All of a Twitter with Sunday Stamper

Sundays mean only one thing in our house.... Sunday Stamper! The theme for this weeks challenge is "Time After Time", so I made this bird house on a clock theme.

The house was painted with acrylic paints, then stamped with versafine inks. Ta for taking a look! :)

Whoops! Forgot to mention, I designed the bird house in Inkscape, then cut it out with SCAL on the Cricut.

More Index Cards

Here are some more of the stamped index cards I've been making, taking the chance to get used to the new(ish) Tim Holtz stamps I got.

The second one, with the bird, I stamped the bird first in black or dark brown (I forget now), and then painted the stamp with red acrylic paint and stamped on top of the first image, knowing that it wouldn't line up perfectly, but wanting that effect anyway. As it turned out, I didn't like the result, so I took a moist baby wipe and spread the red paint around the card, giving the effect in the bottom half of it. Remember, there is no such thing as a mistake, just a happy accident! LOL

Not much else to say about them apart from that! :)

Somehow I don't think Calvin Klein is losing any sleep over this....

I don't think I've ever posted something on here that I haven't made myself, so this is a first!

A friend of mine decided they wanted the design from my previous posting on a t-shirt, and went out and bought some ink-jet printer t-shirt transfer sheets. The first I knew about it was when they contacted me asking for a better scan of the image! LOL

Now, I'm certainly no fashion designer, and don't expect to see me ever crop up on Project Runway, but I don't think it looks too bad! (though the photo quality could be better, apologies for that!) Here's the shirt they made, I kinda like it! :)

Hello Again!

After a (too) long absence, I'm finally back. Thanks to everyone who left kind comments while I was unable to continue with this blog, they were much appreciated!

I met up with some friends a day or two ago for some lunch and a bit of crafting. It was nice to get all inky again, I missed it! :) I had a play with some blank index cards and a couple of packs of Tim Holtz stamps that had been sitting around unwrapped for far too long. Here is my favorite of the ones I made. Click on it if you want a larger view.

Update

Many thanks to all the folks who left supportive messages on my last post! My tooth and I have not yet parted company, I need a specialised extraction and am still waiting for an appointment date :( I am no longer in any pain, which is the good thing! :) Am hoping that normal service will be resumed here soon!

Best wishes

Dan x

Delayed Saturday Freebie

Just a quick note to say I have had terrible toothache all day (yes, I've been to the dentist and it's being treated), so there's no freebie today. Hopefully I can post it in the next day or two.

Apologies

Dan

Video Tutorial - Creating Paper Piecing Files from a Coloured Image using Inkscape software (free from inkscape.org)

Someone asked me for hints on how to do that, and I thought that making a video would the quickets and clearest way to do that!

This will work for both the Cricut with SCAL and the Craft Robo (and related machines). Just remember that Inkscape saves as SVG by default, so if you're a Robo user, remember that when you save your files, you'll need to choose "Save As..." and then select DXF as your file type from the drop down list at the bottom of the save menu.

I hope you find it useful! :)

Video Tutorial - JPG to SVG

I know there are several tutorials already out there on how to do this, but since someone asked me to do it, I thought I may as well give my take on it!

Although I use Paint Shop Pro in this video to get my image ready for tracing, all graphics packages these days have similar tools, so you shouldn't have too much trouble adapting it to your own program. It also demonstrates the basics of tracing an image in Inkscape. I hope you find it useful :)

I talk of saving the file as an SVG and cutting it on the Cricut in Sure Cuts a Lot, but obviously, you could also save it as a DXF file and cut it on the Craft Robo or related machines.

Saturday Freebie #31!

Coin Envelope and No glue Circle Flap Envelope

Following on from last week's freebies, I'm still in an envelope mood, so here are 2 more cute envelope designs for you to download!

You don't need me to tell you how useful these are, so I won't bother! I will remind you that they can be resized or stretched to cut any size you wish!

Again, these templates will be "live" for 1 week. Next Saturday, they will be taken down, and new ones will replace them. Don't forget, if you have any requests, pass them on! I can't promise, but I will take suggestions into account when planning future templates.

These files may not be uploaded to a group, forum or website for sale or redistribution, or shared among individuals. They are expressly for the personal use of each person that downloads them from this blog.

There are 2 files and I have put them into a zip file to make downloading easier. After saving it, open in the usual way, and drag the templates out onto your desktop or wherever you wish to save them.

There are 3 versions of each template:

• A printable version (PNG files) that you can import into a program like Word, then resize, print, cut out and use like any other paper template (these are NOT Word files, so don't use File/Open in Word! Use Insert/Picture to bring them into a Word document).
• An SVG version which can be imported into the Sure Cuts a Lot program and then cut out on your Cricut.
• A DXF version which is Craft Robo friendly, and ready to be imported into your Robomaster software (I'm not a Robo user, so if there are any problems with this, please let me know!)

Simply right click on the appropriate button below, and choose "save link..." or "save target..." and save your template!

Any feedback on the templates is more than welcome, and if you have any suggestions for possible future templates you'd like to see, please let me know! If you make anything using one of the templates, please post a link to it here so that others can be inspired by how you've used them!

I hope you like the templates - let me know how you get on! :)

Templates © dan99crafter@gmail.com 2008

Video Tutorial - Aperture Name Card in Inkscape

Following a couple of email requests, I decided to make a video showing how to make one of these cards in Inkscape. Soon after, someone else in one of the Cricut groups made a video on the same topic (great job Heidi!), so I changed my plans slightly. I'm still making the card, but I've included some stuff on how to use rulers and guides and a couple of methods to manipulate text so that the letters join up to make a continuous word.