…compilation of tutorials
I found a tutorial on how to make leaves skeletons.
You must use the leaves of the ‘peepal tree’, unfortunately I didn’t find out what this tree is called in German.
I tried different leaves, but it didn’t work, alas.
And those leaves skeletons are soo beautiful!
Links:
Make a Card of Webbed Veins
If you’re making altered books or cards, you often use single, meaningful words.
I have found a good proposal on how to illustrate words.
On the picture I tried to put the word ‘Glass’ onto the photo of the tesselation as if it was made of glass (not bad for a first try? ;-))
My inspiration was a tutorial on how to create a gel button.
It was fun ;-)
Links:
Illustrate Words
Gel Button
Once I found a tutorial on how to make paper from vegetables, but I don’t find back the tutorial (it was at ARD-Buffet, but it seems to be too long ago).
On the photo you see a card made with cucumber paper for a friend for the end of fast.
How to make cucumber paper:
Repeat steps 2 – 5 until the tissue paper stays nearly dry.
Lay between new sheets of tissue paper and between several layers of old newspapers and put some weight on it.
About once a day you must replace the moist tissue paper and newspapers by dry ones.
After 2 – 3 days your cucumber paper is ready for use.
Cucumber seems to be one of the easiest vegetables to be used for paper. You can also use other vegetables, but I haven’t tried them and can’t say, how thick the slices must be and how long it takes.
The paper is real paper: You can write on it, you can cut it and so forth.
Although I like it, I always considered paper weaving a bit dull. Then I saw Paperweaving Plus (scroll down until ‘Paperweaving Plus’) and found the results fascinating.
I liked especially the not-only-paper-weave which I have to try as soon as possible.
Links:
Paperweaving Plus (scroll down until ‘Paperweaving Plus’)
Weave paper stripes into a sheet of paper (English) (With explaining pictuers)
If you also think, that paper weaving is a little dull, take a look at the flickr results for ‘paper weaving’
I knew about those moldable foam stamps, but I never realized how versatile they are and what great stamps you can make from them. You can even combine them into stunning collages.
I’m speechless again ;-))
On the photo you see my attempt at stamping a clothespins pattern. Because I don’t have no moldable stamp, I used my kneaded eraser. I think this is a great background for a card.
I like the so-called ‘Shabby Chic’ and tried some of the ‘Rough Your Papers Up’-Techniques. They make great backgrounds.
For the piece on the photo I took a gift wrap and sanded it very lightly (although it looks as if I worked hard on it ;-)). The scratches where spotless white, which was much to much contrast, but after I rubbed some ochre coloured chalk in, I like it much better.
Once I found the suggestion to use the metallic lids of yoghurt cups for embossing (but I don’t know where). Some people use tomato paste tubes ;-)
The metal lid of the yoghurt cups is much softer and can easily be distorted, but they had a solution for this (unfortunately I don’t know anymore, who ‘they’ were): they filled the backside of the embossed metallic foil with PVA glue.
I tried it once and I like what happened.
On the photo you see my results: I put the foil on the mouse pad, embossed it, cut it with scissors, filled the back with PVA glue and waited (!) for the glue to dry. I coloured both roses with nail polish.
The items are lightweight and less bulky than the tomato paste tube embossed. They can easily be used for cardmaking.
Links:
Tomato paste tubes revealed
At Stampington & Company I found fantastic cards templates galore.
One of my favourites is the Funky Folder Template, which is a template for a little folder with a string and button closure.
Links:
Stampington & Company: A website with plenty of sites about stamping, card-making and much more
Funky Folder Template