flutterbelle

Gatefold Birthday Card

Paris Shutter Card

I adore making cards–it’s my thing! I really love making something extra special for someone to help make their day memorable. This card was made for a very special young lady who just turned 9. She’s an old soul, and a delightful young lady. She has an interest in all things Paris, so deciding on the theme was easy. It’s no secret the Fun Folds II Collection is one of my absolute favourites and a ‘go to’ file. This particular file, the Shutter Card, along with the Vintage Frame is something I’ve used before. This time it’s different. It’s more heavily embellished and the paper is highly patterned.

Framed Cherry Blossom Paper Tree

Spring Blossoms Paper Tree Art

Ah, Spring – one of my favourite seasons. Beautiful blooms, sunshine and not too hot days. I adore the way that in America, you celebrate the turn of every season and decorate your homes accordingly. We don’t do that here in Australia, but I love the idea of it and am considering doing it in our house.

Horse Favor Bags

Project Rewind: Horse Party Ribbons

Design Team Member Belle Donaghey has taken an old project and made it new again. Today I’m going to share with you a project I’ve created for my daughter’s upcoming birthday that was based on a Halloween project that Michelle created some time back. The project I am using for inspiration is the Halloween Costume Party Ribbons. I loved the idea of these party ribbons and considered using them as name tags, but then settled for making them into gift bag decorations personalised for each of her friends. I love pink and brown used together, and I already had kraft gift bags in my stash, so the colours all worked really nicely together. I introduced some white with the paper doily and the centre medallion with the horse image on it. Using only a few colours makes this project straightforward, quick & easy. I separated the cutting files and grouped them by the colour I was planning to cut each shape in. The rosettes are a cinch to fold and glue together and look fantastic. It adds a 3 dimensional aspect to the project and some sturdiness to the bag too. For extra texture I ran both the paper bag and the ribbons through my embossing machine. I left the brown piece flat so I could apply Charlotte’s name in white vinyl on a smooth surface. (I used the font Blackjack.)

Easter Pillow Boxes

Easter Pillow Boxes

Using files from the library I created this easy window pillow box for Easter but it could so easily be adapted for any occasion!

Life Is Like A Bicycle

Life Is Like a Bicycle ...

Have you ever used your Pazzles Inspiration or Vue to create printables or wall art? The software is so much more than a tool to cut, draw, emboss, pierce, distress etc. It offers a world of possibility for creative expression in so many ways. With so many files available in the Pazzles Craft Room, we are able to create just about anything for any occasion. Recipe for total typography fun – many Craft Room files – a quote obsession/collection – and a font collection/obsession mix together and voila! By selecting a saying or quote that you love, all you need to do is play around with the fonts and sizing together with a Craft Room file or two to ‘decorate’ it. Song lyrics are great for this too.

Pen Tool Ornament Bauble

Pen Tool Ornament Bauble

There are some great tools available to use with your Pazzles Inspiration or Vue. One my favourites is the Pazzles Pen Tool There is so much you can do with it. I like to use it to draw an outline of text in a fancy font and then free-hand colour in the rest of the design. This works particularly well with glitter pens. Today, I’ve chosen a simple, yet elegant Holiday Bulb file with lovely detail to be drawn in metallic blue pen on pale blue cardstock. I created an outline for the bulb too and then cut it out so it could be the feature for my holiday card. This file can be resized however you'd like it to fit your project, and would make a great file for a group of cards in the same design in different coloured card stock and metallic or glitter pen.

Gingerbread House Ornaments

DIY Christmas Ornaments: Gingerbread Houses

I’m excited to share with you my little gingerbread house ornaments today that you can re-create quite quickly and put your own twist on the decorations. These little houses can be used hanging on a Christmas tree, or from anywhere around the house. They can also be used on a mantel or table as cute decorations. I have even considered using them as place cards for Christmas Day with treats inside. The other thing you could do is pop a battery tea light candle inside for a nice glow. Using the Milk Carton House cutting file, I resized the entire file so I could fit two houses per 12" x 12" sheet of paper. This made them about 2" x 2" square at each face. The window, curtains and roof are all grouped together in this file, so resizing whilst these are included is essential to ensuring everything is the right size. Before I cut the files out, I ungrouped the files and then deleted one of the window sets to make room for the door file.

Advent Countdown Cards

Advent Countdown Calendar

Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse…… Can you believe Christmas is just around the corner? I’m constantly reminded by the children and also the Christmas merchandise that seems to hit the stores at the start of October! I’m sharing my ‘countdown calendar’ with all of you today and hope I leave you with some inspiration for your own interpretation of one. I changed my mind so many times of how I was going to create this calendar, but I have to say I’m very pleased with the result, and I can still go a bit further with embellishments if I want to. We haven’t done a countdown calendar quite like this before, and so the thought of creating something with family activities built in sounded like fun. The main files I’ve used are the Gate Fold Card from the Fun Folds 1 Cutting Collection, Assembling Rosettes files, and Pocket Card. I used the print and cut method for the small discs with each number and also for the activity cards.

Creating an Inchies Card

Whilst perusing Pinterest and pinning a large number of cards on my inspiration boards, I came across one in particular that inspired me to create a pretty card with my new Inspiration Vue! This was my first project completed on the Vue and I’m very excited about the results and can’t wait to try many new things. After agonising over which patterned paper to use from my scraps I cut 6 squares measuring 2” x 2” and laid them out in a pleasing pattern. The next step was selecting coordinated paper for some circles. Once selected, I put the Vue to work cutting these six circles. Wow! She cuts fast, and so nicely!

Book Inspired Fall Layout

Book Inspired Fall Layout

Fall/Autumn is my favourite season, and Anne of Green Gables is my favourite movie of all time. When Matthew and Anne are riding in the buggy together admiring the beauty of the fall countryside I wish I was there with them. My 8 year old daughter Charlotte chose to go to Book Week Theme Day this year dressed as Anne of Green Gables (Anne Shirley) and I couldn’t have been prouder that she’s fallen in love with the story as I did.

Halloween Bat Banner

Boo! Halloween isn’t so big here in Australia, so creating a Halloween project came with both excitement and nerves! My banner project uses the Cut and Fold Flower Medallion from the Cut and Fold Medallions Collection in the Craft Room. They look great whenever used, and I hadn’t thought about using them for a banner before, but they’re perfect. The file I chose had flower cut-outs, so I changed them out for witch hats to match the Halloween theme. When using the Cut and Fold Medallions I prefer to use double sided paper so that when you fold back your cut outs, you have a contrasting paper showing. I used two sheets from Kaisercraft’s 13th Hour Collection - Evening and Dusk. 'Evening' has the orange background with the black spots (top layer). The 'Dusk' sheet I used for underneath instead of plain black cardstock with the black pattern showing.

60th Shutter Card

60th Birthday Shutter Card

August is such a crazy month for our family with birthdays what feels like every other day! It’s not just our immediate family, but many friends as well. It’s a busy, but happy month. I may be my own worst enemy, but for some reason I don’t often re-create the same card design. I like to do unique designs for each person. However, there was a card I made earlier this year that looked so striking I used it for my inspiration for this one. You can’t go wrong with the Fun Folds Card Collections – for this project I’ve selected the Shutter Card with the oval on the front face. I have omitted the oval and replaced it with the Vintage Frame file instead.

Triple Tag Easel Card

Easel Menu Table Centerpiece

When the Easel Card Collection was released I was super excited. These are some of my most favourite cards to create and the Triple Tag Easel Card file was perfect to use as a centrepiece for an upcoming friend's 60th Birthday High Tea. Once you’ve chosen your colour theme and cut out all your pieces this comes together really easily. I used the fit text to path function for the banner text and printed a partial Miss Kate Cuttables Pretty Swirls at each end of the banner. Some foam squares and a couple of Kaisercraft blooms with glittered (KindyGlitz) petals finished off the front section.

Ice Princess Party Favors

Snowflake Winter Party Favors

“Let it Go, Let It Go……” is sung in our household, and my car repeatedly! This movie is so loved in our household, that my almost 5 year old son has chosen it as his theme for his upcoming birthday party at the end of August. The Pazzles Party CD 51 holds many amazing files that can be tweaked as required for your chosen theme. I adore making party décor and favours, and these files give you an excellent base to work from. Most of the pieces of my party are taken from other themed parties on the Party CD and remade with my winter party theme. Circus Pinwheels to Ice Pinwheels These make the quickest little additions to a sweet table or to give as party favours. I plan to make more of these in coordinating colours, and adding a touch of glitter to the corners adds more festivity! They don’t have to spin either, fastening them to a paddle pop stick and used as a static display is quite okay.

Beach Picnic Party Favor

Here in Australia we are heading into winter, but in the northern hemisphere, summer is on your doorstep. If you’re throwing a beach party to celebrate the beginning of summer, you might like to create favour bags similar to the one I created using my Inspiration Cutter and fill the bag with all kinds of summery treats. Party favours are fun to make and mixing and matching different files in the same theme makes for a fun project. I used the Lunch Sack Gift Bag Vintage Handle file for the great looking handles on my paper bag, resized to fit on the bag. The next file was the Swag Banners with Thank You text printed onto the top layer using the text fit to path function (refer to Fit Text to Path Video). I used a darker blue for the bottom file and then a lighter colour for the top. Line up all elements of the Happy Sun file and then create an outline to cut out the very outer layer so the image can be printed onto it using the Print and Cut method.

Photo Mat For Picture Framing

Decorative Photo Mats for Picture ...

Creating photo mats with my Pazzles Inspiration is something I hadn’t attempted yet. I had watched the How To Make Photo Frames , but not created a project based on it. Whilst perusing my photo collection of the children, I came across a favorite of Charlotte sitting out in my parent's garden reading a book in the sunshine after school. The book is called Charlotte in London, and I love seeing her engrossed in a story just like I was as a child. I would be up late reading my Enid Blyton books instead of sleeping! Charlotte remarks that her favorite smell is the smell of an old book, after picking up my old books. The photo was taken by my dad, and he framed it beautifully with the branches and leaves softly out of focus in the foreground. Taking my cues from these leaves I simply added a leaf from the images pre-loaded into the Inspiration Software. I placed it in the bottom left hand corner and chose a soft brown and dramatic black for my photo mats. The black for the top layer makes a statement in any frame and the soft brown complimented the timber frame and the natural colours of the photograph.

Tri-Shutter Mother’s Day Card

I love creating pretty, and heartfelt projects for other people to enjoy, and with Mother's Day this month, I took this as an opportunity to test out one of the new Fun Folds Cards from the Fun Folds 2 Collection. For this project I chose the Tri Shutter Card and went to work on bringing it to life. I had some pretty Kaisercraft paper in my stash, which is double sided so it took the 'pain' out of selecting a coordinating paper from a rather large collection of patterned paper. All I had to do after cutting out the base and mats was turn over a few pieces to break up the design, ink them and secure them to get ready for the fun part of adding embellishments!

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