Split Negative

Hello!

The technique I used to create today's card is called Split Negative. I saw this demonstrated on "Stamp TV with Gina K Designs" and thought it made a lovely card. You can see her tutorial at http://stamptv.ning.com/ I follow this site and she has a great new tutorial each week. If you have not visited her yet, check it out and you will be happy you did! :<)

Basically, a Split Negative card is an image stamped/embossed twice - each one in a different color and each image is then cut in half and displayed on the card with 1/2 of each color placed side by side. This can be done with any combination of colors, but in the tutorial Gina K uses black and gold and I thought it very elegant.

In real life this combination on the card is so pretty and the photo does not do it justice.

The card front.

The inside.

Thanks for stopping by!

We are in the midst of one heck of a winter storm here in WI and surrounding areas. I am going outside now to see if I can find my car. So much snow! This was such a severe blizzard that places had the thunder snow. And today the frigid cold and winds are to start. I will try to remember to take photos.

Take care.

Barbara Diane

Part II: Origami Wreath Tutorial

Hello!

We are preparing here in WI for a big winter storm! Light snow now with a winter storm warning by noon today - very heavy snow/winds by tonight and into tomorrrow. First the forecast was for 5" of snow, then 8" and now up to 12-15" in places! I hope those places are not here! I need to try to reschedule appointments for today and cancel one on Wednesday - and prepare for many trips outside for lots of snow removal from my car!

But today I also have Part II of the Origami Wreath Turtorial for you. I hope you enjoy! :<)

To begin to make the origami wreath, you will start where I left off yesterday. The measuring sheet has been made and now you begin to use it to measure the first two folds of each of the 12 squares that will become the 12 individual interlocking pieces that are needed to make the origami wreath. You can use any size square that you like to make your wreath, I used 6" squares to make my small wreaths and 12" squares for the large wreaths.

To start, place the left edge of the first square under the end fold of the measuring sheet - with the side you want to show facing down (it's a stripe pattern on the other side).

Fold the edge on the right over to meet the edge of this fold. The side you want to show will be facing up (the stripe).

Open the sheet, turn it a full half turn so that the folded side is now on the right and place the open left edge under the end fold of the measuring sheet. (You are folding two sides that are opposite each other).

Fold this new right edge to meet the end fold on the measuring sheet (a repeat of what you just did on the first side). Once again, the side you want to show will be facing up (the stripe).

Put aside the measuring sheet until you start to fold the next square. This sheet will be used to measure the first two folds of each piece.

Open the square again and you should now have two folds running side by side down the center of the square with a space in between.

If you were to bend the two sides - one either side of the two folds - towards each other, with the side you want to show on the outside, it would look like this from the end.

Open the square with the side you want to show face down and fold each of the top corners forward and down to meet (along the length) of the center fold line that is nearest that corner. The folded corners will now be the side of the paper you want to show. The width between the two center folds will remain an open space between the two folded corners.

Fold the edge of the square up to meet the bottom edge of the two corners.

Now fold the bottom edge up once again to meet the bottom edge of the two corners - creating a double fold that runs along the bottom of the square.

Without moving your square, open this double fold and place it up and over the two corners. The side of the paper you want to show (the stripe) will still be on the top.

Leaving the folds in place, turn the entire square over so that the back side is now face up.

Fold the two corners forward and down so that all the paper that is showing now is the side you want to show. This print is difficult to see clearly, but you can see corners because the stripe in the folded corners is running up and down and on the rest of the folded paper the stripe is going across.

There is a fold at the bottom running across at the base of the two corners - fold this bottom edge up and over the two folded corners. It should now look like a paper hat. :<)

Turn this piece over - it will look like this, with the folded up edge now on the underside.

Bend each side forward at the double center fold. It will bend easily - then crease these center fold lines to make them sharp. You now have your first finished piece! This is a front view . . . .

. . this is a side view. Now repeat this process with the remaining 11 squares so that you have a total of 12 folded pieces just like the one below. :<) These 12 pieces will form your wreath.

To interlock the pieces to form your wreath, take two of the pieces - place one behind the other.

With the second folded piece held behind the the first folded piece, slip the ends of the folded bottom edge of the back piece under the two cross folds of the first piece. Be sure to slip a corner of the second piece under BOTH of the cross folds.

Then push the second folded piece forward until it can't go any further and they are interlocked.

Take the next folded piece and attach it in the same manner. Continue this with the remaining folded pieces until they form the wreath - attach the ends of the first folded piece into the cross folds of the last folded piece to complete the circle.

I have made a third folded piece to illustrate how the continuation of interlocked pieces begins to form your wreath.

When you have all 12 folded pieces interlocked, gently push them all together to create a tight circle and now your wreath is complete! :<) Time now to decorate! I hope you were able to follow this tutorial - some of the steps may be confusing. If you have any questions, just send me an e-mail and I will be happy to help.

Thanks for stopping by!

Tomorrow it's back to cards and some new projects waiting to be completed! :<)

Barbara Diane

5th & 6th Wreath and Part I of Tutorial: Making the Measuring Sheet

Hello!

I hope that you had a nice weekend! We had our first snowfall here in WI on Thursday, with the usual shock of the season's first driving in the snow, shoveling and cleaning off cars, etc. But this weekend was very nice with warmer temperatures and sunshine.

Today I have the last two of the small wreaths to share. The first is the one Jim chose and he wanted it to be plain with just the patterned paper and some ribbon.

This one he had me decorate for one of the workers at the group home where he is living. She is very good to all the people there and goes above and beyond. Thank you Tina! :<) This one I decorated with punched snowflakes, small punched flowers and pearls.



Part I: Making A Origami Wreath - the Measuring Sheet for the Wreath

This sheet is used to measure the fold lines in the squares that are used to make the wreath. It will take 13 squares to make your wreath - 1 cut from copy paper for the measuring sheet and 12 squares of your paper of choice for the interlocking pieces that will make your wreath. You can use any size that you like - I used 6" squares for my smaller wreaths and 12" squares for the larger ones.

1. Take the copy paper square and lay it flat.

2. Fold it in half.

3. Fold that half in half again.

4. Fold that in half again.

5. This first fold will be used to measure your squares when creating you pieces for the wreath.

Thanks for stopping by today!

I will post Part II: Making A Origami Wreath tomorrow.

Wishing you a good day today!

Barbara Diane

Update on Stephanie and Mr. Nielson

Hello!

I have written before about this wonderfully brave woman Stephanie Nielson, her husband whom she calls Mr. Nielson and their four beautiful children. A year ago Stephanie and her husband Christian were in an airplane accident in which their they were both seriously burned - Stephanie over 83 percent of her body - and their friend and fellow pilot Doug Kinneard was killed.

Jamiee Rose has been following and writing of Stephanie's story for the past year and you can see the videos and read the chapters of the inspiring story she has written "Coming Back: A year after surviving a fiery plane crash— a year filled with heartache and hope —a mother of four slowly regains her footing." at this site:

http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/stephanie-nielson-intro-120609.html

Stephanie also has a blog, which I check every day. http://nieniedialogues.blogspot.com/ She started it before the accident - writing about her experiences of being a wife and mother. After the accident, one of her sisters continued to post updates of Stephanie and Christian's progress and once she had returned home Stephanie again picked up the posting. Please do check out this corageous and lovely woman's blog - you will be glad that you did.

Wishing you a good evening. I will see you again tomorrow.

Barbara Diane

My 4th and Second Large Wreath

Hello!

My 4th wreath - the second large one - was fun to make, although it took me forever to decorate! I have found that when one uses multiple colors/patterns of paper on a project such as this wreath, that it is VERY difficult to decide what to do when decorating it.

I used all my Bo Bunny dotted papers to make this wreath! 12 sheets (2 of 6 different colors) of 12 x 12 paper that I had just purchased not long ago and was going to save for something special. Well, I did make something special with it - but I wasn't planning on using ALL of it on one project! :<) Then, when it came time to decorate the wreath, I was blank. I wanted it to be as special as the wreath. It took me all day, of first one idea discarded and then another.

Finally I saw a snowman in a snowglobe stamp that I had not used yet and that was it! Now, it was how to use it to put on the wreath? I stamped the image on white CS, used an embossing pen on the sky and added glitter, used a glue pen on the snowman and added glitter and then applied Liquid Applique to the snow and the ball at the end of his hat. I used my SU markers to color his hat and scarf. I decided to use just the top of the snow globe as an ornament and so removed the bottom of the globe when I cut them out.

When I put the finished ornaments onto the wreath they just looked too plain and didn't really compliment the beautiful papers. They didn't look right with just a hanger or ribbon bow on top. I knew they needed a border or frame but of what? I looked through all my supplies about a hundred times and then I saw the new MS snowflake punch that I also had not used yet! I tried white and that didn't work. I thought I know, I would use the colors of the papers!

I was amazed that I was able to match the Bo Bunny papers with SU colored CS but it worked and so punched snowflakes from the colored CS and alternated the colors of the snowflakes in the order that they were on the wreath and attached them to a white circle that was then glued under the snowman ornament - but it still didn't feel right. So I looked through all my drawers again and again - discarding one thing after another - until I came to the snowballs. Aha! I added them to the wreath and gave one to each snowman and here is the finished wreath. I hope that you like it! :<)

Thanks for stopping by!

I will post the tutorial on Monday - and I still have the remaining small wreaths to share with you. :<) I am so taken by this origami that I am looking at all the videos/tutorials I can find and I am busy making flowers, etc. It is magic to me to see how one can just fold a piece of paper and create something beautiful! :<) But then, I think when I watch heat embossing turn from powder to glaze that this is magical too!

Barbara Diane

Hello!

I wanted to take a few minutes to tell you of a fellow blogger, Jennifer Biederman, who is offering a wonderful gift of blog candy on her site at http://createdbyjb.typepad.com/ Check it out -it is a great opportunity to win some great products!

Thanks for stopping by!

Barbara Diane

My 3rd Origami Wreath

Hello!

My 3rd origami wreath was working out of the box for me. It was way out of my comfort zone - especially when it came time to decorate it. This is not a color combination that I would normally use in a project, but the papers were all part of an SU holiday DP packet and so I knew that they would all go together. I just wasn't sure what color to use for the accessories after the wreath was assembled. I finally decided on the brown and then used one of the lighter papers to pop the centers. I liked the end result.

This is the first of the larger wreaths I made in my wreath marathon. :<) I used a 12 x12 sheet for each piece. There are 12 pieces in each wreath so that took 12 full sheets of DP to make, but it looks great when finished. The finished wreath is 12" across and a nice size to hang on the wall, door, etc. Just be sure to make the hanger secure! :<)

I cut out the snowflakes from the printed paper that was the backside of the light green print that I had used in the wreath. I layered a medium sized snowflake onto a larger one and then punched out a small snowflake from the snowflake print paper I had used in the wreath (left side between the stripe and the dark green print) - centering one of the small images from that paper in each punched snowflake - choosing two red, two light green and two dark green images for the centers.

Thanks for stopping by!

I am working on the remaining large wreath and two smaller wreaths so may have those to share with you tomorrow and post the tutorial on Monday as it is quite long.

Barbara Diane

My 2nd Origami Wreath

Hello!

Today I also have my 2nd origami wreath to share - a more elegant version. I made the mistake of putting it on my door before I took photos so I did not get any of this wreath against a black background as I intended, to really show up it's gold sparkle.

If you are wondering why I put this on my door when I already had my first wreath on there, it was because the first one fell down! I didn't have the hanger on the back attached properly and this afternoon there was a knock on my door and when I opened it there stood a neighbor with my wreath in her hand to tell me she found it laying at the base of the door. :<)

I had just finished this one so I hung it on the door instead - not thinking that I had no photos taken of it yet at that time. Oh well, it still looks pretty even hanging against that awful brown fake wood door. :<) Another neighbor came by as I was taking these photos and she liked it! :<) One really can't get away with much where I live - someone is always somewhere!

To create the flowers, I punched them from a gold paper and added gold Stickles around all of the edges of each flower, layered them and then added a drop of the Stickles to the center of the top flower.

The ferns were punched from a printed paper and the gold Stickles added to all of the stems. Each flower was glued to two ferns with a glue dot and then to the wreath and in between the flowers I glued two ferns and added three dots of gold stickles on top at the base of the ferns.

You can see the depth of the wreath and this time I left the center open. This is another of the smaller ones and it measures 6" across when finished.

Thanks for stopping by! I hope that you enjoyed seeing this fancier version. :<)

Barbara Diane

My First Origami Wreath

Hello!

I saw this origami wreath on a children's craft video some time ago and fell in love with the shape of it. Most wreaths are flat, but this one has depth AND an image can be inserted into the center! I loved that idea! Of course, you can leave the center open as in a traditional wreath, but the first one I finished I wanted to have a center image. My friend Michelle gifted me with this great stamp set and the little guy and his Christmas tree was perfect for the center image.

I say, 'the first one' because I got so caught up in the folding and creating and trying to remember what to do after what, that I made two large wreaths and 3 smaller ones before I stopped! I just kept on folding and folding and interlocking the pieces to form wreaths - it was such fun! I found out that I LOVE origami! :<) This first wreath I have to share with you is one of the smaller ones. Each interlocking piece starts with a square and I used a 4" square to make the pieces for this one. I then used a large circle punch to make the center piece of CS that has the stamped/marker colored image on it. The flowers are made using a small flower punch, which I layered and then added a sparkle dot center.

You can see in this photo the wonderful depth of the wreath. Each side is as great looking as the other. I glued a two-sided circle image in the center and on this side of the wreath the image is recessed . . . .

. . . . and on this side it was up against the side of the wreath.

Look at the wonderful depth of this wreath! I love it!

The first one went on my apartment door when it was finished. :<)

Thanks for stopping by today!

Over the next few days I will have different versions of this wreath to share with you. This was my first origami project. I hope that you liked it Helen, my friend who is the Origami Queen! :<)

One of tomorrow's wreaths is a bit more elegant. Some are whimsical. Two more small and two large wreaths to share with you. Then on Friday I will have the tutorial. :<)

Barbara Diane