French Manor Blog Hop

Welcome to the French Manor Blog Hop!! 

You should have arrived here from Sherrie's blog.

If this is your first blog, please go to see Jana to begin the blog hop.

I am so excited to be part of this!!  First of all, this is my first official blog hop!  Second, I have not really used FM and this really challenged me to do just that!  Third, I have Blog Candy (see below)!!!

I was inspired by a card I saw in a magazine last January.  The original card was a Valentine's Day card.  I used the Flower and shadow as well as the small doily from the French Manor Cartridge.  I also cut out Merci. 

My card is 6x6 so I sized the flower inside a 6x6 grid on my Gypsy mat.  I put two flowers on the mat and used Hide Contour to hide one of the center cuts (see screen below).  I also put Merci and three small dioly shapes on the mat. 

For the leafy part, I used a swirl border and stretched it a bit.  I turned off the Aspect Ratio Link (yellow chain located between the words Width and Height on the Basic Menu) and left the height at 1.00 but changed the width to 4.07.

Taking care to line up the mat with the arrow on the left side, I placed my papers where I wanted them.  I used My Mind's Eye 29th Street Market paper found at Michaels.

I used my paper trimmer to cut out 1 1/2 x 1 1/2 inch squares out of the coordinating paper.  This paper is two sided and has a solid color on the back.  I used two of the doilies and part of the center of the flower on three different squares.

I used my Tim Holtz Distressing tool to distress the edges of the squares and flower. 

Here are the edges distressed.  Next, I used brown stamp ink on the edges of the squares and the flower.

I added some ribbon, a bow, some pearls and Merci to the card and here it is!!  This is not my normal style (a bit girly) but the more I look at it the more I LOVE it!!

Here is my Blog Candy!!  I am giving away some Tim Holtz Grungeboard shapes and 5 stamp pads for inking!  All you have to do to qualify is 1. be or become a follower, and 2. leave me a comment.  I will draw the winner and announce Monday morning as the blog hop goes through Sunday evening.

Thank you for hopping by!!  Your next and final stop in the blog hop is Gaby.   Thanks for hopping with us!!

French Manor Border Fun!

A friend of mine recently purchased some Martha Stewart punches from HSN and showed me how to punch both sides of a strip of paper to make a really cool border.  She had a half of a daisy that made an adorable daisy border. 

 Today I was playing with my Gypsy and French Manor, and I found a border that can do the same thing! 

Select the border function key on French Manor and select the lacy scallop.  Put two of the images on the mat together and size.

  **Hint ~ when sizing multiple images or layers of images, put them all on the mat together so they are grouped and then size.

  I left mine at 1".  Ungroup and flip one of the borders.  Position it just below the first border and lining up the x coordinate ~ make it the same number for both pieces.

Move the bottom scallop up until it overlaps the top one just a bit.  Then group and weld together.  Below is a close up.

Here is the test cut.  There was one small piece that did not cut all the way and I did not want to tear this delicate cut ~ so I left it.

Wouldn't this be fun as a 11 1/2 inch border?!?