmed the vellum and put it on a pale blue card which matches the background on the stamp.  It is held in place by 4 tiny black brads in all four corners.  I then adhered the stamp to a piece of card stock to give it a bit of stiffness and then stuck that to the vellum in the top right hand corner. After the golds in hockey at the Olympics this is a great card to honors those medals.

Card - Wax Crayon Paper Flowers

Here's the card I made with my wax crayon paper from yesterday.

I cut the paper with the Sizzix Flower Layers #10 Bigz die.  I printed my nature poem onto white in blue.  I added the stem and flowers I designed over the script background.  This layer was color printed and trimmed to leave a small border.  I mounted it onto a medium blue card.  I placed my blue wax paper flower to work with the stem.  I added a white then a yellow silk flower and held all the flowers to the card front with a small white brad.  I made a hole for the brad with a push pin. I'm really happy with the way the card turned out.

I may have to use this idea for card club!!!  Great idea for earth day crafts.

How To: Wax Crayon Paper

I'm thinking about Earth Day (April 22 2014) ideas already.  I have been collecting wax crayons given away at restaurants when children are at the table.  This happens regularly for me so I decided to recycle/reuse them rather than them being thrown in the garbage.  There are some great ideas out there. Being a card maker I wanted something I could use in my regular projects. I did some research and here's my process.

1) Cover your work space with a couple of layers of scrap paper.
2) Strip the paper from the crayons.
3) Use a pencil sharpener to create wax shavings
4) Lay your shavings on wax paper in whatever manner you want.  Mixing the colors will create colors like orange, green, and purple.
5) Cover your shavings with another piece of wax paper.
6) Add a couple of layers scrap paper.
7) Heat with an iron designated for crafts on medium setting.
8) Lift scrap paper to reveal your wax crayon paper.

Next time I will use more wax crayon.  Trying to align yellow in the center for flowers was not worth it. Check tomorrow to see what I made with my paper.

Earth Day - Recycled Handmade Paper

It's Earth Day.  The 3 R are Recycle, Reduce, Reuse.

Here's an idea to reuse printed bond paper and converting it into usable handmade paper for cards.  This is a process of soaking paper, breaking down the paper in an old blender, adding interesting texture and color and making it into sheets.  Used unsoiled napkins, tissue paper, gift wrap, computer paper can be saved from the garbage can and be turned into gorgeous paper.

Here are some helpful links
http://chemistry.about.com/od/chemistryactivities/a/howtomakepaper.htm
http://www.exploratorium.edu/exploring/paper/handmade.html

Earth Card Making - Shopping Bag Flowers

We are having an Earth Day Card Making fundraiser today at work. Our committee decided with it being just around the corner why not see what crafts we could make with the theme reuse/recycle/reduce.  I found shopping bag flowers in my search and applied my twist to it. Check out this post Shopping Bag Flowers  for how tos.

For this card, I cut several flowers in coordinating colors with Sizzix Large Daisie die.  I created the leaf with a Sizzix Flower Layers #2 using largest flower then cutting petals into 4 leaves. I went searching for a background for my flower.  Into my Cricut cartridges I found this one with the perfect ratio for an A2 card in the "Just Because Cards" cartridge.  I cut it from distress black designer paper.  I color printed my greetings then cut them with my Creative Memories oval cutter and it fits perfectly in the space on the background.  I punched a 1" circle of vellum for the centre of the flower and held the flowers in place with a flower pewter brad.  Super happy with this idea.