Thursday, November 28, 2019

Doodlebug Fall Friends Thanksgiving Mini Album

Happy Thanksgiving!! Today, I'm sharing an older project since, well ... it's Throwback Thursday, I’m cooking turkey and don't have a chance to make a new Thanksgiving project, lol! But hey, this one is super cute thanks to a 2015 Doodlebug collection called Fall Friends. To read more about how I made this, visit the original post here.
 
 
To purchase the instructions to make this album visit:

 



To purchase the instructions to make this album visit:
   
I hope you all have a wonderful Thanksgiving holiday! Since this Fall Friends collection is an older one, I've added product links to the Doodlebug Pumpkin Spice collection that would make a great substitution. It's adorable and you can simply change out the pilgrims for woodland creatures! 
 
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Tuesday, November 26, 2019

Tuesday Tutorial: Christmas Card, Silhouette Sketch Pen

It's almost the season for sending out Christmas cards! If you're like me, sometimes the task can feel too time-consuming that I almost lose sight of the meaning for sending them. With that in mind, I remembered this card I made for a blog post over at Lori Whitlock Designs a few years back. I wanted to revisit the tutorial and share it with all of you because it's going to make creating my cards a lot more fun this year.

I used my Silhouette machine and some sketch pens to create the front of my card. The sketch pen technique involves cutting a shape from inside an offset that's been drawn with the pens.
 

First, I started with Lori's adorable Christmas Tree Pop Up Card. I ungrouped everything and moved everything off to the side except the front panel with the tree.
 

Next, I ungrouped this one shape so that I could move the tree over to the left side of the shape.
 


Once I moved the tree over to the left, I had space to put a sentiment. Using Lori's Dot Sketch Font, I typed in the sentiment that I wanted to use and centered everything the way I wanted it to look once it was sketched.
 

In addition to the sentiment, I also wanted an offset drawn around the tree cut out. To do this, I highlighted the tree, and opened the offset window. I clicked offset and set it to .05 distance.
 

For the next step, I moved the inside tree shape, and the outer card shape, off to the side. These portions will be cut out, so I didn't want them to get sketched when I insert my pen.
 

Next, I loaded white paper into my silhouette cameo machine and removed the blade. I replaced the blade with a red Silhouette sketch pen and locked it in place. Then I made sure my cut settings were set to Silhouette Sketch Pens, and I clicked "Cut".
 

Here is an important step! Once the sketch pen was finished drawing my lines, I didn't remove or unload my paper. The reason for this is because I want it to line up perfectly again when I go to cut the inside shape out of my tree. So I left the paper loaded exactly as it was when it was finished, and went back to my software.

I highlighted everything that I had just sketched, and clicked on the Cut Style window. I chose "No Cut" so that when I replaced my red pen with a blade, everything I just sketched didn't get cut out.
 

Next I moved my card shape (which IS highlighted to cut) and the inner part of my tree (which IS highlighted to cut) back in place. I made sure that I replaced my red pen with my cutting blade, adjusted the cut setting to card stock, and hit the cut button again to tell my machine to cut out just those areas around my sketch.
 

For the inside of my card, I repeated the steps above to create a personalized "sketched" message inside the card before I cut it out.
One last tip -- I used a large needle to help thread my twine through the holes in the front of the card.
 



Thanks for stopping by the blog today for my "Tuesday Tutorial"!  If you plan to make your Christmas cards this year, I hope you have fun and enjoy the process :)


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Thursday, November 21, 2019

Gift Card Holder Christmas Stocking Banner

Hello friends! Now that my kids are older, they love getting gift cards for Christmas. So, when I saw this adorable stocking cut file it gave me a fun idea. I'll hang this banner up on Christmas morning and not only is it a festive decoration, but it's also a cute way to dress up these little cards.

Gift Card Holder Christmas Stocking Banner by Artsy Albums
 
To make the stockings, I downloaded the Doodlebug Milk & Cookies Stocking cutting file from Lori Whitlock's SVG shop (link below). I separated the pieces and just kept the stocking base and white cuff portions. I enlarged the pieces so that the stocking measured 6.3" wide x 9.8" long.  
 
Gift Card Holder Christmas Stocking Banner
 
I cut out 4 stockings from thin chipboard, and 4 from white card stock. I made an internal offset of the stocking (set at 0.125) for the pattern paper and cut out 4 different patterns. 
 
I layered the chipboard, white card stock, and some adorable pattern papers from the Doodlebug Christmas Magic collection. Then cut out and adhered the white cuff to the top. I added names to each stocking using my cutting machine and the Bubble Letter Font cut file by Lori Whitlock (link below). 

Gift Card Holder Christmas Stocking Banner
 
I attached Doodlebug's 3x3 scallop envelopes on the back of the stockings to hold the gift cards, and then had lots of fun embellishing each stocking with Christmas Magic odds & ends, doodle pops, and jelly clips.
 
Gift Card Holder Christmas Stocking Banner
 
Finally, I strung a ribbon through the stocking loops and secured it to the chipboard with help from the jelly clips. This was a really fun project and I can't wait to hang it up on Christmas morning!
 
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