Paper Pieced Elephant – TMR 73

It’s my second challenge as a member of The Male Room Design Team and our theme this time is paper piecing. It’s a technique I’ve played with a few times, and I always seem to end up making it fiddlier than it needs to be. There are two different approaches to paper piecing, and I guess actually they both fall under the same general “piecing papers together” heading. The one I generally think of when I think of paper piecing is stamping the same image several times onto different papers, cutting apart different parts, and layering them together to create the final image. The other form uses die cutting instead, and again involves cutting from different papers and putting them back together to create the final image. Both are very fun to do, and the rest of the DT gives some fabulous examples with them.

For my image I decided to make a card for a little boy. If you’re here a lot you’ll know I nanny two 2-year old boys, which influenced my thinking on this card. I started with the paper piecing by stamping the elephant from the Simon Says Stamp Wild Cuddly Critters stamp set. I stamped it three times onto grey paper and once onto pink.

Having stamped them all out I started fussy cutting. The pink layer, which would be my base layer, I fussy cut as I normally would for any stamp. The next layer was grey, and I cut away the inner portions of the ears as well as the feet. For the third layer I only had the head and front legs. Finally the top layer was just the head portion of the stamp.

I used some pencils to add just a little shading to the fussy cut papers. I then started adhering everything together. I started with the largest layer and, using my glue pen, adhered each layer in turn working through to the smallest layer. I used my white gel pen to whiten the nails and eyes of the elephant. I then set it to one side.

For my background I decided to use the in-lay die cutting technique, which is basically the die cutting version of the paper piecing interpretations I mentioned above. I used some of the Lawn Fawn Perfectly Plaid Rainbow papers that had come in the card kit I got the stamp set from. I cut my sky and hills using dies from *Pink and Main’s Scallop Waves Dies, and also Lawn Fawn’s Simple Puffy Clouds to cut out clouds in the sky, which I replaced with white versions.

With all the elements ready I covered my card base with double sided tape and carefully laid each of the scene elements into place. I then used more double sided tape on the back of my elephant to adhere that in to place too. I took one of the sentiment stamps from the stamp set and stamped it over to the left hand side of the hill, using MFT Black Licorice Hybrid Ink. I shaded the bottom portion of each of the large letters to give it some added interest.

I’m pretty pleased with this card. The design is quite simple, but works well for a young boy’s card. Or even for anyone who likes elephants! I think some people have aversions to masculine cards that are cute, at least when they’re not for children. Honestly though it depends on the recipient. There’s nothing wrong with adults, of either gender, liking cute things. But I’m going off on a tangent. I enjoyed using the patterned papers for my scene, as it was a bit different for me. I usually try to stick with more realistic paper choices for scenes, so plain rather than patterned, but I do like how the patterns turned out on this card.

Love,

Lady Joyful

* This is a reward link. If you follow the link and order from Pink and Main, I will receive reward points towards a future transaction for referring you. This is at no extra cost to you, but makes it easier for me to continue getting products and bringing you fun projects like this. Thanks for your support!

Challenges included:

Craftyhazelnut’s Patterned Paper Challenge – Use Patterned Paper

Lil Patch of Crafty Friends – Anything Goes

The Male Room – Paper Piecing

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Check out what the rest of the DT made:

Andreja

Cathy

Chris

Deborah

Faith

Lady Joyful (that’s me!)

Monika

Rocky

Shawna