Category Archives: Butterfly (retired)

“Scribble scrabble” butterflies

02 Sunday Mar 2014

Posted by in Beautiful Butterflies, Big Shot, Bitty Butterfly, Butterfly (retired), Dies, Elegant Butterly, Kids craft ideas, Punches, Using up scraps

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Hello

One of the things that my little boy loves to do is make a “scribble scrabble” – a piece of paper where you scribble colours all over it to make a pretty picture.

Scribble scrabbleHe loves making them, and sometimes we use them as wrapping paper or the background for a card.

The other day it occurred to me that they would make gorgeous butterflies, so I got out my Beautiful Butterflies die and the Big Shot, as well as my butterfly punches and set him loose.   He adores being allowed to play with “Mummy’s precious toy” (AKA my Big Shot!).

Scribble scrabble butterfly IMG_2682

Scribble scrabble butterfly

Beautiful butterflies

 

This next photo shows you how to make the largest butterflies from the Beautiful Butterflies die – fold a piece of paper in half and line the fold up along the edge of the ‘half’ butterflies on the die.  This way you get 6 butterflies out of one run through the Big Shot.

Beautiful Butterflies negative image

 

This is his ‘art work’ after spending a happy half hour with his butterflies and a glue stick.

Scribble scrabble butterfly artYou could use the same technique to make gorgeous butterflies for grown up cards and decorations.

Thanks for reading

Caro x

 

Simple – but stylish – gift giving

15 Monday Jul 2013

Posted by in Butterfly (retired), Full heart, Gift bags, Gift tags & wrapping, Punches, Small Heart, Using up scraps

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Hello!  Thanks for stopping by my blog.

Yesterday I showed you some cards I made using the Stampin’ Up! full heart punch.  I mentioned that you shouldn’t throw away the spare punched heart – and here’s why not.

After making the cards yesterday I needed a quick and simple gift wrapping idea to go with the cards.   Here’s a simple idea for a gift tag:

photo-5I used the cut out from the heart punch and another cut out butterfly on top (see how the wings aren’t fully stuck down to make it look like it’s flying?)   A little faux pearl and I think it looks perfect for a little girl’s present.

The tag is a mailing tag I got at Officeworks – you can get a box of 100.  I normally like making my own tags, but sometimes when you’re in a hurry this is a pretty good alternative!

I also have a stash of blank gift bags I get from $2 shops for this kind of occasion.    A few punches from card stock and scraps of pretty paper and you’ve got a lovely gift with virtually no effort.

photo-3

photo-4I think they look gorgeous (if I do say so myself!) – and certainly they don’t look the result of 2 minute’s effort.

If you don’t have any punches, you can still make a really pretty gift bag just by cutting pieces of paper to cover the front of the bag.

Have a look at some bags I made for my son’s daycare teachers last Christmas.  The designs were just cut out with scissors from some Stampin’ Up! designer series paper.

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Again, simple and easy – but really nice to receive 🙂

Thanks for reading

Caro

Simple card layout

14 Sunday Jul 2013

Posted by in Butterfly (retired), Full heart, General occasion, Punches, Small Heart, Using up scraps

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Hello

The other day I had to come up with 2 birthday cards for some lovely little girls.  And I had about 10 minutes max to make the card and gift wrap the presents.  (Note to self: make a few extra cards to have lying around the house for card emergencies!)

One of the little girls had had a lovely time playing with my Stampin’ Up! full heart punch when she came to visit one time, so I’d bought her one as her birthday present.   So I wanted to make a card using that punch to give her some ideas of how to use it.

Thankfully I have a few fail safe card layouts that are fantastic when you need a quick card that is still effective.   I’m not sure what it’s called, but I call it a ‘punch trick’ card.  I learnt this from Sally Ann Williams, whose blog is definitely worth following for lots of lovely (and simple!) card making techniques.

Here is the card:

photo-1

You can see I’ve cut a heart out of the front of the card and then another heart out of designer series paper.  (Don’t throw the card stock away!).   Stick the designer paper heart on the inside of the card and it makes a heart shaped “window” which can look really effective for a simple card.

TIP!  Don’t try and glue the heart on the inside of the card and hope to have the punched window and the cut out shape perfectly align.  It’s much better to close the card and stick the pretty paper through the window.  Perfect alignment every time!

I used some ribbon, another full heart punch from DSP and a punched small heart and faux pearl just to add a bit of extra detail to the front of the card.

You can see a bit better from this picture how the window and cut out works:

photo

And here’s a picture of the inside:

photo-2

 

Don’t think this layout only works with hearts either!  You could try birds, cupcakes, butterflies – or make a window to highlight a sentiment.  It’s a great card layout for using up small bits of pretty paper you can’t bear to throw away.

Here is what the same technique can look like with a butterfly punch:

photo-6photo-8[Sorry, those photos are pretty bad.  Must get my proper camera fixed!]

I mentioned that you shouldn’t throw out the heart/butterfly you cut out from the front of the card.   Stay tuned tomorrow and I’ll show you why not!

Thanks for reading 🙂

Caro