Friday, April 15, 2011

Cards made with Stickers - my way!

I love using stickers and people are always asking me how I get the results I do with pre-made products. Well, it's not a secret and it's actually very simple: I don't treat a sticker as a finished product. I have no problems cutting stickers apart and re-arranging them to get as much use as I can out of each individual one or to get the finished look I want. I do this by placing the sticker I want to cut up on wax paper and use a very sharp craft knife to cut it apart. I also have no problems coloring stickers to match my specific needs. Most paper stickers can be colored with markers; however care must be used to make sure the marker does not bleed through the sticker and dissolve the adhesive quality of the back side. As I said to me a sticker is a starting point not a finished product. To illustrate my "secret" for this blog I made the following three cards but there are other examples on my blog such as the February 1, 2011 post.


The first card uses two of the same two bloom Iris sticker (Mrs. Grossman's). For the central image I wanted one to create a fuller stalk with flowers at various levels of the stem. To start I took one sticker and cut it apart. I separated the leaves from the stem and then split the remaining portion of the stem with the flowers into two pieces so that each piece contained a flower and a piece of stem. I then arranged the full sticker and all the pieces of the cut up sticker on a piece of wax paper to create the fuller flower stalk before I moved it to a piece of light blue paper. By underlaying and overlaying the various parts the finished stem takes on the illusion of depth and fullness. To finish the card I trimmed the blue paper, mounted it on a purple paper matching the color of the flowers, trimmed that panel with a lace edge sticker (Mrs. Grossman's) and added a purple line (Mrs. Grossman's). I mounted everything on a lavender card and to finish the card I added the text (Deja View Wonderful Words) below the flower image.


The second card I made uses a left over piece of a 12" long ocean scenery sticker (Mrs. Grossman's). The original sticker is only about 1" high and I didn't want to have just a narrow band of either the ocean or beach across the bottom of the card. To start with I cut up the sticker in two pieces, overlaid two of the pieces to create a wider and more dramatic looking band which allowed me to have both the wave and the beach as my background. To complete the scene I added the background clouds and gulls; which are all parts of the same scenery sticker. The white tag was made using a border punch with a matching corner punch (Martha Stewart/E.K. Success) while the blue wave trim was made using an edge punch (Fiskars). The text is a sticker (Cloud-9-Designs/Fiskars) which is now also available as an acrylic stamp from the same company. The third card started with one laser cut texted and lace sticker (Mrs. Grosssman's) that I mounted on a piece of burgundy paper and then trimmed down. I covered three of the laser cut flowers within the sticker with other flower stickers (Mrs. Grossman's). To create the river of flowers I started by locating the panel I made in the lower right hand corner of the card and then tracing around it in pencil. This creates a space around which the river of flowers (Mrs. Grossman's) goes through but does not need to actually be covered with flowers. Matching the flowers I used on the panel I started the river by laying down the largest of the flowers from the upper left corner to the lower right corner of the card in an uneven pattern and spacing. To maximize my stickers I cut some of the individual flower stickers in pieces and used them around the marked off area of the panel which creates the illusion that the flowers continue behind the panel. I also re-used the portions of the flowers that I trimmed off along the edge of the card around the panel. To complete the look I filled in the river with different sized flowers. The panel was then attached to the card with raised adhesive dots.

These were all done with flat one dimensional stickers but I use the same techniques with 3D stickers.

52 comments:

  1. The detail and workmanship in these cards is amazing! Thank you for describing every step in detail and making it easy to undertand how you created them. I have clearly missed an entire world of stickers in my shopping sprees. Fantastic work John!

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  2. Wow!!! These are all so gorgeous!!!!Great job!!!;)

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  3. OMGosh!! These are so gorgeous!! Thanks so much for sharing this; awesome!

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  4. wow
    these cards are amazing, you'd never guess it was all stickers to create them
    thanks for sharing

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  5. As a regular visitor to your blog I expected more loveliness from you and I am not disappointed. Great tutorial too John. Thanks for taking part in this skip. I hope you get a lot of followers from it. You deserve them.

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  6. Awesome sticker cards! Thanks for sharing!

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  7. John, thank you for sharing your spectacular cards; each is a work of art! I eagerly read your tutorial on how to work with stickers to adapt them to a design. Your work is amazing.

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  8. John, I couldn't wait to get to your blog once I started skipping. I've seen your cards published and love them! TFS your tips of the trade. Gorgeous cards. :)

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  9. I would have never thought about cutting stickers apart like that! These cards are beautiful!!! I especially like the second one, but they are amazing!

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  10. John... "WOW"... these are gorgeous. Hard for me to pick a favorite ~ thanks for sharing ~ Pam

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  11. I'm amazed! Your cards are wonderful. I have the iris stickers somewhere and since I love iris, that is my favorite card. I would not have thought to take apart stickers the way you do. You must have lots of patience.

    annjerryk at aol dot com

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  12. Oh wow... such beautiful cards. Thanks for the detailed information on how you created each card with stickers. Great! Thanks for the inspiration.

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  13. Thank you for sharing your tricks in altering the stickers to create your own look. We'll all look at stickers differently after reading you tips.

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  14. John, I have always enjoyed seeing your cards--going back to the old Simply Sentiments days (I was stampingpenguin). Your work with stickers is absolutely lovely and I really like to read about your techniques. Thanks for sharing your experience here! --Yvonne

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  15. John, I LOVE the third one and how you cascaded the flowers through the card. I'm going to try that...wish me luck!!

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  16. I am floored! When I read, then scrolled down to the 1st, I could NOT believe that was created from a sticker! And they kept coming! Awsome work!
    Hummer Hugs,
    Misty
    http://deliteful-gifts.blogspot.com/
    hummingbird204 at comcast dot net

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  17. Wow! These are fabulous! Itoo, never would have imagined this beauty with stickers. That last card is positively beautiful! Thank you!

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  18. Terrific work, John! The ocean scene is great.

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  19. OH my gosh John!! These are gorgeous. They are truly works of art! I really love the ocean scene card!

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  20. I love the way you made these stickers work to make amazing cards! Thanks for sharing them with us.

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  21. Amazing cards! I never would have thought to use them in so many ways.

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  22. Wow, beautiful cards. I'm amazed at what can be done with stickers. The tutorial for each card is great.

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  23. Your waxed paper technique is so smart. Thanks for explaining how to get a sticker to do what you want it to do!

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  24. It was hard to believe these were all stickers! Such an amazing job! TFS

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  25. wow! so impressive... for so many reasons! love, andrea

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  26. Beautiful creativity John.

    thank you for explaining your approach to making a sticker card.

    Barb Housner

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  27. Fabulous job, John! I think I have some of the flower stickers- thanks for inspiring all of us!

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  28. Oh my gosh! Who knew that such beautiful things could be created with stickers? I absolutely LOVE the beach scene you created. It looks like a mini painting! WOW!

    mallisonr at aol dot com

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  29. Thanks John for some beautiful ideas

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  30. Wow, I am overwhelmed by this Sticker Skip. My stickers never do such neat tricks. I love the river of flowers, which look very real!

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  31. Wow, I love what you've done with your stickers, very nice!

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  32. I liked all 3 cards, my favorite would have to be the burgundy one with the flowers. I like how you split the stickers up. I probably would have never considered that before seeing your post. TFS!

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  33. The seashore card is absolutely wonderful! TFS!!!

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  34. John, all three of these cards are gorgeous! Thank you for making me rethink stickers in a more creative way!

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  35. Amazing cards! Absolutely gorgeous, especially the iris one! Thank you so much for sharing and giving me new insight to using stickers!

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  36. Fabulous cards--thanks for the great tips and the ideas on altering stickers.

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  37. Oh WOW! What creative ways to use stickers. Your cards are just beautiful!

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  38. Thanks, John! Your cards are beautiful! Thank you for sharing the process. I learned a lot, and I know a lot of "skippers" did too.

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  39. John, these are great cards! I especially love the LOVE card! I like the idea of the river of flowers. TFS!
    hiscreation2 at hotmail dot com

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  40. WOW!!!! Thanks for explaining your techniques...gives a whole new outlook for stickering! Cards are beautiful!

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  41. WOW, No one would ever guess these are stickers. You are certainly an expert with the craft knife. Love these cards and the ideas!

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  42. You continue to amaze me, John. Love all the cards but you haven't made any that I haven't thought were gorgeous.

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  43. Beautiful cards, you would never know a sticker was even involved!

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  44. John, your level of detail work is STUNNING! Thanks so much for sharing the cards and how you made them - I think you really inspired the rest of us to see that a sticker really IS just a starting point!

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  45. Fabulous job with all three cards! Thanks for the reminder to "think out of the box" and not be afraid to cut apart and rearrange the stickers to make a more pleasing composition.

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  46. OMG!!!! I love the cards. The detail is wonderful, better than Hallmark!!!!

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  47. Your cards are gorgeous. I just have an issue with using stickers on my cards but you made them beautiful.

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  48. John. There is a true loveliness in your card designs. I feel like I'm looking at works of art and not just cards. Thank you for sharing these cards.
    Sue

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  49. Thanks so much for sharing the details on making these wonderful cards. Never thought of using stickers in this way and appreciate your ideas. Great work!

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  50. Very creative use of stickers...

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  51. Wow, you did an awesome job with those stickers. I often take apart stickers to make scenes, you did a wonderful job.

    Thanks for being in the skip!

    circlebenterprises.com

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