Fan Blade

 Hello again - this week I'm in Alexandra Palace, with Lady Sew and Sew, at the Knitting and Stitching show - do come and see us - we are on stand G16/17.

I'm demonstrating the Big Shot, Big Shot Plus and the Big Shot Express - which is the electric model.

Along with lots of  Bigz Dies - both old and new.

As promised I've used one of the new dies this week - it's the Fan Blade - 660459 http://www.sizzix.co.uk/product/660459/sizzix-bigz-l-die-fan-blade-30-degrees-

 along with the Big Shot Plus http://www.sizzix.co.uk/product/660020/sizzix-big-shot-plus-machine-only-white-gray 

and I'm going to be using this die for a couple of weeks to show different effects.

I used 3 different fabrics and cut out 4 fan blades in each -

With right sides of fabric together I joined the 12 blades together in sequence to create a circle (take care to keep your seam allowance precise) -

 

Press the seams flat, and trim the threads.

Stitch around the edge of the circle - 1/4"/6mm from the edge -

 

and then press the hem allowance to the wrong side - and pin in place to the background fabric -



 

the circle is 7"/18cm in diameter, and the centre circle is 1/2"/1.3cm - the choice is to cut a 1"/2.5cm circle to cover the hole - or use a button.

You can hand or machine stitch the piece in place.

Now at this moment I'm not sure what project I am going to create - so I am going to leave it just pinned onto the background for the moment.

Next week I'm going to use the same die to create a different effect and then I may combine them to create a cushion of a table runner.

So enjoy the autumn colours and plan some lovely sewing for the darker evenings.

I hope to see some of you at the show sometime.

Angela

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 







Wafer Paper Flowers to Decorate Sweets & Cakes

Hi friends!

 Have you had thought that we can use our Big Shot for edible flowers to decorate cakes and sweets? Today I will explain how to make easy wafer paper flowers.


You need:

• Wafer paper
• Your Big Shot
• Any Die Circle (I used Sizzix Bigz Die - Circles)
• Edible glue 
• Sprinkles 
• Scissors, brush 
• Wax paper

Cut the circles in wafer paper  with us Big Shot . Putting wax paper between the die and the wafer paper.

Make a cut on each circle, from the edge to the center. Overlap the cut and paste with edible glue to shape each petal.

Go joining with adhesive, starting in the middle. As we move away from the center should go superposing less cutting to the petals remain more open.

When the flower is finished decorate with sprinkles hitting the center edible glue.

 These flowers are edible and can be pasted on the cake  with edible glue. What do you think about this idea?

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Ciao amici!

 Ci avreste mai pensato ad usare la vostra Big Shot per fare dei fiori commestibili per decorare le vostre torte?
 Oggi vi spiegherò come fare fiori semplici con wafer paper, i classici fogli di cialda.

 Materiali:

• Wafer paper
• la vostra Big Shot
• Qualsiasi fustella di circoli (io ho usato Sizzix Bigz Die - Circles)
• Colla alimentare
• Cristalli perlati alimentari
• Forbici, pennello
• Carta da forno

Tagliare i cerchi di wafer paper con la Big Shot, mettendo carta da forno tra la fustella e i fogli di cialda. Si possono tagliare molti alla volta. Fare un taglio in ogni cerchio, dal bordo verso il centro. Sovraporre il taglio e incollare con la colla per dare forma ad ogni petalo, e cominciare a formare il fiore incollando i petali dal centro.

Man mano che ci si allontana dal centro, si deve sovraporre meno il taglio per fare in modo che i petali rimangano più aperti. Un volta finito, decorare il centro incollando i cristalli perlati con la colla alimentare.

Questi fiori sono commestibili e si possono incollare sulla torta con la stessa colla. Che ne pensate?

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Hola amigos,

¿Se os había ocurrido que podemos usar nuestra Big Shot para hacer flores comestibles para decorar tartas y dulces?

Hoy os explicaré cómo hacer flores fáciles con wafer paper.

 Materiales

• Wafer paper
• nuestra Big Shot
• Cualquier troquel de círculos (yo usé Sizzix Bigz Die - Circles)
• pegamento comestible
• sprinkles
• tijeras, pincel
• papel de horno

Cortar círculos de wafer paper con la Big Shot, poniendo papel de horno entre el troquel y el wafer paper. Hacer un corte en cada círculo, desde el borde hasta el centro. Superponer el corte y pegar con el pegamento comestible para dar forma a cada pétalo, ir uniendo los pétalos con el pegamento, comenzando por el centro.

A medida que nos alejamos del centro debemos ir superponiendo menos el corte, para que los pétalos queden más abiertos. Cuando la flor está terminada, decorar el centro pegando sprinkles con el pegamento comestible.

 Estas flores son comestibles y se pueden pegar sobre la tarta con el pegamento comestible. ¿Qué os parece esta idea?

Back to school with Sizzix

Welcome back Crafter!

How was your holiday ??

I'm ready for a new year to spend among paper, scissors, glue, big shot and a lot of new punches to try.

Today I want to share with you a project I'm working on my brand, but you can also make your own if you have a good manual.

My daughter Eleonora always complains that his copybooks for school does not like, does not like the cover, designs, patterns, and then I tried to revisit them, adding some applications and creating various shapes with dies.

NECESSARY:

- Sizzix Big Shot Plus Starter Kit (White & Gray)

- Sizzix Framelits Plus Die Set 15PK - Circles

- a copybook

- color cardstock

- pencil

- white pencil

- marker pen

- ruler

- stick glue

- scissors

- paper puncher (different sizes)

I enjoyed a lot!

You can try to move the eyes of the image in different directions and you will realize how many different animals can give life to your copybook.

And now create!

next Tuesday with a new project!

Manuela 

Pasticci di Carta

*per i lettori italiani*

Bentornati crafter!

Come sono andate le vacanze??

Io sono pronta e carica per un nuovo anno in mezzo a carta, forbici, colla, big shot e tantissime nuove fustelle da provare.

Oggi voglio condividere con voi un progetto su cui sto lavorando per il mio brand, ma che potete realizzare anche da soli se avete una buona manualità.

Mia figlia Eleonora si lamenta sempre che suoi quaderni per la scuola non le piacciono, non le piace la copertina, i disegni, le fantasie, e allora ho provato a rivisitare il suo quaderno, aggiungendo qualche applicazione e creando varie forme con le fustelle.

Mi sono divertita tantissimo!

Provate anche a voi a muovere gli occhi dell'immagine in diverse direzioni e vi accorgerete di quanti animali differenti possono dare vita al quaderno.

E adesso sbizzarritevi!

OCCORRENTE:

- Sizzix Big Shot Plus Starter Kit (White & Gray)

- Sizzix Framelits Plus Die Set 15PK - Circles

- un quaderno

- cartoncino colorato

- matita

- matita bianca

- tratto pen

- righello

- colla stick

- forbici

- perforatore per carta (varie misure)

al prossimo martedì con un nuovo progetto!

Manuela

Pasticci di carta

Works In Progress: Baby Quilt & Table Runner

Dies used: Hexagons, 1 1/4in Sides
                 Hexagons, 1in Sides #2 (for the papers)

                 Drunkard's Path Quarter Circle
                 Drunkard's Path & Fan Background

We're back home again now after our family holiday to the Isle of Wight. The days were packed with visits to castles, beaches, Roman villas, boat trips, dinosaur attractions and more but the evenings were much more relaxed with plenty of time for some English paper piecing. The box I took to hold my basted hexagons filled up nicely over the course of the week.

Still going to need quite a few more though to make a 6ft+ festive table runner!

Returning home again meant getting back to the deadlines and trying to get back on top of the to-do list. One of my close friends is due to give birth in the next few weeks and I want to make a little quilt for the new baby's arrival. Whilst there isn't quite the same pressure as a work deadline, time is running out quickly and so it was time to get on with it!

I've been wanting to use my Drunkard's Path dies for a while to have a go at a circles design and this seemed like the perfect project. I decided to make 4 circles using some printed children's fabric and see how it went. Having spent years sewing toys full of tricky curves as a result I don't really mind sewing curves and found that the quarter circles and background pieces went together really nicely. With the finished circle being quite large at 7in diameter, the curve isn't too tight and didn't feel awkward to manage instead it felt quite comfortable to sew.

I think 4 circles by 4 circles will work out at a good baby quilt size and so the top is almost a quarter complete already. Oh and if you haven't guessed, it's a boy!

To make the children's prints stand out more it might be good to add a few circles made with basic blender prints, or add another background fabric, hmm. Some more playing about with fabric is needed I think!

See you next time and happy sewing!

Rainbow Dots Cushion

Die used: Circles, 3/4in

Hello again!

This is the last cushion for a while I promise as our sofas and chairs will soon be fully brightened up for spring and summer!
I had planned to make a bolster cushion but bolster pads had sold out when I went to buy one and so the idea for this came into being whilst staring at the range of cushion pads and trying to think of an alternative - forced inspiration often results in some of my favourite projects which I think this might well be!

Wanting a change from rectangles and squares I chose a circular cushion pad which automatically led to thinking about a circles die. There have been some beautiful rainbow-coloured quilts appearing on my Instagram feed lately and with that as colour inspiration I dug out some rainbow scraps from my scraps box.

I pressed some iron-on adhesive (fusible web) onto the reverse of the fabric pieces and then using my Big Shot Plus and circles, 3/4in die, cut a pile of rainbow spots - as many as would fit from some of the smaller scraps.

From some solid white fabric I cut out a circle (approximately an extra 3/4 inch all round the edge than the pad) for the cushion front and laid it out on a doubled-over towel on a table-top. Next the backing paper was peeled away from all of the small circles and then arranged them so that they radiated out from the centre point in colour groups.

Once happy with the layout they were fixed in place with a careful press from the iron. A quilt sandwich was assembled with some batting and scrap lining to back it, basted together and then it was time for some intense free motion quilting practice.

I toyed with the idea of quilting it with small squares (I do like neat and ordered) but decided to go against my need for uniformity and try some scribbly, chaotic FMQ quilting. The idea being that the combination of squiggly quilting and scattered spots would give more of an impression of a colour explosion.

I'll finish the cushion this week, maybe even finally learning how to do a buttonhole on my new sewing machine in the process (I've said it so have to do it now)!

Happy sewing!

Altered tiny cutting board

Hi everybody!

We can’t deny that Chalk Paint is very cool. Is great for painting cardboard, and die cut it to create beautiful embellishments for our scrapbook.

Recently I really like altering decorative objects, and few days ago when I saw a tiny cutting board in a supplies shop, I had to buy it with the idea to use in a scrapbooking project. And here is the result.

in this step you can see how I did it:

some details of my altered tiny cutting board

Hope you like it!

As you saw in the step by step, Sizzix products I'm using in this project are:

657900 Sizzix Big Shot machine

657552 Sizzix Framelits Die Set 8PK - Circles, Scallop

657563 Sizzix Framelits Die Set 7PK - Ovals

660805 Sizzix Thinlits Die Set 5PK - Hello Flower

Be happy!

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Hola a todo el mundo!

No podemos negar que la Chalk Paint esta muy de moda, y a mi me encanta usarla para pintar cartulina y troquelarla, creando preciosos embellecedores con un aspecto genial para usar en mi scrapbook.

Últimamente me estoy aficionando a alterar objetos de decoración, y el otro día cuando vi una minúscula tabla de cocina en una tienda de decoración no dude en comprarla para usarla en algún proyecto de scrapbooking. 

En el paso a paso puedes ver como lo he hecho.

Los productos Sizzix que he utilizado:

657900 Sizzix Big Shot machine

657552 Sizzix Framelits Die Set 8PK - Circles, Scallop

657563 Sizzix Framelits Die Set 7PK - Ovals

660805 Sizzix Thinlits Die Set 5PK - Hello Flower

Sed muy felices!

Colourful Cards by Gerry van Gent

Hello Sizzix Friends and Happy 1st of March!!

Can you believe it? It is already March? Time surely flies :-)

I am already in a Spring mood and I am absolutely looking forward

to some warm and colourful season like Spring. And by saying this

my projects today are two cards in bright, happy and cheerful colours. 

657900 Sizzix Big Shot machine

NEW 660220 Sizzix Thinlits Die Set Mixed Media

658701 Sizzix Framelits Die Set w/Stamps Word Labels

*       *       *

My first card is featuring the diamonds Mixed Media die....

I basically die cut the diamonds twice on a piece of white cardstock.

Then I misted the cardstock and adhered it on top of another white piece of cardstock.

After that I tore it diagonally somewhere in the middle - 

I kind of resized it to fit on the front of my (14 cm x 10 cm) card.

The stamped and die cut Word Label was used to decorate the flower.

I simply adhered it in the center of the flower.

I added glitter for a bit of shiny effect.

And my second card today...

To make this card I used the Circles dies with approx. sizes 4 1/4" and 3 3/4".

657900 Sizzix Big Shot machine

657551 Sizzix Framelits Die Set Circles

NEW 660220 Sizzix Thinlits Die Set Mixed Media

NEW 660210 Sizzix Thinlits Die Set Alphanumeric

*      *      *

I used white cardstock to die cut the Circle with size 3 3/4".

Then I die cut the Mixed Media die twice - top and bottom of the circle.

Once ready I misted it in green and placed it 

underneath another die-cut Circle with size 3 3/4". 

The Alphanumeric letters were die cut twice using white and red cardstock.

The red letters I used as shadow letters.

Hope you enjoyed my "Spring-inspired" cards today!

Thank you so much for visiting us today!

Have a creative Sunday!

Gerry