May 4, 2009

How Inspiration Can Grow

Lorie and I are hosting the blog this week and even though we aren't focusing on the same theme, every post I make will hint to things she is going to cover the last half of the week. See how astute you can be :)

I got this in the mail last November. I was immediately drawn to the stocking in the upper right corner. I thought that looped look would translate well into a scrapbook element on a page.


I made this layout as the result:


I love the texture it added to the page. The next month, I felt like I needed a little something extra on one of the pages I did for the gallery.



I took the idea of pleating and turned it into a flower, then just recently I found another way to pleat this is very very cool. I thought I'd share some pleating techniques with you. I should start with the pleating tutorial, which I was asked to do last month (but time got away from me and it never happened), but when I started playing with the flower idea, I got a little carried away. So today you'll get flowers and tomorrow you'll get the plain pleating tutorial. I'll follow that with the new technique I learned from my friend Ronda. I hope you'll get some ideas of how you can incorporate pleating on your own pages and cards.

For the flowers, the first one I did was just a straight strip of paper, folded. But I thought I'd try using a scalloped strip to see what that added. I love it! And I am probably the last person in the world to learn how to scallop your paper, but in case I'm not, I thought I'd add that to the instructions.


1. Cut a strip of 12 inch paper, this example is about 1.5 inches:


2. You have to have this type of corner rounder, the one with the removable guard. Take the guard off.


3. Flip the punch over so you can see the cutting device and insert your strip as shown.


4. Move to the end of the first scallop and punch another, continuing along the entire strip.


5. This is how the strip should now look.


6. At every dip in the scallop, you'll score or fold. I drew a line to show you how to do this, but once you get the hang of it, you won't have to draw a line.


7. Next you'll score/fold on the diagonal. For this flower, I chose to fold to the middle of each 1 inch mark, again, I marked it with a pencil so you could see what I did.


8. This is what it will look like when all folded vertically.


9. This is what it will look like when all folded diagonally as well.


10. This is what it will look like when the entire strip is folded correctly.


11. Bring the one end around to the start, my flower didn't use the whole strip, I made it a little bit tighter, only using about 9 inches. Play with the folded/pleated strip until you can form a flower, tucking in the tail and trimming to fit.


12. And this is the finished product. I just glued it to the card and added a button and rub on. :)


I wanted to see what would happen if I folded at a different angle. This is where geomotry comes in handy. A smaller angle gives you a looser flower, and a bigger angle will give a bit tighter flower. This is an example of the smaller angle.


I also tried the technique on ribbon, using a needle and thread to catch each fold. And finally I tried just the strip, but changed the width of the strip. The red flower is the result of a 1.5 inch, 1 inch, and .5 inch strip.


I hope I've explained this technique clearly, it's amazing how many different things you can create when you start with one piece of inspiration and change it up a bit.

Tomorrow: pleating tutorial :)

31 comments:

Mandie said...

way cool, Emily! Can't wait to try it!

Houston said...

Very cute Miss Emily!

Anonymous said...

cute cute!

Denise said...

This is totally AWESOME! Need to try it now. Thanks Emily!

Ronda Palazzari said...

so extremely cool!

LaVon said...

YES!!! U ladies AWESOME. Just so timely! Every time I want to learn more about a technique you ladies host that topic on the blog!! I love it!

Lauren said...

love it! what size of photo rounder did you use?

Brenda Hurd said...

how cute is that - thanks for the instructions!

Jenneke said...

Love this technique!! Thanks for sharing!!

Kimberly said...

Oh wowzers, love this tutorial. Super!

Jennifer.T said...

very very cool Emily, thanks so much for doing this! Can't wait to give it a go!

kathleen said...

Great tutorial Emily!!! Thanks so much! I can't wait to give it a try.

Linda sobolewski said...

em, those cards are freaking AMAZING!

*Paula* said...

Genius! There, I've said it! Genius! ;)

Just Us said...

Yea...I love this! Thanks so much for sharing! I can't wait to try making a scallop like that with my punch-genius idea!

meganklauer said...

Such a fun technique! Definately something I'm gonna have to try!

Anonymous said...

Very cool Emily!! Can't wait to try it out!!

Erin M said...

Love the scalloped flower card on the orange background--must try this at home!
Here's a similar idea that I used on cards--with just a simple back and forth fold that makes more of a 3-D flower. (done for your SC challenge!)
Located on the middle right hand side http://www.studiocalico.com/forums/galleries/show/8444

Stacey said...

That is awesome!!!! A must try for sure! Thank you so much for th tutorial. I had played around with this before but you have made is so clear. Thanks again.

Carrie said...

Get out! I love this!!
You did a terrific job Emily!

Vanessa said...

you are not the last! i had no idea you could scallop paper using your corner rounder! THANKS! i feel so enlightened

Anne said...

Wow, this is great! And now I'm inspired to do one for a Mom's Day card. Thanks!! :D

Christina O said...

This is so cool! Thanks for the tip that the guards come off of those type of corner rounders...never knew that :)Now gotta to try me some of these.

Tiffani said...

Thanks for sharing such a GREAT idea!!! I needed something to do for Mother's Day cards tonight and this will work perfectly!

Anonymous said...

Thank you so much for this tutorial! How much fun are these?! Perfect for Mother's Day cards!

Joy Madison said...

amazing!!!! I love the flowers!!!!

Carla said...

Great idea! I feel like such a dork because I have one of those and I have have been hand cutting scallops - I never knew the guard came off. Thanks from me and my hands :)

Akwaba said...

Thanks for this tutorial. I used it to make my card for Mojo Monday this week. To thank you, I mentionned your blog...You can have a look here : http://coco-creations.blogspot.com/2009/06/sketch-mojo-monday-week-90.html.
Nice WE to you.

Keely Livings said...

Thanks for the great tutorial! These are so pretty!

Suzy-Q21 Crafter said...

What pretty flower cant wait to try this TFS

reb said...

I really like this flower. I just made my first two. I just eyeballed the diagonal line so i couldn't get the flower as tight you yours. But they still are very cute (i think) I used part of a silver holographic gift bag with punch circle using left over blue glitter gift bag.

Thanks for doing such a great pic tute.