Mojo Two-Oh-One and … My NEW Machine & a FREE Card Topper Template!

Well, I’ve been stay-cationing a bit between side trips (camping and such) and enjoying the quiet time playing a new machine.  Yes, my Mr spoils me.  We decided to make some smaller trips in vacation time this year and so he invested some of our intended holiday money into a dream of mine.  He bought me a machine to help me make my cards. 

I was paging through a PaperCrafts Magazine recently and saw an advertisement for the Silhouette SD – and on a whim visited their website and was WOWWED by the ability of this thing.  So, we put an order together and now I’m on a huge learning curve with it. 

My Silhouette SD can do so much more than just cut things out!  Oh my, I just visited the site to link here and discovered that there is a newer upcoming version which has the ability to cut papers up to 12 inches wide, mine does the standard 8.5.  I’m not complaining here. 

So, after much practice I designed my own scalloped template for today’s card.  Here is the Mojo Monday sketch for #201.  I know its sure not an exact following but I fear had I added it all it would have been too much the way I did it. 

And here is my take on the card.  I freely admit that I also took a lot of inspiration from Debbie Carrier’s take on the card too.

Honestly, this thing took me ALL DAY to create.  Haha, I muttered at myself quite a bit, I did.  First I asked my Silhouette to cut out the card itself on this pretty cardstock.  I wish I could tell you who made the cardstock but it was a gift.  Its nice and heavy, perfect for a project like this.  It was truly tricky designing the card so that the two sides were identical!  I used a template which came with the software to make the ribbon (with the holes in it) across the card, and asked the machine to cut the edge of the ribbon to exactly fit with the edge of the card (the scallops)  K, so that took me an hour in itself!

The sentiment and the shoe, I confess, are cut out from a book I picked up at a yard sale some time ago.  I had to use a razor cutter that slides over my finger to do that trick.  Another 1/2 hour. 

This part was the most fun! 

I created a butterfly template and cut it out twice – once with cardstock and then once with vellum. I used a dab of double sided tape to join the two in the centre.  Next I struggled for an hour with jewellery wire and teensy tiny pearls trying to create a set of antennae – another wasted hour and I was not happy with the result.  Yeh yeh, I’m a bit of a perfectionist.

I was at a loss and so when my Mr called me and asked me to help hold his guitar while he took out the old strings and put on new… yes, it was an epiphany!  I took one of the strings he discarded cut off a length,.  I then folded it in two and then I found some “crimping beads” which I had picked up one time at Wal-Mart because they were shiny and I’m attracted to shiny things and thought I might use them one day.  After adding a bead to the string at the height that looked right I crimped and voila!  I then added a light dusting of glitter to the edges of the vellum wings. 

(that’s another hour gone!)

Lastly I created three blossoms from ribbon using a little ribbon maker I picked up at a thrift store recently.  They were tricky little fellers – the “bud” was done freehand.   That too took me an hour.  What a MESS I had here!

So, in celebration of my new machine, I am offering up my FREE card topper template for you.  It is suitable for a card 5.5 inches wide.  You may use my template for personal or commercial use though I would ask you link to me when you use it, please.  I will start another “Page” up-top of my blog and perhaps share more templates in the future.  My files will be 300 dpi in PNG format so you may have to suss out how to import it into your particular software.  And as always, I’d LOVE to see how you use my template – or any of my designs!  Just leave me a comment and I’ll provide you my email.  click on the picture to be taken to the download.  Enjoy!

Here’s a sample card I made using this template and using a discarded earring as a charm.

And you would be missing out if you did not visit my sister Nina's blog too - she's a wicked good carder herself, and often is the one who puts seeds of ideas into my head that wind up being designs I give away here!   I've looked for my other family member's Mojo's today but nobody has posted yet - soon I bet!