March 2016 Craft Hoarders Anonymous Monthly Blog Hop

Welcome to the March Craft Hoarders Anonymous Blog Hop! You should be coming to my blog from Teresa's blog. After visiting me, hop over to Karen's blog next! To start at the beginning of the hop, and for the full list of Bloggers, go to Gloria's Blog!

March always makes me think of St. Patrick's Day, luck of the Irish, and so on.  It is also National Irish American Heritage Month, so better way to commemorate it than with a 3D Shamrock card.  

I love 3D, and some years ago, I discovered paper tole.   So, what is paper tole? 

Paper tole, also known as three-dimensional decoupage, is the art of handcrafting three-dimensional pictures from flat prints. This art is created by skillfully cutting, shaping, and assembling pieces of paper layered onto an image until a three-dimensional version of the image emerges.

This technique was right up my alley.  Of course, back in those days, I would stamp, color, and fussy cut an image several times to achieve what can be done quickly and easily today with our die cuts and electronic die cutting machines.  

Below is a picture of the various layers of paper shapes I cut using my Silhouette die cutting machine.  This paper is from Imaginesce.  One sheet is called Sweet Pea from Out on a Whim collection, and the other two prints are Totally Taj and Artistic Kashmir, both from from Exotic East collection.  The date on the paper tab is 2007, now that is some serious hoarding!  

The papers were layered onto the card base, as shown below.  The top two layers were adhered with foam dots to raise it off the card.  I also added gold pearls around the perimeter, as shown.

The shamrock bouquet needed to be shaped by using a large ball stylus and forming the petals over a soft piece of foam.

Then the piece was turned over to push the petals down in the center, as shown.

And here is one of the completed pieces.  Each layer will give beautiful dimension and add so much to your card.

Tiny pieces of foam dots were adhered to the centers of the shamrocks to keep them lifted, only gluing down the end of the stems.  

Each shamrock was adhered over its corresponding petal below it, giving this beautiful layering effect.   

I added Crystal Stickles glitter glue to the petals, and a seam binding bow with a tiny metal lock charm. 

Here is the list of the participating Bloggers. Make sure to hop along and say hello! 

Craft Hoarders Anonymous Blog Hop List:
Gloria Stengel
Debbie Seyer
Pam Bray
Jacquie Southas
Glenda Brooks
Tracey Sabella
Donna Idlet
Wendi Robinson
Teresa Horner
Barbara Rankin (you are here)
Karen Zueger-Brownell
Christy Houser

I hope we have inspired you to join us every month and de-hoard those supplies! 

Have a wonderful and creative weekend, but most of all, have fun!!!

Barbara