Fiskars Craft

Tutorial - greeting card keeper

Happy New Year!
Thought that I'd start off the year with a tutorial for you.

You got all these wonderful cards from friends and family members - but what do you do with them after the holiday season?

Well you can make a greeting card folder to put on display year after year...

Here is how you make it.

You will need:

• Fiskars Scissors
• Fiskars Trimmer with cutting and scoring blade
• Fiskars Fingertip craft knife
• Left over Christmas cardstock - small bits fine
• Black felt pen
• Ribbon
• Adheasive
• hot glue gun
• 12x12 sheets of cardstock (about 3)
• Some cardboard that is big enough for the cover base of your folder

Method:

Gather all your cards together and put them in order of size

This will help you to determine the size of your folder and your spine width.

Score your spine on your cardboard. Using the stack of cards as a guide and adding an inch either side of that. (ie: if your cardstack measures 1" high then make your spine 3" wide.)

Cut 12x12 piece of cardstock a little smaller in height of your folder. Mine was 12" x 11" yours maybe different.

score your cardstock at 1" intervals

fold them in a zig zag style.... each valley is where your greeting cards will go later. So count up your valleys if you have 15 cards then you will need 15 valleys.

I added three cardstocks together to get the amount of valleys I needed.

on the back of each greeting card put adheasive down near the folded spine

Now add your cards to the zig zag folded cardstock

this is all my cards added.

grab your glue gun and put it down the end of your zig zag piece and glue to one side of your spine inside your cover.

then do the other side

leaving a gap on the spine.... most important!

Here is mine closed.
Its quite a thickness this year.

When you open it it will be like this - the middle may pop out too but its easily put back into place.

.

Now to decorate the cover...

Find your pieces of christmas left over cardstock and if not in bits already cut it into bits. :)

adhere the pieces of cardstock onto the front of your greeting card folder.

Trim the edges with your Fiskars scissors and draw the zig zag stitching on with a black marker pen.

Add a title panel.

using the Fiskars finger tip craft knife cut slots either side of the spine (not cutting the cards inside) and feed the ribbon through like the above picture shows.

On the back cover cut a slot near the open side.

Your ribbon will help you keep the folder closed

Then you have finished! I did how ever add a hand cut holly embellishment on the front. Thought it needed something else.  ;)

Here are other examples of card holders I made in the past....

Thank you for visiting. Hope you have a crafty year!

We would love to see yours if you make one....
email us: [email protected]

Debbie Buckland
artycrafty.wordpress.com

 

 

 

Will summer ever come????

What is with the weather???? I do not know what it is like where you are but up in the Blue Mountains NSW all we seem to get is cloud and rain :( Where has our ozzie summer gone????

So to bring a bit of sunshine back, i thought why not make a summery card! 

I took my inspiration from a picture i took last year when the weather was much better in Kiama.

and then using my Fiskars tools (cloud squeeze punch, sure cut trimmer and boundary water border punch) and some Lawn Fawn Stamps i made this cute card.

It really brightened up the cloudy day making it!

Tara :)

Did you know that.....

 

......you can now SUBSCRIBE to our Fiskars Craft Blog and that way you won't miss a thing as it's announced or shared on here.

How good would it be to just have an email sent to your inbox once a day informing you of what has been happening on here......sound good.....then all you need to do is to click on the Subscribe by email link on the top lefthand corner of our Blog.....see the link up there?

We are looking forward to a fabulous year of crafting in 2012 and shall have plenty to share with you all.....CHA sneak peeks coming soon........................

See you in the NEW YEAR!!!

 

xoxo

Lyn Dwyer

 

Jenni Bowlin + Fiskars Punches

Have you seen the Jenni Bowlin Fiskars Punches?

Here's a sneak peek at some...............................

I spotted these over at http://www.stopandscrap.com/jenni-bowlin-fiskars-punches.aspx

I think Grandma's Doily is my favourite of these...what about you! If you scrollover the punches with your mouse you can see the names of each punch!

xoxo

Lyn Dwyer

New Year’s Eve Party

Designer: Tania Willis

Difficulty rating: Beginner

Ringing in the New Year for my family is generally a small, casual affair and doesn’t usually get a whole lot of attention when it comes to party décor. Although, this year, our celebration will have a little more fancy added to it thanks to some inspiration during my last shopping trip.

Last time I was out at the Dollar Tree I spotted these cute little individual serving-sized bottled of Sparkling Red Grape Juice that resembled a fancy wine bottle and thought it would be perfect to dress them up a bit to make our celebration at home feel a little more special for my kids.

I’ve put together some other quick and easy ideas for your holiday celebrating! These ideas work for a New Year’s Eve celebration, but they are also suitable for any celebration whether it be a birthday, anniversary or wedding. Of course, each of these ideas uses some of my favorite Fiskars tools in very simple ways – simple because I want you to spend all your time celebrating this holiday, not slaving over your decorations.

It’s quite traditional to wish everyone to be healthy, wealthy and wise in the coming year and I wanted to put my own spin on wishing my family well by gifting them with words of motivation and affirmation inside of a paper fortune cookie party favor.

They are quite simple to make and only need a few supplies.

First decide upon your ‘fortunes’ and print them in your word processing program. You’ll want your phrases to stretch no longer than 4.5” long and no more than a few typed lines tall. You can google ‘fortune cookie sayings’ if you need help with wording your fortune.

Then, you’ll gather patterned papers and cut a 4.5” circle for each fortune using the Ultra ShapeXpress along with the smallest circle from the Super-Sized Circle Set.

Gently fold circle in half, creasing ONLY 1” in the middle. Open circle and add a glue dot approximately ¼” away from the crease on both sides of the crease. Then pinch the circle in half in the opposite direction of the crease, but DO NOT crease.

 

Instead, grab the opposing points with your thumb and middle finger, while pushing inward on the crease with your pointer finger. Once the crease starts caving move your pointer finger and tuck the thumb and pointer finger in between the paper to pinch the glue dots together. Slide fortune into cookie. Once you get the hang of this process you can tuck the fortune in the cookie before collapsing the paper to form the cookie shape.

There are many other small ways in which you can put a little fun and sparkle into the occasion. For this next idea, I’ve just customized a standard bag of plain white confetti by adding small pops of color and sparkle to the mix. This is done with just a little hand exercise squeezing the ¼” hand-held circle punch! The punch collects all the little confetti dots as you punch controlling the mess as you go. You’ll be surprise at what a small amount you’ll need to punch to breathe life into the plain white confetti. (Pssst…if you can’t find plain confetti at your discount store, then raid the 2-hole and 3-hole punches at the office. They work beautifully!)

Then, to ‘ring in the new year’, I added jingle bells as a functional embellishment just tied around the top of the tube.

To decorate the ‘fancy’ kid-friendly wine bottles, I simply covered the labels by layering patterned paper, with cardstock and sparkle paper, then finished it off with some ribbons. To add a little more dimension and visual interest, I ran the turquoise cardstock through the paper crimper first. The only thing you’ll have to remember when doing this is to use a stronger adhesive when adhering the crimped paper.

A party wouldn’t be a party without and invitation, now would it!? These invitations were made super simple by using the Ultra ShapeXpress along with the Uppercase Letter ShapeTemplate Set. Cutting the letters with a template ensures that each one is exactly the same and saves tons of time if you are duplicating the design over and over.

Lastly, since it’s a party celebrating the arrival of a new year, you’ll want to play off the ‘2012’ in your décor as much as possible. A ’12 sticker placed on cardstock, then punched using a squeeze punch makes the perfect little embellishment to hang from the neck of a wine bottle, the stem of your wine glass or even as a topper on your tube of confetti.

However it is that you decide to celebrate the New Year, just know that the Fiskars family wishes you a very safe, happy, and memorable celebration!

For more crafty inspiration make sure you drop by http://www2.fiskars.com/Activities/Crafting

A Year of Memories: New Year’s Eve Picture Tree

Designer: Mindy Miller

Difficulty rating: Beginner

As you get ready for the new year, relive the best moments of the last twelve months with a memory tree. This easy-to-make project will not only serve as decoration, but also as a great conversation starter.

Get started by gathering your favorite photos from the past year. Look for photos that will work well with the scale of the Fiskars XX-Large Tag Lever Punch. Then select colorful ribbons, solid cardstock and sparkly paper.

Spray paint a branch and let the paint dry. Once dry, insert the end in a piece of foam and place it in the bottom of a vase or other container. Weight the foam base down with pebbles. For greater stability, add plaster or floral foam inside the container around the foam base and branch. Then add a decorative accent, such as piece of fabric, to cover the stabilizer.

Decorating your tree is as easy as punching tags and adding ribbon hangers. Using the XX-Large Tag Lever Punch, punch equal numbers of pictures and cardstock pieces.

Glue the cardstock tag on the back of the picture tag. Then use a Fiskars Circle Hand Punch to create a hole in the top of the tag. You may wish to journal information about the picture on the back side.

Double a length of ribbon and thread it through the hole. Thread from the front to the back with the looped end facing away from you.

Pull the ends of the ribbon through the loop and tighten.

Tie another knot mid-way along the length of the ribbon to create ribbon tails. Hang the tags on the branches of your tree.

Then add glittery stars to the ends of the branches. Punch the stars from pre-glittered paper using the Fiskars X-Large Star Lever Punch.

Place an adhesive dot on the end the branch and place a punched star shape on each side to create a tree that sparkles from all angles.

 

For further craty projects make sure you drop by http://www2.fiskars.com/Activities/Crafting

New Year’s Eve: Kid Style

Designer: Mindy Miller

Difficulty rating: Beginner

One of my favorite childhood memories is staying up late to ring in the new year. It seemed so grown up and exciting!

This year you can help the new generation make those memories even more special by hosting a family friendly party. With simple and colorful decorations, dressed-up games, and fun accessories, you can’t go wrong.

First, set the stage with bright colors and a little sparkle. Tulle pom poms are easy to make and cost-effective. They can be either hanging or table-top decorations.

To make the pom poms, start with two yards of tulle (add more tulle for larger or fuller pom poms). Using Fiskars scissors, cut down the fold of the fabric. After doing so, there will be two pieces of tulle the same size – one on top of the other.

With the layers of fabric together, fold the fabric back and forth – accordion style. For larger pom poms, made the folds wider.

Once folded, keeps the folds on the top and bottom edges. Gather the fabric (open edges) from each side and tie tightly in the center.

Cut the folded edges apart with Fiskars scissors. Then pull all the layers apart to create a full pom pom. Add self-adhesive jewels to the tulle for a bit of sparkle.

A party wouldn’t be a party without costumes, right? Buy glittery top hats at a party supply store and add handcrafted accents.

Cut a 12 inch long strip of paper (width can vary) with the Fiskars SureCut Deluxe Craft Trimmer (12"). Using the paper trimmer or Fiskars scissors, make even vertical cuts the length of the paper (do not cut the strip all the way through; leave approximately a quarter of an inch uncut along the top of the paper). Roll the paper up from one side to the other. Open the cut ends and then tuck the paper roll behind the ribbon band added to the party hat.

Keep the party going with a dressed-up game. Try Bingo with punched shape markers. Simply punch stars and moons from pre-glittered paper using the Starry Night Lever Punch and Medium Twinkle Twinkle Squeeze Punch.

And before you ring in the new year, don’t forget to commemorate the past year in a time capsule. Buy a clear jar and add a band of patterned paper inside the jar. Embellish the paper with Diamond Edge Border Punch and back it another band of contrasting paper before placing it inside. Then let the party goers each add pictures, notes, and other items that represent the year.

New Year’s Eve: Kid Style

Designer: Mindy Miller

Difficulty rating: Beginner

One of my favorite childhood memories is staying up late to ring in the new year. It seemed so grown up and exciting!

This year you can help the new generation make those memories even more special by hosting a family friendly party. With simple and colorful decorations, dressed-up games, and fun accessories, you can’t go wrong.

First, set the stage with bright colors and a little sparkle. Tulle pom poms are easy to make and cost-effective. They can be either hanging or table-top decorations.

To make the pom poms, start with two yards of tulle (add more tulle for larger or fuller pom poms). Using Fiskars scissors, cut down the fold of the fabric. After doing so, there will be two pieces of tulle the same size – one on top of the other.

With the layers of fabric together, fold the fabric back and forth – accordion style. For larger pom poms, made the folds wider.

Once folded, keeps the folds on the top and bottom edges. Gather the fabric (open edges) from each side and tie tightly in the center.

Cut the folded edges apart with Fiskars scissors. Then pull all the layers apart to create a full pom pom. Add self-adhesive jewels to the tulle for a bit of sparkle.

A party wouldn’t be a party without costumes, right? Buy glittery top hats at a party supply store and add handcrafted accents.

Cut a 12 inch long strip of paper (width can vary) with the Fiskars SureCut Deluxe Craft Trimmer (12"). Using the paper trimmer or Fiskars scissors, make even vertical cuts the length of the paper (do not cut the strip all the way through; leave approximately a quarter of an inch uncut along the top of the paper). Roll the paper up from one side to the other. Open the cut ends and then tuck the paper roll behind the ribbon band added to the party hat.

Keep the party going with a dressed-up game. Try Bingo with punched shape markers. Simply punch stars and moons from pre-glittered paper using the Starry Night Lever Punch and Medium Twinkle Twinkle Squeeze Punch.

And before you ring in the new year, don’t forget to commemorate the past year in a time capsule. Buy a clear jar and add a band of patterned paper inside the jar. Embellish the paper with Diamond Edge Border Punch and back it another band of contrasting paper before placing it inside. Then let the party goers each add pictures, notes, and other items that represent the year.

New Year’s Eve: Kid Style

Designer: Mindy Miller

Difficulty rating: Beginner

One of my favorite childhood memories is staying up late to ring in the new year. It seemed so grown up and exciting!

This year you can help the new generation make those memories even more special by hosting a family friendly party. With simple and colorful decorations, dressed-up games, and fun accessories, you can’t go wrong.

First, set the stage with bright colors and a little sparkle. Tulle pom poms are easy to make and cost-effective. They can be either hanging or table-top decorations.

To make the pom poms, start with two yards of tulle (add more tulle for larger or fuller pom poms). Using Fiskars scissors, cut down the fold of the fabric. After doing so, there will be two pieces of tulle the same size – one on top of the other.

With the layers of fabric together, fold the fabric back and forth – accordion style. For larger pom poms, made the folds wider.

Once folded, keeps the folds on the top and bottom edges. Gather the fabric (open edges) from each side and tie tightly in the center.

Cut the folded edges apart with Fiskars scissors. Then pull all the layers apart to create a full pom pom. Add self-adhesive jewels to the tulle for a bit of sparkle.

A party wouldn’t be a party without costumes, right? Buy glittery top hats at a party supply store and add handcrafted accents.

Cut a 12 inch long strip of paper (width can vary) with the Fiskars SureCut Deluxe Craft Trimmer (12"). Using the paper trimmer or Fiskars scissors, make even vertical cuts the length of the paper (do not cut the strip all the way through; leave approximately a quarter of an inch uncut along the top of the paper). Roll the paper up from one side to the other. Open the cut ends and then tuck the paper roll behind the ribbon band added to the party hat.

Keep the party going with a dressed-up game. Try Bingo with punched shape markers. Simply punch stars and moons from pre-glittered paper using the Starry Night Lever Punch and Medium Twinkle Twinkle Squeeze Punch.

And before you ring in the new year, don’t forget to commemorate the past year in a time capsule. Buy a clear jar and add a band of patterned paper inside the jar. Embellish the paper with Diamond Edge Border Punch and back it another band of contrasting paper before placing it inside. Then let the party goers each add pictures, notes, and other items that represent the year.

For more crafty inspiration for NEW YEAR'S EVE and all year long....make sure you pop over to

                           http://www2.fiskars.com/Activities/Crafting

Monogram Pillows

Designer: Tania Willis

Difficulty rating: Beginner

Monograms on pillows have been a rising trend in home décor for some time now. While they make quite a statement, they can also come at quite a price due to the personalization it entails. If you’re in love with the trend and have been looking for a way to make the same bold statement in your own space, you’ll be pleased to know you can achieve the same look for a fraction of the cost. The secret? Heat ‘N Bond and a few key Fiskars tools.

As you’ve probably seen from the popular store-bought pillows, the monogram trend has spilled over into punctuation statements, as well. Today, I’ll be showing you three different samples of how you can create your own monogram pillows that have a fun, trendy look and one of them even features a punctuation mark. Let’s get started!

Gather your supplies: Heat ‘N Bond – Lightweight, Micro tip Scissors, Detail Cutting Knife, Cutting Mat, Rotary Cutter, Quilting Ruler, Fabric, Coordinating Thread, Sewing Machine, Pins, Pillow Form, Ironing Board, and Iron.

You’ll need to use your quilting mat, rotary cutting tool, and quilting ruler to square up your fabric. Add 1” for seam allowances when cutting your fabric for the front of the pillow.

Since I’ve made all of my pillows as slipcovers for easy removal, there is just a small amount of extra work for the back pieces. The fabric measurement you’ll need is the width of your pillow form, plus 6” (1” for the seam allowance and 5” for the overlap). So if your pillow form is an 18” pillow, you’ll cut a rectangle 18” x 24”. Then cut this piece in half giving you two pieces measuring 18” x 12”. These are your backing pieces that will create the opening to stuff the pillow into.

Hem one 18” side of each backing piece by folding the edge over ½” and ironing, then folding over that same edge again, iron, and stitch close to the inside edge.

To create a template for your monogram, type your letter or punctuation mark into a word processing program. Before printing it enlarge the font until you have the desired size. Cut out the monogram using scissors and/or a detail knife to cut intricate letters. This will become your template. (Tip: You can find thousands of unique fonts that are free to download at dafont.com)

Cut a piece of Heat ‘N Bond – Lightweight slightly larger than your template and iron the textured side onto the BACK side of your fabric following the packaging instructions. Then place your template REVERSED onto the slick side of the Heat ‘N Bond and trace using a ballpoint pen. Cut out along your traced lines using Micro tip Scissors. Peel backing off your monogram and place centered on your 18” fabric square, smooth wrinkles, and iron in place.

Lay your pillow front face up on your work surface and smoothing wrinkles. With the right side of the fabric facing down, match up the corners of one backing piece with the corners of the pillow front on the left side and pin. Continue to pin along the top, side and bottom edges. Then lay the remaining backing piece on the right side and pin. Sew along all 4 sides using a ½” seam allowance.

To ensure crisp corners, trim corners at a 45-degree angle, turn slipcover right side out, and push out corners using a small blunt object, like a pen cap. Slip pillow inside.

A punctuation pillow is just one variation of a monogram pillow, but for this next one I thought I’d take monograms to the extreme and create a family of monograms using a larger sized font for the last name initial, a capital letter for the husband and wife’s initials, and lowercase letters for the children’s initials. I also added in another ampersand for good measure.

This type of pillow takes a little extra planning and maybe a few extra trips to the printer to get the font sizes to look just perfect and balanced. The steps to create the pillow are the same you’ll just have more templates to trace and cut and need to use a little extra care when ironing the Heat ‘N Bond covered fabric pieces to the pillow front.

All the extra work is totally worth the effort though. Since this pillow is more playful, I decided to add a corduroy print as the backing

And for the last variation, I decided to show how to make the monogram pillow look just a bit more homespun and comfortable instead of so polished.

To do so, I chose to do a light monogram using a tone on tone fabric, bonded to a darker fabric background. To play up the monogram a bit, I stitched around the monogram letter using thread in the same color of the monogram letter and a short zigzag stitch.

Whichever variation you choose you’ll be keeping up with current decorating trends without breaking the bank!

New Year’s Eve Party Décor

Designer: Lisa Storms

Difficulty rating: Beginner

A New Year’s Eve party is a great chance to fit in one last crafting project for the year, and a fun way to start off the new year with hand-crafted touches! Fiskars tools make it easy.

Set the mood before your guests even arrive with a fun invitation. These toasting glasses are stamped directly onto cardstock and kicked up a notch with a fun bubble technique. On a protected surface, use the three sizes of eyelet setters to punch assorted circles coming up from the glasses. Add foam adhesive dots to the back of punched cardstock and layer onto champagne-colored cardstock for dimension and color. Then simply mount onto a folded card base.

A fun garland is an easy way to add dramatic décor to any party. This spiraled option is full of New Year cheer from stars to bubbles. Using a paper trimmer, cut strips of assorted cardstock and spiral around a small dowel, pen, etc. and thread onto string using a 1/16 inch Circle hand punch. To add some fun, punch small stars and circles from some strips before curling. For even more drama, run both sides through the new Bubbles border punch on a few strips.

Clocks are a perfect choice for New Year’s Eve décor and make for dramatic cupcake toppers. To create the debossed clock faces, punch two identical XL circles. On the back of one, draw an X with pencil to divide the circle into four equal quadrants and punch each line with the 1/4 inch Rectangle hand punch. Draw lines to divide each quadrant in half, and then again to divide each slice in half once more. Punch each of these lines with the 1/16 inch Circle hand punch. Then adhere punched circle onto the plain circle to create your clock base. You can repeat this for each clock face, or create one template to mark all circles.

The clock hands are made from the new ‘Snip Snip’ squeeze punch trimmed of its handles and topped with an adhesive gem or pearl. Glue clocks to toothpicks to insert into cupcakes.

I like to provide a cute midnight snack to start off the new year. Presenting food (including dips and candy/nuts) in plastic champagne glasses (I got mine in sets at the dollar store) is a fun touch. Tie up a little snack (like these mini cinnamon rolls) in treat bags and add a sweet tag to your bow. The bags keep your treats fresh when prepared in advance.

Tags are a breeze with the XL Tag lever punch. Add a large circle squeeze punch title to mimic a moon (trimmed to fit tag) surrounded by punched stars to complete the midnight theme.

While you have out the 1/4 inch Star hand punch, create a bunch of confetti from assorted cardstocks. Punch aluminum foil folded in half for metallic stars!

Round out the party in style by sending guests home with a goodie bag featuring the ball dropping in Times Square with a “thanks for dropping by” sentiment for a fun play on words. Cover a treat bag with black paper trimmed to size and adhere a strip of gray cardstock. Punch four or five scalloped ‘Seal of Approval’ circles from white cardstock and fold each in half. Adhere backs of folded circles together to form half of a ball to adhere to pole on bag. For extra sparkle, paint each section with glue (once formed and dry) and sprinkle with crystal glitter. Allow to dry fully before adhering to bag.

Here’s to all of the fun crafting projects completed this year and looking forward to lots more fun in the New Year!

For further crafty inspiration pop on over to http://www2.fiskars.com/Activities/Crafting

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 !!!!