My Cuppa Joe - Paper Piecing Tutorial

Hooray for Friday the day I'm most likely to be able to squeeze in a trip to Starbucks! I've had this adorable set "My Cuppa Joe" from Gina K Designs on my mind lately and finally had some time to play around a little.

I know that for many of you, you're already experienced paper-piecers.  

But, I asked for advice around my blogaversary, tutorials were certainly on the list of things you all wanted to see, and paper piecing was one of them. So, if you know how to do it, you can scroll down to the finished card and ignore the n

ext few minutes of yadda-yadda going on over here.

First I selected the papers that I wanted to use for my project, grabbed my trusty scissors, Memento ink, my Quickie Glue Pen and the stamp set I had in mind.

Then I stamped the coffee cup twice to the Base Weight Gina K Luxury Cardstock in white and then twice to the patterned paper I had selected (in this instance, Collage Press)

I then carefully trimmed out the first cup from the white cardstock.  Some people might only just adhere patterned paper to the cup, and then leave the lid alone.  

But, I'll admit, I'm sort of nuts about paper piecing.  I like the order of the layers to be correct.  So, in this instance, the lid needs to be 

on TOP of the cup to actually seal it shut, right? 

 

For me, the extra few seconds to stamp a second lid and apply it is worth the effort to get the layers done correctly.

Next I take the coffee cup I had stamped to the patterned paper, I trimmed all along the sides, and then across the bottom.  If you look closely, you'll see that I left a small lip of paper with the lid pattern on it. I like to make sure that my lower layer has a bit of overhang.  I don't like it when the edges of two pieces don't meet up correctly and you can see a seam.  I will be adhering a coffee lid directly over it to hide that seam, and it will leave a nice even edge. 

On the second white cup, I trimmed off the lid and applied that over the edge of the patterned paper to seal up my cup properly!  See, wasn't that easy, while you can't see it here, in the finished piece, its much more nicely finished.  

Then I colored in the tiny coffee cup image on that second white cardstock coffee cup. Remember to always color first, then cut or else the tiny pieces will frustrate you!  Then I very carefully trimmed out the inner circle. Note:  If I had a circle punch small enough, I would have used that, but I didn't.

Using the teeniest of my circle punches, I punched our the slightly larger circle on the coffee cup using the orange patterned coffee cup that I had stamped.   Then I assembled those two circles together and applied them to my finished coffee cup.

Since this card is going to a very good 

friend, and fellow Starbucks addict, I had to be sure to give the card lots of finished details.  

All the panels were stitched together using my Janome - I even gave the main nestie panel a whirl through - the circular stitching was fun, I just had to sew much slower than usual to get it to work correctly.  

Then I airbrushed the tag with my Copic Aircan to get a nice rich look to the sentiment.  Lately, I've been bending one of those sides of the slider over and adhering to the back.  Then lastly, added a nice big loopy bow.

Now, I'm off to get a coffee!!