Fiskars Craft

Getting ready for Mother's Day

Are you ready for Mother's Day yet?

Here is a quick card and favour to make.

The window in the middle was made using the awesome Everywhere Punch with the circle cartridge.

The butterflies are the Flit On By squeeze punch. The flower is from the Flowers-1 Shape Template - for the top one, I cut out the flower then punched out the centre using the Everywhere Punch, so that the petals had the perfect curve to frame the window, just gave them a curl with a wooden skewer for dimension.

The centre of the flower with the sentiment inside the card was punched out using my XL Round 'n Round squeeze punch - the 2" was the perfect size to fit and fill the window.

Here is a pretty favour to go with the card, filled with tasty chocolates.

This is an easy peasy party favour to make - cut a 6" square of heavy paper, put strong adhesive along the bottom and one side, secure sides to make a tube then flatten the base (with the join in the middle of the back), take your embossing stylus and Lines Texture Plate to run 3-4 parallel lines across the base to make it more secure. Take your tube, fold the top in the opposite direction, punch a hole using a circle plier punch, insert some treats (or maybe some earings, necklace or pretty hanky) then tie in place with some ribbon or secure with a brad. The flower decorating the front was made by layering Oopsie Daisy squeeze punch flowers and rolling the petals.

Hope you have fun making some crafty gifts for Mother's Day and get to spend some time with the ones you love :)

Have you played with the cool grass border punch lately?

The Grass border and Cloud squeeze punches are the latest additions to my crafty stash and I confess that I LOVE them BOTH!!!

As soon as I cut open the packs, I knew exactly what I was going to make. One of our nephews was turning five, so I punched out a bundle of ants using my LE Gettin' Antsy squeeze punch then took some brave pills in preparating for some heat embossing. My wonderful husband shares his mega heat gun with me, so it wasn't long before that 1800W of power had those ants flying, leaving a sticky black trail over the sheet of card that I was using as a protective worksheet. I don't heat emboss very often and it was super lucky that I was using the card sheet as it had lots of singed spots on it by the time I was finished and I dread to think what would have happened to the table or my precious craft mat if it wasn't there!!!

Anyway, getting back on track, I got three sheets of green cardstock and punched out six grassy layers to make the birthday card. Little kids like big cards, so this card was 4 3/4" by 12", just fitting in the envelope. I used the Cloud squeeze punch to make the fluffy icing for the top of a cupcake (for the ants to gobble) and my crimper to give the base a traditional patty pan appearance.

Hope you enjoy my grassy card as much as Thomas did :)

Are you ready to join the Seasons online crop at Fiskateers TODAY?

OK, things may be cooling down for Autumn for us down here in the Southern Hemisphere and everything is warming up for Spring for our fellow crafters in the Northern Hemisphere, but Lead Fiskateer Rebecca has an online crop challenge ready for all seasons here on the Fiskateers Blog NOW!!!

Check out all the punchy prizes Rebecca has ready to send out to the lucky winners:

Eight challenges have been posted, with entries closing noon EST 25th April - don't forget, with the time zone differences, if you get them in by midnight Melbourne (Australian Eastern) time on the 25th April, you will still have a couple of hours to spare.

Hope you get a chance to come join the crafty fun of the Seasons Online Crop with us :)

Not a Fiskateer yet?
It is very quick and easy to join - here is the link - it is FREE and it is FUN!!!

... don't forget to let us know if you join - it would be great to have a familiar face from Down Under to craft with - my Fiskateer name is TracyM #6773 and I look forward to seeing you :)

... and the winner is ...

The winner of the crafty charms from the Fiskateers Spring Blog Hop is

*** Ladydoc (Karen) #2858 ***

Congratulations Karen!!!

Please send me your address details so that I can post out your prize.

Thank You to everyone who took the time to visit and comment, it was fun reading about your favourite flowers :)

***Fiskateer Spring Blog Hop***

Welcome to the Fiskateers Spring Blog Hop!!!

You should have come from Judy #5798.

If you are hopping into the middle of our blog hop and you are a Fiskateer, you can start here www.fiskateers.com.

If you are thinking a "Fiskawhat?", you should know that Fiskateers is an online community of craftiness (paper crafts, sewing, gardening etc) all based around our love and appreciation of Fiskars (think orange-handled scissors to start).
There is a blog, gallery and message board led by four lovely Lead Fiskateers who, along with other Fiskateers are fabulous at getting creativity flowing via chats, challenges, on-line crops and interviews with other crafty celebrities.

If you would like to join in the inspiration of Fiskateers, or would like to learn more, all you need to do is visit http://www.fiskateers.com/join ... then come join in the fun at the beginning with Kellystar (Kelly) #6446 for a complete list of blog hop stops.

We'll be hopping all weekend, March 24th and 25th to welcome Spring!!! The blog hop officially ends on Sunday March 25th at 11pm CST. If you're like me and down in the Southern Hemisphere, we have been enjoying Autumn for a few weeks now and are in a different time zone, with the crop ending at 3pm Monday March 26th Australian Eastern time.

Some Fiskateers are offering sur-prizes ... check their directions carefully to participate.

My project to share today is a punchy birthday card I made for my nephew. After he told me that his favourite colour was aqua and blue and green, I had a quick search of my stash and found the perfect punch combo - Something's Fishy squeeze punch, Bubbles and Boundary Waters border punches.
Here is his sparkly seven card.

The first thing that I think of when I hear "Spring" is flowers. For your chance to win this "charming" prize, tell me about your favourite flower and these crafty charms could be decorating your scissor bag or become part of your next project. Entries close 11pm Sunday March 25th CST (don't forget the time-zone differences if you are in the Southern Hemisphere) and the winner will be drawn using random.org.

Thanks for hopping by ... the next stop on your hop along the Fiskateers Spring Hop is Tara #4402.

Hope you have a hoppy weekend :)

PS - I have to send a big THANK YOU to Lyn (our Aussie Lead and Fiskateer #1110) for letting me use our Aussie Blog to join the hop - thanks Lyn :)

Recipe for a cheesecake ... card

This is the “cheesecake" birthday cake card that I made for a Great Nephew at the weekend.

Here are the ingredients for making your cheesecake:

And now for the secret cheesecake recipe:
Take an XL Block Party squeeze punch and punch out a light yellow square, randomly punch out different sized circles using your set of Fiskars eyelet setting tools (come in 3 sizes), going over the edges so that it looks like swiss cheese. Punch out a darker yellow square and adhere behind your punched square. To make it into a layered cheesecake, take your medium Brick by Brick squeeze punch and punch out 3 darker yellow bricks, adhere 2 together to make the 2nd tier of your cake. Take the last yellow brick and cut to a length that suits the top tier (about 1/3), adhere to the longer section then trim to make your top tier. I haven't forgotten the small block the mouse is eating - take your medium Block Party squeeze punch and punch out one darker yellow square then take your mini-scallop paper edgers (decorative edge scissors) and nip a section off the corner to look like the mouse has been feasting. Hope you enjoy your cheesecake :)

If you haven't used a Fiskars Eyelet setting tool, well you are in for some fun times!!!  They punch the hole and set your eyelets too.  To punch the hole, all you do is hold the coloured part of the tool, with the end touching where you want to punch, pull the top section upwards (it is spring loaded) then let it go.  I usually take three turns to punch through thick cardstock and it is so quick and easy, just hold the tool in place, pull up, let go and repeat.  Don't forget to have a mat underneath your work or you will have little circle indentations EVERYWHERE - our chopping board still bears the scars of my early efforts!  This photo shows how the cardstock feeds up inside the tool and fall out the section further up the side of the tool, well out of the way of your work.

Other tools use to "bake" this card include Not Even a Mouse LE lever punch and Diamond Edge border punch. I still have a couple of really long envelopes and kids love big cards, so the card base started as a 12x12 sheet of cardstock, cut at 9 1/4", scored at 4 5/8", folded firmly with a bone folder then added the layers to decorate.  The 1" alphas were originally glossy and red but I sanded them down, inked, then painted with a fast drying adhesive and smothered each one with glitter, LOTS of black glitter - our house sparkles now :)

NOTE: I thought that kids loved big cards but the little fella that got his 7th birthday card today didn't even look at the front - he was in too much of a hurry to see how much more money he got from us to add to his growing pile of birthday money!!!

* Friendship Cards !

Hey fellow Fiskars peeps,

I too was lucky to get some happy mail with the new Interchangeable Border Punches and have not been able to sit and craft until yesterday when I was at a crop with some friends.

Got to playing with them a little bit and also used another of my favourite Fiskars Punches the Lever Punch Medium Butterfly.

The Interchangeable Border - Ivy League one is definately one of my favourites, so far.

Thanks Fiskars, and I hope you might get a little inspiration from my cards.

Bye for now, Robyn

 

The colours and textures of Rango

Tami had some fun challenges to celebrate the Oscars on Fiskateers.

The 1st challenge was to create a project inspired by one of the films nominated for an Oscar, with the catch being that you had to have seen the film.  After searching and searching through all the nominations I finally found one that I had seen.  Rango was nominated for and won Best Animated Feature Film.  For those of you that haven't seen it, Rango is the main character, a cute little chameleon.  Here is the card I created thanks to the colours and textures inspired by Rango.  The Fiskars Scalloped Sentiment border punch reminded me of the shape around his eyes, as did the XL Seal of Approval squeeze punch.  Put an XL Round 'n Round squeeze punch circle behind it so that the scallops had a bit more contrast.

How do you like the textures?

Dry embossing is so much fun to do.  The embossed "birthday" sentiment was done using my Fiskars Mini ShapeBoss and Embossing Stylus.

The green layers were embossed using my "Scales" Fiskars Texture Plate with the help of a Fiskars Embossing Tool and Embossing Stylus.

Next came the envelope challenge, so I created an envelope for my Rango card.  The card was too big to make an envelope for using 12x12 paper, so I was lucky to have a 6.5" square envelope in my stash and the card just fitted in.  After a bit of folding from the back, I was able to emboss the birthday boy's name on the front of the envelope using my Fiskars Mini ShapeBoss.

There are so many different stencils for embossing with your Fiskars ScrapBoss and Mini ShapeBoss and Texture Plates to suit any occasion.

Do you have an embossed project to share with us?  Send a photo through to us at fiskarscraft@yahoo.com.au so share your embossed creation here on the blog.

Bubbles Bubbles Everywhere!!!

Bubbles is such a fun border punch and I have really enjoyed making a couple of cards using it in combo with Scalloped Sentiment and some limited edition squeeze punches!!!

This birthday card is for a niece turning three later this year and I hope she enjoys her pink "Something's Fishy" fish swimming amongst the bubbly waves.

Loved the fishy Bubbles card so much that I just had to make more Bubbles!!!

We have a nephew turning two later this year and what little boy could resist some frogs from the limited edition "Hoppy for You" squeeze punch?  ... I think the 4mm googly eyes always look cute with these frogs :)

What border punches do you combine together for cards or layouts?

Do you have a border punch project to share?  If you do, please e-mail it through to fiskarscraft@yahoo.com.au so that we can all enjoy your punchy creation.

Happy Crafting,
Tracy

PS - I entered my cards in Lead Fiskateer Cheryl's "Pushing and Punching the Border Line" challenge and hope you feel inspired to enter a project too!!!

Bubbles birthday

I was super lucky to get some punchy Happy Mail from Lyn and the Aussie Fiskars Team - THANK YOU!!! The Bubbles border punch is fabulous and I had heaps of fun giving it its first workout.

Started by making paper lace (or ribbon) as you always do with a new border punch and realised that I had the perfect ribbon to go with it. As the ribbon was light cream and chocolate brown I then thought of the tasty colour challenge that Tami is hosting this month over at Fiskateers. I have also been inspired by all the fun folds Lyn has been using in her cards lately and decided that I needed to try a fancy fold for this special birthday celebration. Add them all together and you have a choc-mint birthday card. Used my Letters-3 Fiskars Shape Template for the numbers and the pretty Fiskars Sea Pearls 3-in-1 corner punch on the middle panel.

Here is my Choc-mint Centre Step Bubbles birthday card

Side view of card so that you can see some of the folds

Now I am off to get creative with the other fabulous punch that came in my Happy Mail ... wonder what I will create with the Diamond Edge border punch - stay tuned for my next punchy project :)

A Hearty Valentine Anniversary Card

A friend of mine was married on Valentines Day and what better way to help her celebrate her anniversary than with a hearty card.

This card includes my 1st attempt at quilling, along with lots of That's Amore squeeze punch hearts.  I adhered the quilled hearts to some of the punched hearts then added some foam dots to the "plain" hearts for some extra dimension.  {I am hoping that it will also protect the quilling during postage.}

Hope you have a great day :)

Rainbow of Ribbon RAK

Are you like me and addicted to ribbon?

Would you like the chance to win a 36 meter rainbow of beautiful organza ribbons?

Check out this link to the post on Fiskateers and enter for your chance to win your very own crafty ribbon rainbow.

Entires close midnight CST Sunday 19th Feb (USA time) which is 5pm Monday 20th Down Under. The lucky winner will be chosen using random.org

PS - I think you will need to already be logged on at Fiskateers for the link to work.

* D1 and her scissors !

Hello Fiskateers,

I hope you have all been well, and I can see so many of you have been crafting. There is certainly some crafty goodness and lots of fun around in 2012 with the new Fiskars website and so many great new tools and exciting things happening with Fiskars.
As for me, well...to be honest there has not been a lot of crafting going on around our house over the last month or so, but we will be making up for it ....cause we got happy mail !

But for now I thought i would drop in and show you me with some of my bling (Lead Fiskateer Tami recently sent me a new one with a few other cool tools to play with) and of course my most favourite-ist :o) scissors. Are you on Facebook with Fiskars, right now they are celebrating show us your scissors and there are prizes too.

There is always so much fun, games and a whole lot of inspiration with the blog and the Fiskateers site, why not join in.

Bye for now
D1

Aussie Aussie Aussie

Have you checked out Lyn's Australia Day Challenge?

Here is my entry. I made this card using Bella Australiana papers from Fynmark, inspiration from their DT cards shared on Facebook and LOTS of Fiskary tools.

Tools used include my trusty green self healing craft mat, fingertip craft knife, "Happy and you know it" clear stamps, medium, large and XL Twinkle Twinkle squeeze punch, medium Tag You're It squeeze punch and medium One Way squeeze punch.

Can't wait to see you project - don't forget entries close 25th January :)

Merry Christmas from the Aussie/NZ Fiskars Craft TEAM

   Wishing all our Readers a VERY MERRY CHRISTMAS !!

We'll be back soon with more crafty inspiration over the holiday period and again in 2012!

Stay SAFE and have a fabulous time this Christmas with FAMILY and FRIENDS no matter where you are around the World!!

                                     

 

                      from all the FISKARS CRAFT TEAM!! 

We shall be enjoying time with our family and friends over the Christmas New Year week.....but the Crafty Inspiration shall continue on here....so keep dropping by......

                                  MERRY CHRISTMAS !!!!

Aussie Fiskateer Party - THANK YOU Lyn, Rod and Fiskars!!!

THANK YOU Lyn, Rod and Fiskars!!!

I had a wonderful time at your Aussie Fiskateer Party today.  It was great to see some familiar faces and to make some new crafty friends!!!

Thank you everyone for a fun day!!!

... time for rest now, will download and share some photos tomorrow :)

Quick & easy border punch Christmas Cards

Do you love your border punches?  I know that I do!!!

Border punches make fabulous Christmas trees - just take some strips of paper or cardstock and get punching.

These trees were made using shimmery silver cardstock and my favourite Fiskars border punches - Scalloped Sentiment, Threading Waters and Apron Lace.

Once I punched each strip, I cut off a length for each layer of the tree - I cut the angle to be mid way of the first scallop at each end.  The point of the tree was a little trickier!!!  I punched an uncut section of cardstock, marked where the midway point would be if it was a strip the same width as the lower tiers of the tree, then just continued cutting along that same angle to make the point.  The sentiment are stickers from Spotlight.

Effervescence makes a fabulous tree too - it even has built-in ornaments!!!

Been playing with Kaleidoscope and thinking what Diamond would look like...

What about you?  Any different punches you have used or would think would make a cute tree?

* Happy Mail and another cool tool !

How lucky we are ....new Microtips in PURPLE...oh how we love purple and FISKARS ...thank you

and a little hint to what tool i am playing with, even scrapped a page ......

Do you have one, do you use it ???
and what are you all working on ....I see Lyn has started the Christmas cards....we so need to do that !

cya soon D1

* Dolly's Cards !

Thought you might want to see these up a bit closer, thanks for looking.

* Dolly and her basics....tools !

There is not too many projects that Dolly only uses her Microtip scissors and her trimmer. The other day we sat down and made a few cards using them.

We often make the base of our cards to match the project we are working on means the scorer is an essential for us...gotto have a nice crease in your card :)