Baby It's Cold Outside

Well, it's not cold just yet, even in Calgary, but trust me it won't take long. Winter weather usually starts mid - end October here.

I thought these little punch art buddies I made would work well on cards.

First up is Mr. Snowman. He's enjoying the weather - so he's all smiles.

and the inside reads "Hope you're keeping warm"

I used a Cuttlebug embossing template and inked it a little with white. The snowflake stamp is an old SU stamp (cannot recall what that set is called, it has a dove and winter tree in it as well).

Instructions on how to make the Snowman punchart are below. As before, I use all my punches, even if they are "retired". But as always I try to include substitution options for the extinct shapes.

 

Christmas in July

I've been trying to decide on this years Christmas card design (got to figure this out early enough  in order to find the time to get them all completed).

For those of you that make your own Christmas cards, do you make them all the same, all different, choose a few designs each year?

I try to stick with only a couple of designs but am thinking of changing this.

Here's what I came up with yesterday.

The punch art angels are another take on the seashell doll. The wings are one seashell cut in half. The halo is the handle of my giant water pail punch from Emagination, but a double punched circle would work as well.
Banners are the smallest of the Tim Holtz Tattered Banners die. Words are from an old SU stamp set, All Year Cheer I. The angel's dresses were punched form Diamond Dust paper, the wings from white mulberry paper and the hair from metallic shimmer cradstock.

Owl Greetings

Today I made 2 cards using the same punch art pattern. They turned out very different and I can't quite decide which I like better.
The first has a stamped background using SU Fantastic Foilage stamps.

The second was just simply matted onto a Spellbinder floral oval (large).

Which do you like better?

If you would like to make one of these adorable little owls, here's the instructions.

 

Hello Kitty

Wow, two posts in one day. I know this won't happen again anytime soon.
After playing a little more with my punches this afternoon I came up with this cute little card.

The mat was cut with the large Floral Oval Spellbinder die. The greeting is an old SU stamp (no idea what that set was called). If you want to try and make this punch art Hello Kitty, the instructions are below.
I again have noted substitutions for the punches that are no longer available.

 

Raggedy Ann & Andy Punch Art

I think these two would make a great friendship card, not to mention a little girl's Birthday card.

I've posed them standing up, but they can easily be in a sitting position like the dolls from yesterday.
As already mentioned the seashell punch as well as the flower pot punches (Andy uses the medium sized on as well) are no longer avaiable. I've noted possible substitutions in the instructions below.
Right click the image for the full sizeds one and right click to save.

Here's  friendship card  made the other using these little punch art dolls

 

Doll Punch Art

Having just recently finished organizing my craft room has inspired me to create with punches I had almost forgotten I had. And since I have this week off work, there's no better time to play than now.
Some of my favourite punch shapes are the old Mega sized Nankong punches. It's unfortunate these are no longer available (although a few shapes were picked-up by The Punch Bunch).

I find that the seashell is one of the most versatile shapes to create with. Here is an example of a couple of dolls I made; a Raggedy Ann as well as a more modern version. Both the dresses and the apron are made with a slightly trimmed seashell.

Looking at shapes that are currently avaiable I think that a scallop circle punch could be trimmed to look very similar. Here's the size comparisson to the SU and PB punches:

I also made a boy doll to match, again we have Raggedy Andy and a more modern version:

I used the Emagination S. Giant flower pot punch for the overall body. Of course this is also no longer available (bound to happen when looking through my 700+ punches). This is however an easy fix as a trimmed square can be substituded. The flower pot shape is 34 mm tall and at it's widest point, 29 mm wide. The Mega square punch from PB is 40 mm. the shape could also be freehanded.

I've written the instructions for the modern boy and girl dolls (if I have time I'll do the Raggedy Ann & Andy one tomorrow).
If you click on the image it will take you to the full size version which you can right click and save.

 

My new creative corner

With two teenage boys it seemed a necessity to turn the main area of our basement into a games room. This meant relocating my existing craft room to the old computer area.

It's not the biggest room (approx 8.5 x 8.5'). It's really only a widened hallway of sorts. There are 4 doors; one on the left leading into the furnace room; two on the right. The first of which leads into what is currently a storage room (one day to be a bathroom) and the second to a small 5'x5' room that was used for storage but is now dedicated to my punches and dies. For easy access we removed the door to this area. The last leads to the storage "cupboard under the stairs", which currently houses our holiday decorations. This sketch gives a little more of an overview (it's not 100% to scale, but you get the idea)

With four doors and really only 3 walls it took a lot of planning to make this space as functional as possible as well as some ingenuity to keep the cost minimal; but if I do say so myself, it turned out rather well.

So without further ado, here is a little tour of my current space.
Starting left to right:
Alcove shelving. This is home to my specialty papers, paper scraps and Iris carts.

Next are my 12x12 and 8.5x11 paper trays. These hold only cardstock. The watchmaker tins hold shaped/themed brads, eyelets and nailheads. At the end of the peg wall are some misc. supplies and my trays that hold "works in progress". The bottom row under the trays consists of a ribbon tray and basket.

I love "over-the-door" storage solutions. The door to the furnace room has a clear vinyl shoe organizer that I use for my completed card projects. Makes for a very easy overview of what I have on hand.

At the far wall my husband built custom desks with shelving above. The drawers are white bins from Ikea. We used these little metal rails we bought at Home Depot (they come in 8 foot length, we had to cut them to fit) to create "drawer guides" for the bins.
I love that dispite this being a small space I have a dedicated desk for sewig as well as stamping.

right beside the sewing desk is my stamping desk

next is the door to the future bathroom. Again, I'm using an over-door-storage-organizer. This is a towel rack bought at Canadian Tire. I use the little curtain hooks from Ikea to clip up my sticker sheets etc.

Against the little (60 cm) wall between the two door ways I have hung a magnetic board from Ikea as well as a rail with cups for my everday tools. The short end of my work table meets up to the wall.
The watchmaker tins on the magentic board hold all my round eyelest and brads (1/4" and 3/8")

 

Next is the doorway to my "Die cut and punch room". Be prepared. I own over 700 hundred punches. From the left to right of the room:

 

These are little shadow boxes Ikea used to carry. We hung these and then built the peg wall around them so that the wall is flush. It's a total of 9 boxes (right down to the floor). Then my husband made me specialty pegs to hang my cafe rods from for the lever punches. I have a little more room to expand at the top of the wall.

 

The table holds my Accu cut, Sizzix and Punch buddy. Some of my dies are on the peg wall in orginal packaging. The rest are in two Ikea CD towers on the right. There are 4 towers, one is hidden by the doorway. The two remaining towers store my mega punches. We built little raisers (wooden blocks) so that I can store them in double rows on each shelf (2 in back, 2 in front) and still see them. Since I took these photos we have added 3 little wall shelves beside the cd towers/over the right side of the table top. They are the same depth as the CD shelves. I store my embossing folders and some of my stamps on them. Under the table top are 4 towers of 12x12 paper trays. Three of which store all my Clubscrap papers and the last my misc. 12x12 papers. The tote on the left is home to some more punches - punch wheels and those punches I don't tend to use much.

Last but not least, the door to the storage under the stairs. I have one more over-the-door shoe organizer that I use for my chip board alphas.



 I you look at the sketch of the room at the beginnign of this post, you can see that the wall across from the alcove shelving is empty. One day (in the near future) I hope to have a couple of curtain rods with clips there so that I can dispaly my current projects on that wall.

Hope you enjoyed my little tour and maybe some of my storage solutions will be useful in some of your crafting spaces.