Step 1

Sketch, copy or trace your picture in pencil.  This image was drawn onto an A4 landscape piece of watercolour paper.

Step 2

Draw your text over the top of the sketched picture in pencil.  Here we have overlapped the text which will give a 3D effect when finished.  Then when you are happy with it, go over in permanent pen.

Step 3

Draw over the initial picture in permanent pen, ensuring that you only draw within the lines of the text only.  Erase the rest of the pencil picture which is outside of the text.

Step 4

Colour in the picture within the text with watercolour pencils.

Step 5

Apply water to the watercolour pencilled picture using either a brush or water brush.  Once dry, add shading as shown with grey and black watercolour pencils, ensuring graded blending to give a 3D effect.  Finish by applying waterbrush to shading.

This text was then cut out and placed on a dark piece of card to highlight the shading for the 3D effect.  This effect can be used for lots of different applications including on the front of birthday cards (adhere to card to make it stronger), bedroom door nameplate and so on.

This same technique can be used for other effects on text such as flourishes or swirls,

or flowers.

Another effect is to stack your text.  Here the picture within the ‘SCOTT’ text is a robot and can be seen blank and coloured.

This ‘ZOE’ text has a cute cat within the text and we can also see blank and coloured examples.

We would love to see your interpretations of this doodling post, so if you would like your doodles featured on our blog, email your work to:  submissions@papercraftjunkies.com

First of all draw your letters in pencil which means you can erase and amend should you need to.  When you are happy with your designs draw over the pencil lines with a permanent fine liner pen and erase the pencil lines.

Next draw different patterns on your letters.  Here we have gone for spots, plaid and stripes.

Here’s a coloured example.

These letters have doodled pictures on them relating to the actual letter on which they appear, i.e. ‘A’ has an apple tree and apples, ‘B’ has a waving bear and bear paw prints and ‘C’ has cats and cat paw prints.

And the coloured example.

These letters have a ‘Triptych’ theme to them, in that over the three letters there is a continuing floral theme.

Another coloured example.

These lower case letters have had varying doodled designs on them.

And a coloured example.

These lower case letters take on a more italic look and have a similar retro pattern on them.

Here’s a coloured example.

Taking on a ‘real writing’ italics theme to the text, these letters have been decorated from underneath the text with doodled flowers, hearts and stars, as featured in the previous ‘Doodling Made Easy’ series of posts which can be found HERE.

Here’s the final coloured example.

If you have been inspired by this feature, don’t miss the next post which will be coming soon.

We would love to see your interpretations of this doodling post, so if you would like your doodles featured on our blog, email your work to:  submissions@papercraftjunkies.com

In keeping with our Clearly Perfect theme, Fiona Haigh-Gannon has created this gorgeous 'clear' birthday card using acetate.

Fiona has also produced this 'clear' birthday card for inspiration.

We hope these can inspire you to have a go with acetate, acrylic or just plain plastic and hope you can email us with your creations to be featured on PCJ at: 
submissions@papercraftjunkies.com

Fiona wanted to break away from tradition with her Easter cards this year so she used rabbit and hedgehog stamps from the wonderful Penny Black range.

For the first card:
Take a square card blank and adhere a slightly smaller square of patterned paper to the front.
Stamp the rabbit image out twice and colour them both (I used Twinkling H2Os.)
Cut out the pots and rabbits from one of the finished images and decoupage them over the base image using silicon glue.
Matt and layer the rabbit image onto co-ordinating paper.
Cut a piece of co-ordination paper the same width as your card blank but about a third of the height and punch out a decorative edge along the bottom.
Adhere this to your card with the matted and layered rabbit image on top.
Using Nestabilities make a layered scalloped circle and stamp your sentiment around the outside edge.
Paper punch two flowers from scraps of your co-ordinating papers and adhere to the centre of your scalloped circle.
Add a gem to the centre of the flower for a bit of bling
Adhere to the bottom right-hand side of you card.

Easter Card 2:
Cut a piece of plain paper slightly smaller than your card blank and emboss the right-hand edge with the flower image using a Cuttlebug embossing border and adhere this to the card blank.
Add adhesive pearls to the centre of each embossed flower.
Cut a piece of patterned paper to fit the left-hand space and adhere into place.
Stamp the rabbit image out twice and colour them both (I used Twinkling H2Os.)
Cut out the pots and rabbits from one of the finished images and decoupage them over the base image using silicon glue.
Matt and layer the rabbit image onto co-ordinating paper and adhere to the top of the patterned paper.
Make a circle tag using Nestabilites and a hole punch and stamp on the sentiment.
Tie a ribbon around the bottom of the card and attach the tag.

Easter Card 3:
Cut a piece of patterned paper slightly smaller than your card blank.
Stamp out the Hedgehog image and colour it in.
Matt and layer the image onto co-ordinating paper.
Cut another piece of plain paper slightly larger than the matted and layered image and adhere to the patterned paper on an angle.
Adhere the matted and layered hedgehog image to the plain paper but also on an angle.
Adhere co-ordinating buttons to the four corners of the plain paper.
Make a circle tag using Nestabilites and a hole punch and stamp on the sentiment.
Tie a ribbon through the tag, wrap the ribbon around the pattered paper and attach at the back.
Adhere the pattered paper to the card blank

If you would like to share your easter creations with us, please email your photographs to: submissions@papercraftjunkies.com

These ‘Interlocking Cards’ are so easy to make and are different from the normal run-of-the-mill cards.

You will need:

• Patterned paper/card
• Plain paper/card
• Metal ruler
• Scissors
• Pencil
• Bone Folder
• Craft Knife
• Interlocking A6 Card Template

1.  Fold your A5 sheet of patterned card to make an A6 card.

2.  Turn your A6 card over to show the inside and draw around the half circle part of the template on the left hand side.

The template is shown as yellow in this picture for clarity.

3.  By using the straight edge of the template, draw a line on the right hand side of the half circle and cut out this shape with your craft knife.

4.  This is how the front of the card should look.

5.  Repeat step 2 on the A5 sheet of plain card but only cut around the curved line, do not cut this section out completely.

6.  Fold this A5 sheet of plain card in half to create an A6 card, then fold the right hand side of the card back over and crease with the bone folder.  The left hand side of the card should also be folded back over but ensure that the cut out section is not folded or creased, as shown.

7.  Take the plain paper/card and apply double-sided tape to back of the far right hand section and the far left hand section including the back of the half circle.  Then adhere this plain card/paper to the patterned card, as shown.

8.  Here is a side view of how your card should now look.

9.  Here you can see that by interlocking these pieces you create a circle on the front of the card.

10.  The size of the circle you create on the front of the card is actually the same size as a 3″ circle punch.  Punch or cut some contrasting paper/card and adhere to the card front.

11.  To create the flower in the centre of the circle on the front of the card front, the free template from a previous post was used.  Please go HERE.

12.  The text on this card was hand written, as shown.

Your finished creation should look like this.

If you repeat these steps but use the rectangular template, your creation should look something like this card.

TIP: to create the wings of the butterfly, the same template was used which made the flower petals.

Here we have some more examples using the Interlocking Card A6 Templates.

Create a gorgeous girly girl card like this one.

Here we have a great card for a boy with a skull and crossbones theme.

This cute card for the birth of a baby boy is lovely as an interlocked card.

We would love to hear from you and see your Interlocked Card creations, so send your photo’s to: submissions@papercraftjunkies.com

Debbie used a canvas measuring 12”x 9” and chose to decorate it in a vintage theme.

1.    Lay out all your chosen elements.

Debbie has used an old photograph, buttons, brads, ribbon, die cuts, off cuts of postcard paper, scraps of black card and 1 sheet of Basic Grey – Stella Ruby paper, gold ink pad, Amber clay catseye chalk pad. 

TIP:  Laminate your photograph to protect it from dust etc when finished canvas is hanging.

2.    Edge your canvas in a co-ordinating colour with your paper (Debbie has used copper pearlescent watercolour).

3.    Cut your chosen paper to fit the size of the canvas and adhere with PVA or DS sticky tape.  Now ink all the edges with a co-ordinating colour (Debbie used Amber Clay catseye).

4.    Now for the fun part….lay all your chosen elements where you would like them and and ink any torn edges you would like to. Debbie used the gold inkpad to edge all paper and card.  Now you can begin adhering all your elements.  Debbie has used the swiss dot embossing folder for all the black scraps of card to add a bit more texture and interest.  The brads and some metal buttons have been distressed.

We would love to see your altered art so send us photo’s to be featured on our Blog to: submissions@papercraftjunkies.com

This is a fun technique – you can create lots of different effects and it is worth trying different mediums.

Here is the basic method for Triple Embossing.

You will need:-

• Mount Board cut to your size and shape. ( I find mount board the best to triple emboss with).  You can use heavy weight card – even jigsaw pieces, dominoes etc.
• Ultra Thick Embossing Powder
• Clear pigment inkpad
• Your chosen stamp
• Coloured embossing powder
• Coloured pigment inkpad
• Heat gun

1.    Using the clear pigment inkpad – stamp all over the mount board to cover the entire surface.

2.    Working on several sheets of copy paper or Teflon sheet – sprinkle the Ultra Thick Embossing Powder over the entire surface. Carefully tap off excess powder – using tweezers to hold if necessary.

3.    Using the heat gun heat the entire surface until the UTEE has melted.

4.    Carefully lift the mount board with the melted UTEE on it ( it is hot at this stage – so use tweezers to hold) and sprinkle with another layer of UTEE – tap off excess and heat again.

5.    Repeat again – BUT before melting this last layer of UTEE, have your coloured embossing powder ready to use.

6.    Heat emboss the last layer of UTEE and whilst still hot sprinkle with your chosen coloured embossing powder.
7.    Heat emboss the coloured layer and whilst hot sprinkle on another layer of your coloured embossing powder. Before heating this last layer – have your stamp and coloured pigment inkpad to hand.

8.    Ink up your stamp and have it ready to stamp into the last layer of coloured embossing powder. ( The pigment ink prevents the stamp from sticking to the embossing powder)

9.    Now heat emboss the last layer of the coloured embossing powder .  Now for the fun part – when the powder has melted allow it 20 seconds approximately to cool, then press your stamp lightly into the molten layer.  Don’t let it cool too much or your stamp will not be able to imprint.  Leave the stamp in place on the molten powder and allow it to cool completely before removing.

10.     When cooled lift off stamp – and there will be your image onto the embossed mount board.  (Don’t worry if the imprint did not work properly for you first time – you can reheat the layer and stamp again)
11.      Now you can use your creation to make a card etc.

If you give this technique a try and would like to be featured on our Blog, please email your submissions to: submissions@papercraftjunkies.com

You will need:

• Shrink Plastic
• A large stamp
• A Quick drying dye based ink like StazOn
• Coloured pencils or permanent ink pens if you want to colour your image before shrinking.
• Hole punch
• Heat Gun or Oven
• Tweezers

1  Stamp your image onto the rough side of the shrink plastic with StazOn ink and leave it to dry.

2  Colour the image on the rough side if required.

Please note: colours do become darker and stronger when the plastic shrinks.

3  Cut around your image leaving a small border all the way around.

4  If you are making a tag or shrinking the plastic to use as a key ring or piece of jewellery then punch a hole in your image before you shrink it but bear in mind the hole will shrink too!

5  Now for the fun part! Place your shrink plastic image on a heat resistant surface and heat with your heat gun.

Please note: you may need to use tweezers to stop the image from blowing away. It will curl and twist but eventually will lie flat.

6  Quickly place an acrylic block or back of a wood mounted stamp over the image while it is still warm, this will help it to set flat.

7  Once cooled you can use it on your project.

Please note: if you don’t have a heat gun you can heat your shrink plastic in the oven using the instructions below.

1. Pre-heat oven to 1750C (3500F) Gas Mark 3.
2. Put the shrink plastic image on a baking tray lined with tinfoil.
3. Use an oven glove to put it in the oven for a few minutes.
4. Remove the shrink plastic from the oven and place it on a work top and immediately flatten it with an acrylic block or back of a stamp.  After a few moments it will set hard.  If it is not still pliable, do not press it flat, just re-heat it and try again.
5. Sometimes the image will curl up and stick to itself.  If this happens it usually means that the heat gun is too close or the oven is too hot.  You can usually get it unstuck by pulling it apart with some tweezers then continue to heat until its flat.

If you give this technique a try and would like to be featured on our Blog, please email your submissions to: submissions@papercraftjunkies.com

To make a pyramage card you need to have several exact copies of the image you want to use. You could print out your own image to use and trim each image down smaller and smaller or you can buy pre-made sheets that do all the hard work for you, like the one I have used.

Start by cutting out all the images from the sheet.

When all the parts of your image are ready to use, turn them over and position sticky foam pads to the back of all but the base layer.

Fix each image into position starting with the biggest and working up to the smallest.

Please note it is more important to position each layer so that it matches up with the picture underneath rather that trying to make the layer central.
Use your finished Pyramage image as a focal point for your card.

Here is another example of a card using Pyramage.

If you have made a card using the Pyramage technique, we would love to see them and feature them on here.  Please email your submissions to: submissions@papercraftjunkies.com

The dictionary definition is:

hy·brid

You are obviously aware that most crafters make cards with crafting materials but digital crafting is also on the up an up, in that all the crafting is done via your computer and digital images on screen.  Well, hybrid crafting is just a combination of the two, i.e. printing off digital images to be added to your actual card as can be seen with this Eighteenth Birthday Card.  The card has been made from a template, the text is hand-drawn and the teddy is a digital image from a soon to be released range of digital downloads from PCJDigital.com.

In order to make this card, download and print off this ‘18′ template.

Take a piece of landscape A4 card and rather than fold in half for the card, measure 13cm and mark.  Then score to be folded.  The front of the card should be a bit bigger than the back.

After you have used the template to draw out the ‘18′ on the card front, select the patterned paper for the front of the card.  Apply adhesive to the front of the card and adhere the ‘18′ then cut around the number.

Decorate the blank ‘18′ how you wish.  Light brown ink was applied sparingly to the card front and then sanded to give a distressed look.  Some doodling and gems were also added.  Your card is now ready for your digital image.  The bear image was printed off in colour and then cut out and adhered to the card front with foam pads.

The text was first hand drawn in pencil, then a permanent liner was applied over the top of the pencil, which was then rubbed out.  The text was then coloured in with watercolour pencils and glitter pens.

I’m sure you will agree that for a Hybrid Card, it works very well.

TIP: as this card is bigger than an A5 card, you will either have to put it in an A4 envelope or why not make your own envelope?

All images are 300dpi and are free to use in your own personal projects ONLY.  You may resell small numbers of items made using these images but not the images themselves.

If you use this Freebie, take a photo and send us a picture! submissions@papercraftjunkies.com