Not A Stamper - You can be - Part 1

Hi ya everyone - this is Melissa here from MelissaMade.  I'm always so excited to come to She's A Sassy Lady and share something new.  Thanks Sheila for letting me share again today! 
Now, I know that some of you don't like to stamp because coloring can be intimidating.  Or maybe you just don't like to color - it can be a bit time consuming and expensive and if you don't have an eye for shading you might think your images look flat.  So today I'm going to show you that you never have to color a digital or rubber image - you can paper piece the image.  Paper piecing is just what it sounds like cutting images out from your paper and simply piecing them together to form your image.  Today, I'm going to share with you a project I've done with a cute Tiddly Inks digital stamp called Donna - isn't she just too cute!!  The awesome thing about digital stamps is you can resize them and this is perfect for paper piecing because the larger your image the easier to cut around the lines and piece together. 
First,  I open my digital image in an editing/presentation program.  For the printing part I like PowerPoint.  I adjust the size of the image here. 

Then I print the image on each piece of patterned paper (I have a yellow Bazzill cardstock along with some paper from American Crafts called City Park).  She is printed on each page shown below.

You can do this for her skin, hair and frogs too however, for times sake I chose to color those portions of little Donna.  However, you DO NOT have to do this - all you need is skin toned paper.  But here are the Copic colors I used:

 and this is what I started with  before I began the paper piecing: 

  Once I had my images printed on each piece of cardstock I simply cut the pieces out along the lines that I wanted using a pair of microtipped scissors. 

The yellow is for her coat, boots and portions of her umbrella - I like to leave a bit of the black ink on the image - this makes your paper piecing easier to line-up with the lower layer and it looks better (note: my printer is having some issues and the black ink is rubbing off - I have a laser printer and just ordered some refurbished cartridges - I don't think they are as good as fresh cartridges!).  I also used this cute plaid for her umbrella. 

Once I had the pieces cut, I ran them through my Xyron:

and simply placed them on top of the white paper image using the outlines from the white paper to help adhere the cut pieces. 

I left the top of the umbrella off because later I wanted to use pop dots and pop the umbrella off of the page for more dimension.  Next, I used my nestables from Spellbinders and cut out Donna using my cuttlebug.  Yup that's right I chopped her white umbrella right off. 

 But that's ok as I'm going to paper piece it on with pop dots.  I layered a few papers for color and depth and then adhered all to my card.  Again, I used clear pop dots for my umbrella. 

Then I used my new iRock to add some gems to look like rain.  Simply place the gems where you want them and touch the iRock down on top for a short bit.

To finish, I used Glossy Accents, that you can find at Michael's or any local scrapbook store, to her boots, raincoat, umbrella and frog. 

Be sure to extract the first bit of Glossy Accent because air bubbles will dry into the accents.  By removing the first bit of fluid you will ensure no air bubbles.  Squeeze the accents out very slow and just cover your surface - too much will drip and not enough will leave open spaces.

Here is my a picture of each portion covered in the Glossy Accents - it looks cloudy

However, the Glossy Accents dry with a clear, shiny, smooth surface - perfect for rubbery objects  like rain gear.  Last, I let the Glossy Accents dry overnight. 

Thank you so much for stopping by to check out my tutorial on Paper Piecing.  Be sure to check back on December 29th to see another tutorial on how to use stamps without coloring! A huge hug to Sheila for allowing me to show off this technique!  

I also love your comments and feel free to ask questions!

Have a very Happy Holidays!!
Hugs