Pumpkins from Scratch (hard) February 29, 2008

This is my favorite way to create pumpkins.  The first time you attempt it, you’ll most likely find it challenging. However, once  you’ve managed one the others to follow will be easier.

Step 1: Creating the peices.

Your first piece you punch out will be a circle.  Here is the most challenging part of the pumpkin.  After punching out your circle flip your punch upside down.  Reinsert the circle until it looks similar to the following photo:

and punch it out. 

To create the “sides” of the pumpkin take the piece of paper you used to punch the circle out.  Now using your circular punch, again upside down, offset the punch to the circular hole.  You’ll see it makes a shape similar to the one in the following photo.

 Depending on how big you want your pumpkin and how many you are making will depend how many of them you will need to punch out.

Step 2: Creating the Pumpkin

I reccomend using an orange piece of card stock that is darker than the one you use to punch out the pieces.  You start by adhearing the center of the pumpkin first.  Leaving a tiny space start adhearing the cresent shapes.  Make sure you leave tiny spaces between the cresents as this is how you get your shading.  As you can see in the photo. Once you have your pumpkin created cut it out.  I just used a piece of green paper to create the stems.

 Step 3: Decorating your Pumpkins

Here are some photo’s of various ways I decorated my pumpkins.  The first photo was an attempt at punching the image out of the pumpkin.  It is possible to do. but it takes a lot of muscle.  Therefor the following photo’s are of cut-outs I made and stuck onto the pumpkin.  The most complicated pumpkin is the Moon and Star.  That’s was actually created with a left over’s after punching something out.  You can create the leaves and other junk on a pumpkin by using either wire  (you can kind of make it out on the first pumpkin) or punched out curly cues (as you can see in my pumpkin patch)

Don’t feel you have to decorate them.  You can leave them blank and create a pumpkin patch, like so:

I thought I would include the pages that these were used in as well to give you some ideas.

Let me know how your pumpkin creating goes!

Pumpkins from Scratch (Easy) February 27, 2008

Pumpkin 1-aOriginally uploaded by smurfsammy

Here is one quick method of creating a pumpkin that I’ve discovered.  It the most basic of them.

Step 1: 

Cut 3 circles from orange paper and place them side by side. 

Step 2:

Glue the third circle on top. If you want to add some texture you can use a orange pencil crayon to highlight wherever you feel appropriate.

Step 3:

Cut a small piece of green paper for the stem.

Christmas Trees from Scratch February 26, 2008

I love Christmas, and nothing makes me happier to do a x-mas page.  I find I use Christmas Tree’s an awful lot.  Buying these stickers over and over can become expensive.  So I sat down and came up with my own way of making Christmas Tree’s.  I hope you find it useful!

Step 1: Making the Tree

Punch out some green hearts (Hint: This is a great way to use up some of your smaller scraps running around). You can see in the picture that I’ve turned all the green hearts upside down, and started glueing them in row’s.  The rows get slightly smaller as you get to the top of your tree, finishing with one heart. I recommend that you glue these heart to some card stock, then cut around the final produt to create a christmas tree you can move around, until your page is set up exactly how you want it. This way tends to cut down on mistakes in the long run.  Versus getting your page set up and glueing it directly (if you make a mistake, it’s impossible to rip up and start again).  

Step 2: Decorating your Christmas Tree

There are so many different ways to decorate your X-mas tree.  Here are 2 examples I’ve done:

a) To create the garland I used glue (that dries clear) or crystal laquer then dusted it with some glitter.  (Hint: Ensure that your tree has completly dried before using glitter.  If you don’t glitter will stick all over your tree as well as where the garland sits) To create the x-mas balls on the tree I simply used a punch on different coloured paper.

 

b) On the next tree I used 3D paint to create both the garland and the balls.  I found I was able to control the paint easier than the glitter (it took me several tries and many ruined x-mas trees before I manage to have a good garland with glitter). Using the paint was also faster for the balls then punching and glueing circlar paper. (Hint: If your not concerned with ensuring everything is acid free you can pick up cheap 3D paint that is usually used on T-Shirts)

 

Here is how I used these 2 Christmas Trees in a Page:

I hope you find this useful in scrapbooking.