Up in the air

I have another card and tutorial for Anna's Craft Cupboard today.

And I’m showcasing another fabulous stamp set from My Favorite Things (MFT) .

I got the chance to play with Up In The Air this month and it is so much fun to use.

There are just SO many possibilities with this set!  The sky is the limit! :) (ha ha)

I was also lucky enough to get the MFT Die-Namics Die - Spring Scene Builder to use and it is wonderful too :)

So I wanted to use these two together and create an interesting sky for the balloon to float around in.

I decided to create a sun ray background with patterned papers (AKA the Sunburst or Starburst technique).  

Here is how I created my card so that you can try it out for yourself :)

This technique can be wonderful for using up scraps of patterned paper you have in your stash.  You can use all different lengths, widths and designs and make them work.  But I actually cut mine from 2 new sheets of paper and cut them all the same size :)

When using this technique you need to firstly decide where you want the “rays” to radiate from.  I decided to put my sun in the top right hand corner of the card, so all the points of my rays start there.

I also decided to leave a space between my rays, but you can vary the look of the background by butting them together instead.

I used Spring-a-ling and Butterfly Net from the Spring Things  collection by Doodlebug Designs to make the rays.

·        I used a Kaisercraft C6 White Card for the base.

·        I cut a piece of white card 4”x 5 7/8”. This is the piece you will glue the rays to.

·        Then I cut 5 rectangles from patterned paper 1”x 6”.

(I cut 2 rectangles from one colour and 3 from another).

·        Then cut them in half diagonally.

·        I glued 1 ray along one edge, making sure the point of it was in the top corner of the card.

·        Then I glued a second ray along the other side.

·        I glued the other rays between these two, leaving a little space. They may overlap a little at the points or not be perfect but this is fine as it will be covered over.

·

·      Turn the card over and carefully trim away the excess paper.  I found this easier to do by hand, but you can use a paper trimmer.

You will notice some pieces are not quite long enough.  That is okay because I am putting some grass on the bottom of the card.

·        I cut the sun and clouds with the MFT Die-Namics Die - Spring Scene Builder.  I added some ink to the sun and glued it over the top of the sun rays at the right corner of the card.

                                       

·        I white embossed the cute sentiment from the Up In The Air set onto a piece of American Crafts – Key Lime Card. I used the hill piece from the die to cut it out and trimmed it down to fit.  Then I inked the edge of it and attached it to the bottom of the card.

·       There are trees with the die too, but I decided to colour the trees from the stamp set and cut them out and attached them to the hill.

I didn’t get the matching outline die with this stamp so I thought I would show you how I cut out the balloon too. (I guess this is just for people like me who don’t like to cut images out with a knife.)

Maybe you noticed something a bit wrong with this photo? Were you wondering why a dog has suddenly appeared?

Well I had my card all laid out just how I wanted it ready to be glued down when my daughter came in.  So I asked her what she thought of the card and she said “I really love it but there is one thing that would have made it perfect”. 

So I had to ask …. “What?”  And she said ……         

“The CAT”!

So I just had to colour up the cat and swap that puppy out of there so that my card would be perfect! :)

The dog is very cute too though and I will be back here on the blog later this week to show you how I used him on another card.  I hope you’ll come back to see. :) And in the meantime, please check out all the wonderful MFT goodies at Anna’s Craft Cupboard.

Kathy