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Wednesday, October 19, 2011

Embellies with Punches and Bits and Pieces

I promised I'd post this little tutorial for you today. Enjoy!

I’ve noticed a lot of embellishments that are stacked layers of bits and pieces. They seem to be everywhere. Even Creating Keepsakes magazine had a little section on building layered “medals” from various types of materials.

Since I have tons of scraps (I find it hard to throw the beautiful bits away!) and a punch or two, I thought this might be a good way to get rid of some of my scraps and build custom embellishments that are “my” style.

You will need to gather:

punches (or your slice or Cricut or any other die cutting tool you want to use) Mine are all around the 1 inch mark, but you could create these any size you choose

glue dots – If you are doing small embellies

flowers, buttons, stickers, brads, jewels and any other bit or bauble you think you might want to try

scraps (I usually use 2-3 colors plus black and white pieces)

Note: The majority of the supplies in this set came from the September 2010 Enlightenment Kit from Scrapbooking From the Inside Out.


If you are going to use the one inch punches and make small embellies like I did, you can leave the glue dots as is on their sheet (or strip) However, if you are going to make larger embellishments, you’ll want to separate your glue dots into individual pieces.


Step 1: Punch a series of shapes randomly from your scraps. These will be the base layer. Experiment with which shapes fit inside others, but mix it up a bit. You can punch as you go, but I generally punch a number of shapes from a single scrap all at one time so that I have a variety to choose from.


Step 2: Lay your base layer out on your glue dots. You’ll notice I used a button as one base layer and a small chipboard flower that was floating around in my bits and pieces. This is really about variety.


Step 3: Layer a second layer of punches over the first layer, using glue dots. In this shot the top center, second row far right, third row far left, and last row far left have all received a second layer of punches. Not all of the pieces need to have this layer. Generally, I layer only over the largest punched shapes.


Step 6: Begin adding the dimensional pieces to each piece. In this layer, you can see that a butterfly has been folded to give it dimension and that this little piece will only have two layers. This is also the time to add paper flowers and other smaller buttons:



Step 7: Continue adding layers, building the dimension and the texture of each piece.


Step 8: Finalize your pieces with BLING. As a last step, finish off the centers of flowers, butterflies, buttons and other shapes with pearls, brads, and jewels:


These can be built using different shapes for all different variations. You could use balloons, hats and cupcakes for a birthday theme; pumpkins, bats and witch hats for Halloween; Ladybugs, bumble bees and dragonflies for a bug theme; different shaped leaves for a fall theme; different shaped snowflakes for a winter theme. Whatever punches you have (or Cricut and Slice cartridges) you can use to create custom layered embellies.

There is also the option of adding sewing, inking and other techniques to make the look uniquely yours.

Link me up with your handmade embellies! I'd like to see what you create!

4 comments:

Unknown said...

These are SUPER cute and creative Felecia... thanks for the tips and the creative "push"!

Clair said...

Don't you just love being able to use your scraps for something so simple, but so cute?

Love the colours you've chosen to use!

Jimjams said...

Love your embellies - I do this occasionally, but I can see a case for having a creating session at the beginning of each counterfeiting month so that I have embellies to match!

Angela Toucan said...

those are fabulous. thanks for sharing