Paper Doll

One of my Christmas gifts this year was a paper laminator, but I hadn't opened it until this idea came to me.

We had just received the Paper Doll Dress-Up Cartridge (thanks to Grandma!) and Aidan's cousin's birthday was the following day {she's the one I made the Feliz Cumpleaños card for} so I decided to make her a little princess doll to decorate her gift. Laminating it made it so she could keep it as a decoration/toy.

I started out by making the doll, using the Paper Doll Dress-Up Cricut cartridge. I used glitter paper for her dress and then an even more glittery paper for her necklace and crown.

I believe I used the DCWV Neutrals Mat Stack for her base and hair. The shoes were made with some eyelet patterned paper.

Then it was time to laminate. I have to admit I was worried, I've never used a laminator myself.

This was one of those Christmas presents I'd picked out myself. It was a great deal at Costco. There are 100 laminating sheets to get you started.

I'd probably better read this...

The "Guide" wasn't all that helpful though. It explained the basics but...that's about it.

It's pretty simple though. You put your paper in the sleeve and then once the machine is warmed up you can slide it in, it pulls it through and you're done.

I had to cut her down to size, of course, which was a bit confusing because I didn't want to cut into it too closely and have the lamination be ruined, but I wanted it to be as close as I could get it....the "Guide" doesn't explain this at all.

Pretty!

I'll be using this laminator more and more, I think!

Tags Card Layout

One of the first things I do while dreaming up a card is look for layout ideas. I search magazines and websites for a layout I like, to avoid constantly using the same default ones I naturally lean towards.

I hope to play around more with layout ideas and build upon the inspiration I find in published works.
Paper Crafts Magazine has a great section in each issue where they offer a layout design (such as the one below) and several cards based on the layout. These help me a lot! So, I hope to create some of my own.

The following is one I used just this week for a Mother's Day card. I was inspired by something I saw in a magazine...somewhere...if only I remembered where at this point, I'd tell you. However, the following graphic was constructed by myself, thank-you-very-much.

This card is created by attaching tags (either store-bought or done on the die cutting machine) to a wire/string/ribbon. On my first card of this design I used wire, attached by two brads. I tried to twist the wire around itself because it was fairly thin, but you could use ribbon, string, even yarn depending on your design.

The possibilities for what to do on the tags and embellishment area are huge. You could put your sentiment anywhere really, or use the tags for decorating with stamps/stickers/hiding messages under them. The embellishment area could either be blank, decorated with a strip of paper or ribbon, stamped, etc...

I think some variation in the tag size and or shape is nice, depending on the look of your card.

Here is the card I created following this design base:

As I continue to work with tags, I'll have some more layouts similar to this for you.