Craft fair: Snowman Popcorn Wrapper

I made these snowman popcorn wrappers for my craft fairs! There were a lot of fun to make and so I decided to do a step-by-step tutorial.

Hat

1. Take a piece of fleece 9.5" X 7". Fold on the long side, with right sides together. So that the resulting rectangle is 4.5" X 7". Stitch with a 1/4" seam allowance on the longer edge. 

2. Turn the tube inside out so that the stitching is now on the inside.

3. Fold around 1/2" on one side to form a cuff.

4. Fold again.

5. Make a fringe on the other side. The depth of the fringe is around 1"-1.5"

6. Pull the tube over the popcorn pack, with the cuff side on the popcorn pack.

7. Tie the fringe together - I used a small piece of flower stem wire, around 4" in length and wrapped it around the fringe.

Scarf

Take a piece of fleece 16" X 3/4". Make a fringe on both the short ends.

Body

Trim cardstock to 7" X 11".

If you want a color printout, then use this image. For a black and white version, download this image. 

Open a Word document and insert the downloaded image. Resize and position it. Print it out on a copier paper first to see if the size and position are correct. I finally printed them on 65# coredindations white cardstock available at Joann. It was perfect - not too thin and not too thick; and it had a nice smooth finish! I used a b&w printout and colored the cheeks using watercoloring with Distress Ink Spun Sugar and the nose with a orange sharpie.

After coloring, wrap the cardstock around the popcorn and glue. I also glued the bottom of the cardstock together. If you have a crimper it, you can crimp the bottom after gluing.

Create Your Own Friday #9 – Tutorial for the Buggy

A number of you asked me for a tutorial for the buggy that I made some time back. I’m sorry I couldn’t get to it sooner than this -  you know how life goes! Anyway so I’ve done my best to capture all details but feel free to ask me questions if I’ve left out anything.

We need:

Cardstock of your choice – I’ve found that it is easier to make this with a less heavy cardstock. My first try was with a 90 lb CS and it was difficult to fold it. In this tutorial I used DCWV CS which as we all know is not that thick and that made it easier to make this.

Circle Nestabilities (or any other circle cutting tool of your choice or use this template)

Glue, scissors

1. I used the Large Circle nestabilities die. Take the largest circle in that and cut 2 circles from your cardstock. Take the second smallest circle and cut 4 circles.
2. I’ve shown the cut circles on my cutting mat if you want to get an idea of the size of the circles. Now take the bigger circle and cut quarter of a circle from it. Also flatten the base by cutting off a portion of the base as shown below.
3. Cut a strip of cardstock 2.75 inches X 9 inches. Score it 0.5 inch on each side of the shorter side as shown below. The half inch borders will used to stick it to the circle and the 1.75 inch will be the width of the buggy.
4. Cut fringes on the half inch borders.
5. Apply glue to one of the fringes.
6. Now is the most difficult part of the this tutorial. Glue the strip to one of the bigger circles. Start from one end and keep curving the strip of paper to align with the boundary of the circle.
7. Finish off the buggy. There might be extra strip left over, cut it off.
8. Stick the wheels. You may want to use lightly glue them and see if their positions are correct and your buggy is balanced. If yes, then you can glue it well.
9. In the original buggy that I made, I hid the ugly insides by lining it with cardstock. You can use the same template as above to cut out the lining and stick it inside.

If you make one, then do leave me a link here and I would love to see it :)!

Partial Embossing using cuttlebug – a tutorial

I saw this card and wanted to make a card with a similar embossed border. Presently there is no existing die that I could use as it is. So I started scouring the internet to see if anyone had done this. To my dismay none had. However, looking at various other things that people had done with their cuttlebug embossing folders, I got an idea about how I could achieve this look. So I got working and lo and behold! The results were fantastic – I got the look I wanted! Here’s the card I made:

The center image is printed on gold shimmer cardstock and the base is also shimmer cardstock – don’t you simply love it?!?!? I do!!!!

Ok, here’s the tutorial.

What you need:

• Some cardboard pieces – I cut them out of cereal boxes.
• cutting knife/blade
• Die-cut machine and its paraphernalia
• Embossing folder of your choice

Steps:

1. Take 3 pieces of cardboard. The number of pieces will vary depending on the thickness of your cardboard. I’m using cardboard from cereal boxes so that should give you some idea. The size of each piece should be a little bigger than the embossing folder that you’re using. Other than that the dimensions are not so important. In the second photo is a side-by-side comparison of the size of the cardboard piece with the acrylic plate of my big shot.
2. Draw the outline of a front of an A2 card on one of the pieces. This means draw a rectangle of 4.25 X 5.5 inches on the cardboard such that the longer side of the outline aligns with the longer side of the cardboard. I use a piece of cardstock to draw the outline.
3. Cut a window in the center of this outline. This is the area that you do NOT want to emboss. Using this window as a guide, cut a window in the other two pieces too.
4. Glue all three pieces together – aligning the windows.
5. Now assemble the sandwich.

Multipurpose platform, with the cardboard thing we created in the step above, followed by the embossing folder with the cardstock inside.	Note that the embossing folder is placed such that the cardstock aligns with the outline that we drew in step 2.
Acrylic plate on the top

6. Now roll the sandwich through your die cutting machine.
7. Check the cardstock to see if the embossing was to your liking. I found that the embossing was lighter than I expected.
8. So I added a shim (another cardboard piece – it doesn’t need to have a window or anything). You can also use some cardstock pieces. So my new sandwich is: multipurpose platform, piece of cardboard, the glued cardboards, embossing folder, acrylic plate.
9. Roll it again through the die-cut machine.
10. If you want the frame look on the inner rectangle, just score lines there. I used my scoring blade to do it. If you don’t have one you could use a ball-point pen that’s NOT working. And you’re done!