Party This Way

October is a busy month for birthdays at my place...My two youngest grand daughters are turning one and four and will be having a Sesame Street themed party on the weekend. I wanted to make them an Elmo card each but my attempt at trying to make original punch art looked naff (don't give up my day job, right?) so I decided to do paper piecing instead..for those of you who have never done paper piecing before it's actually quite easy... I found a free colouring page website (there are dozens, just google it) and downloaded the images I wanted..because they were too large I reduced the size on my copier. I then traced the image onto some vellum cardstock with a 2B pencil. You need to trace each piece seperately eg elmos body, his eyes and his mouth. You then place the vellum pencil side down onto your selected colours of cardstock and gently scibble all over the pencil lines to transfer your pattern. You then just just out your pieces and stick each piece onto black cardstock and trim them again with a fine border of black, then using your picture as a guide assemble all the pieces..your character will be a mirror image if done this way...had I had some dotto (D'OH) it's even simpler...cut each piece from your vellum and use dotto to attach it to your cardstock and cut along the lines. Matting them on the black gives a nice 3D appearance but if you can't be bothered you could always just outline the pieces with a fine tip pen.  For this first card I added some balloons from Party This Way and the strings are from the balloon in Crazy For Cupcakes

For the second card I used the greeting from Heard from the Heart and the sign from Party This way...I think Ella and Sophie will love these, they are huge Elmo fans...check back tomorrow, I have to make a card for my daughter Jodie...but she is too old for Elmo!