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Scenic Byway:

Shadowed Titles – Cute as a Button

By Cheryl Gebhart
Scrampin' Love Bug
Beginning Scramping Team Designer 

Supplies:

• Misunderstood Foam Alphabet Stamps (Making Memories)
• Love Letters Alphabet Stamps (PSX)
• Violet Ink (Marvy)
• Grapesicle Acrylic Paint (Making Memories)
• Foam Brush (Making Memories)
• Plastic Tray (Making Memories)
• China Brush (Hobby Lobby)
• Black .05 Pen (Zig Millennium)
• Platinum Brush Marker (Zig)
• 12” X 12” White Cardstock (TAC)
• 4 Coordinating Patterned Papers:
  • Sugar & Spice Double Sided Daisy/Screen Door (EK Success)
  • Ragdoll Berry Watercolor Collection (Making Memories)
  • Casual Plaid Berry Watercolor Collection (Making Memories)
  • Cuddly Friends Chenille Pink Dot (K & Company)
• Light Pink Cardstock (National)
• Berry Colored Patterned Paper (Unknown)
• Scrap paper
• Adhesive Tabs (Hermafix)
• Mono Adhesive (Tombow)
• ½” Round Punch (EK Success)
• ¾” Round Punch (Unknown)
• Pink Embroidery Floss (DMC)
• Pink Buttons (Dress It Up)
• Paper Piercer (Making Memories)
• Needle
• Light Pink Sewing Thread
• Sewing Machine
• Damp paper towels on disposable plate or pie tin

Instructions:

1.                Cut the patterned papers into the following sized pieces:

a.                Chenille Pink Dot – 4” X 8”.

b.                Casual Plaid – 4” X 4”.

c.                 Ragdoll Berry – 8” X 8”.

d.                Sugar & Spice Daisy – 4” X 8”.

2.                Arrange the cut pieces onto the 12” x 12” white cardstock with piece “a” in the upper left corner, piece “b” in the upper right corner, piece “c” in the lower left corner, and piece “d” in the lower right corner.  Attach the cut pieces to the white cardstock with Mono Adhesive, being careful not to let any white show between the pieces.  This will be your background; set it aside for later.

3.                Pour some Grapesicle paint onto the plastic tray.

4.                Using the foam brush, apply a light coating of paint to the foam letter “C”.  Be sure not to get too much paint on the stamp.

5.                Stamp the letter onto the light pink cardstock.  Use damp paper towels to clean the paint off the stamp.

6.                Continue to apply paint to each letter in your title, stamp, and clean off the stamp.  You will be stamping “CUTE” and “BUTTON” with the foam stamps.

7.                If you haven’t used too much paint, it dries very quickly.  By the time you are through stamping the second word of the title, the first word should be dry.

8.                When the title is dry, tear around each word, leaving a narrow border on all sides.

9.                Now you will add shadows to the letters to make the title appear three-dimensional.  Decide which sides of each letter to add your shadows (I chose the right and bottom).

10.           Use the black .05 pen to add an outline on the same sides of each letter.  This takes a little thought; look at each part of each letter, and add the outline consistently.

11.           Use the platinum brush pen to add a shadow just outside the outline of each letter.  These two steps (outline and shadow) make it appear that the letter is raised up off the page and that light is casting a shadow on the page.

12.           Using the Love Letters stamps and the Violet ink, stamp “as” and “a” on the light pink cardstock.

13.           Punch these words out with the ½” circle punch.  The easiest way to do this is to turn the punch upside down and place the word in the center of the opening of the punch.

14.           Use the China brush and the Grapesicle paint to dry brush over all four pieces of the title (CUTE, AS, A, and BUTTON).  To do this, put a small amount of paint on the brush and then paint most of it off onto scrap paper.  Be sure to paint the torn edges to emphasize them.

15.           Choose two buttons that will fit into the round parts of the “B” and one button that will fit into the “O”.

16.           Place the first button into position in the top of the “B”.  Poke holes into the cardstock through the holes in the button.

17.           Thread the needle with the pink embroidery floss and “stitch” the button in place.  I started with the embroidery floss on top of the button, went down through the button and cardstock, came back up through the other hole to the top of the button, and tied the floss into a square knot on the top.  If you don’t like the look of the knot, you could start from the back and reverse the process, taping the floss to the back when you’re done.  You could also tie the floss to the button first and then attach the button with glue dots.  But I do think that buttons need thread through the holes.

18.           Repeat the process of “sewing” the other two buttons onto the title.

19.           Attach all four pieces of the title onto the berry colored patterned paper with Mono Adhesive.

20.           Tear around the words “cute” and “button”, leaving approximately ¼” border.

21.           Use the ¾” circle punch to punch out the words “as” and “a”, turning the punch upside down as before.  Alternatively, you could punch the ¾” circles first and then attach the words on top.

22.           Cut a 1 ¾” square from the berry colored patterned paper.

23.           Using the light pink sewing thread, sew a zigzag stitch around the edges of the square with the sewing machine.

24.           “Sew” three pink buttons onto this square with pink embroidery floss.

25.           Cut two rectangles of light pink cardstock for photo mats 4 ½” X 6 ½”.

26.           Dry brush the edges of the photo mats with the Grapesicle paint.

27.           Attach photos to the photo mats with adhesive tabs.

28.           Attach all of the pieces to the background with Mono Adhesive.

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