Kathy's Craft Spot

Moved... AGAIN!

2009-12-10T08:13:00.000-08:00

For the last time! I have been searching for a cute, clever name for my blog, and never found one until now! I am now and forever more www.papersensei.blogspot.com. Seriously, it's the last time I'm moving because I'm happy with that name. ^_^

Handy Hubby's Homemade Stamp-a-ma-jig

2009-12-03T14:11:00.001-08:00

I went to a Stampin' Up! party a couple of weeks ago and had a LOT of fun and spent too much money. I think Stampin' Up! is good at that--fun and extra money sucking. And I don't bear them any ill will in saying that, either.

The demonstrator did a great job demonstrating a lot of Stampin' Up! products. One of the things she showed was the Stamp-a-ma-jig, which is awesome, and which I had never ever seen demonstrated before. My shunning of rubber stamps for the ease of clear stamps has officially been ended. I can use my rubber stamps with the same kind of creative abandon I was reserving only for my clear stamps.

Storage problems aside, rubber stamps are great. I'm not going to say they're better than clear stamps. I've been over this before, but I'll say it one more time, just to make sure it sinks in: clear stamps are great and produce perfectly clear images if you use pigment or chalk inks. Dye inks coagulate on the surface of the clear stamp itself and causes the clear stamp to produce a blotchy image. You can either not like this or, like me, you can embrace it and LOVE it and use the effect on purpose to achieve an instant aged look to the images you stamp in your project. Try Tim Holtz distress inks (my favorite color is Vintage Photo) with these stamps and you'll really make something impressive and aged looking without any real effort at all.

As bad as it may make me sound, that's my favorite kind of crafty thing--impressive AND effortless. Ahhh... sweet music!

Back to rubber stamps, though... If you're in a hurry and would like a clear, crisp image without worrying about ink smudges from chalk or pigment inks (since they dry so much slower, but could be heated with a heat gun [read: hair dryer, if you don't have a heat gun] to speed drying), then learning to use a tool like the Stamp-a-ma-jig is a must! Especially if you don't want all of your rubber stamps to sit, lonely and unused, in whatever hole you've managed to carve for them in your itsy-teeny (if not non-existant) crafting space.

Because one of the ladies there mentioned that I could get a tool similar to the Stampin' Up! one at Michael's or JoAnn for cheaper with a coupon, I held off on buying the little marvel in favor of more stamps! However, I got home, and it occurred to me that I could do the same thing this tool does if I just had a right angle of some kind. I told my sweet, adoring, and oh-so eager-to-please husband this and asked if he could just make me something out of scrap wood. The little tool in the photos below is the result. It isn't fancy, but it sure as heck works.

The most important thing my Stampin' Up! demonstrator showed with this tool, I thought, was how she used vellum instead of the clear wipeable thingie that came with the tool to show the stamp, and stored the stamped vellum with her sets. Brilliant! But I'm too cheap, so I used tracing paper. I know you're probably thinking, "Gosh, woman, get on with it," (if you even are still reading my ramblings), so I'll get on talking about this thing, and explain all of what I just said in this paragraph since you're probably lost.

Start with your chosen tool.... Purchased or made or, in a pinch, a couple of books held at a right angle. Anything to get you started with this technique. If you like it, go ahead and buy a new tool.

Set your piece of vellum or tracing paper up against the right angle in your tool as shown above. Make sure your paper has a perfect right angle at the place where it's meeting the right angle of the tool. This is important for the accuracy of your tool!

Ink your stamp and, keeping the paper aligned with the tool, stamp with the edges of the stamp against the inside edges of your tool, as shown.

The stamped image... This is the magical part, I think. (I'm still not over it! It's so awesome!) This is now an image of the precise location of the stamp on the underside of the wooden block, as measured against the tool. If you don't understand it yet, you will!

Trim the paper around the stamp, but do NOT trim the top or left edges, no matter how uneven it looks. You need those edges intact as the image was stamped so that you can use this image as a reference image for future stamping with the tool and the stamp.

Here is one of my stamp sets with all of the papers inside. Most of them have a very obvious top and bottom when stamped, but if it doesn't (such as the flower), I draw a little arrow pointing up to show me which is the top.

To use the little reference tool, trim a piece of paper, or get your project out, or whatever. Although I do recommend doing this on scrap first, to get the hang of it. Position the stamped vellum/tracing paper with the reference image exactly where you want the stamped image to be.

Carefully line up the top left corner of the reference paper with the inside corner of your tool. Remove the reference paper without moving the tool and stamp your image with the stamp lined up on the inside of the tool, just like you did when you made your reference image.

You should end up with a stamped image--EXACTLY where you want it! Isn't that COOL!?

Here's a card I made with my newly discovered technique. I did the leaves this way, too, determining exactly where I wanted them, and then aligned the tool accordingly. You won't always be looking at it straight. When I was finished, I felt it needed something more, and I did what I had never dared do before--I stamped, with a rubber stamp, the little line of dots underneath the black paper, AFTER the card was put together.

Here is the little tool my hubby made for me. You can see that he simply attached two pieces of wood together with screws. It works great!

Clear Stamp Storage Solution!

2009-11-15T16:27:00.000-08:00

This idea is the brain child of three of us at my Riverview JoAnn Scrapbook Social. Barb asked me for ideas about how to store smaller clear stamp sets. I said empty CD cases (which is how I stored them until today). She said she wanted to store them with the rest of her clear stamps in clear page protectors in a 3-ring binder. I said she could, but the problem was that if you try to put more than one set of clear stamps in the page protectors, as in, right on top of each other, they flail around inside the pouch and it makes storage very difficult.

The problem had presented itself in my brain... surely there has to be a way to stop them from sliding all over the place...

Suddenly, I knew the solution! Barb takes quilting classes from Louise, our fun, fabulous, and brilliant quilting teacher (who also just so happens to attend our Scrapbook Social), so I knew she had a sewing machine. I said to measure out what pockets you'd need, sew them up, and cut openings.

Then I thought... how do you cut openings? My plans seemed foiled again until Louise said, "Slip a piece of cardboard in there and cut the openings with an X-acto knife before you sew." AHHHHH!!!!

So, after spending a good chunk of my Sunday afternoon making these thingies (instead of doing the things I SHOULD be doing), I figured I'd post pictures and instructions. This post is dedicated to Barb, who asked the question, and Louise, who helped answer it. I LOVE being connected with other crafty people. We clearly do our best work in groups.

1. Lay your small clear stamp sets on your page protector in whatever pattern you desire and draw around them with a sharpie. Also make marks for any openings you need to cut, as I did above. Don't put them too close together! (I aimed for about 1/4" of space around all sides of each stamp set, so really you're looking at about 1/2" between each set.) It seems like a grid of 9 fits most of the really small sets very nicely.

2. Slip a piece of cardboard/cardstock inside the page protector (I used the cardboard that came IN the pack of page protectors I bought). Using a ruler, cut the lines you drew for your openings.

I cut mine as I drew them--three individual slits (in this example) instead of one long one. It's easier to sew it up that way. Also, remember that you don't need to cut slits for the top pockets because they'll be left open.

3. Sew the lines between your pockets, doing backstitching at the end of each seam so you don't have to worry about unraveling. I just happened to have invisible thread in my sewing machine from my previous craft project. I'm sure any thread would work well. Sewing on plastic is just a tad different from sewing fabric. You have to press and pull it through the machine. After a couple of tries, you'll find the pace you need--not to slow and not too fast.

I sewed my lines from the bottom closed part to the top, then from the sides. I recommend starting, whatever your pocket configuration, from a closed piece of the page protector and going towards the opening. If this isn't possible, just work it out as best you can.

Here is my 9 pocket grid filled with little stamp sets! Cute, huh?

Here are more examples--you can see the different shapes I used. Most of the clear stamp sets store very well side by side, such as the ones from The Paper Studio or Inkadinkadoo, and you won't need to sew pockets for those. However, some of the other stamp set brands out there such as Martha Stewart, Basic Grey (my fave!!!), and others, have weird sizes that don't fit perfectly in the page protectors, or leave a lot of space around. Play around with your stamp sets and see what some of the best arrangements are, then save some space in your binders by sewing your own personalized stamp storage!

Article almost finished, except....

2009-11-05T16:51:00.000-08:00

Lately I've been going crazy. I have classes going at two JoAnn stores (which I STILL haven't finished making samples for), I'm running my church ministry, I've been writing an article for Polymer Cafe Magazine which I hope, hope, hope will get published, I've got a jewelry party coming up on the 18th at my friend's house which actually represents the majority of my income for the entire year every year I do it, and somehow I got it into my head to volunteer to do decorations for the ladies' Christmas event at church this year.

I'm sure there's something else. But right now, that's all I'm channeling, because it may be all that my brain can handle right now.

I've gotten my article written and ready except for the final piece pictures. Tonight I'm going to have fun getting my torch out to make some fine silver accent pieces for the polymer clay beads. Tomorrow I'll take the pictures and send the article off. If I get published, it's possible that more than two people will read this blog. LoL. Or I'll chase more people away!

As I get a little less busy, I'd like to start posting more projects. I just got "Creating Your Own Antique Jewelry" by cRis Dupouy (not a typo) from the library. There's an updated version of that book out, but this one is the original one I loved--the book that was largely responsible for my second introduction into polymer clay work which turned out to be the introduction that stuck (because I actually got a pasta machine and didn't have to work with only Fimo [shudders]).

All of that to say... I'm feeling a bit nostalgic right now, I suppose. Later tonight I know I'll be sitting with a cup of hot cocoa and flipping through that book for exactly 3.9 seconds (the length of time it will take for me to abandon the book and go MAKE stuff...).

Toothpaste box turned into a pen box

2009-10-27T13:08:00.001-07:00

Some pens and markers for scrapping and papercrafting really should be stored flat. Markers or pens with two tips, one on each end, are the main example--storing them flat allows the ink to stay evenly distributed so that both ends keep some ink. Others, such as Sakura glaze pens, should be stored flat because storing them upright can allow air to enter the pen (through the thicker ink, maybe?) and cause it not to write as well.

I am a weird person. (Knowing me only a little bit would seem to make this sentence coming out of my mouth absolutely redundant, but stay with me for a second...) I am notoriously unorganized about pretty much everything, but my craft space is almost always meticulously kept. Virtually everything has a place and when used, an item goes back into its place. I can't stand to have my pens mixed, for instance. I like for all pens of a certain type to be separate from pens of another type so that when I'm reaching for them, I can find them. Throwing the pens and markers that need to be stored flat into a drawer in a big jumble is just not an option for me. I also hate the idea of buying some super expensive organizing tool in a scrapbook store.

Enter this toothpaste box, which I saw last night as I was replacing an empty tube of toothpaste in our master bathroom. I thought... "I wonder if that's long enough to store my glaze pens?..." It was.

1. Cut the flaps off of one end of the box. Sand the box, especially the corners, then age the box with some kind of dye ink.

2. Make a lid for the box. Measure the end piece (in this case, it was 1.25"x1.5") and add 1/2" to each end. Cut a piece of cardstock to match the measurement. Score at the two 1/2" marks to create a lid type shape. Round the corners. Cut each 1/2" section at a slight angle, starting from the middle rectangle piece and going into each rounded corner. You should end up with a roughly rectangular shape with tapering ends. This allows the lid to fit better into the box.

3. For added stability, cut a second piece of cardstock to fit on the underside of the lid. Cut it either 1/8" smaller than the inner rectangle (for 1/16" borders) or 1/4" smaller (for 1/8" angles).

4. Measure the box and cut pieces to fit the sides and bottom. Glue one of the flaps of the lid to the outside of the box, then glue all of the sides in place, gluing one side over the adhered flap of the lid.

5. Decorate as desired. Label as necessary.

Here's my finished box:

I like it a lot! Even I have a hard time believing that it started life as a humble toothpaste box. I made the entire thing using BasicGrey paper and accessories from the Periphery collection. I used Tim Holtz Distress Ink in Vintage Photo and Scotch Quick Dry Adhesive as my glue.

Totally Cute Upcycle

2009-10-26T22:34:00.000-07:00

So, in my obsession with being GreenX2 (economic AND ecological), I come up with some pretty weird ideas. I think I've topped myself with this one, though:

Basically, I upcycled the lid of one of my spice jars. I use these empty jars to hold various scrapping supplies after I've destroyed their packages for various projects. I was figuring out all kinds of fun things to do with the jars besides using them to hold stuff (inking the bottoms, for instance, and stamping fun dashed circles), and when staring at one of the lids, I saw a face. Thus, my cutesy skull girl was born.

1. See the face? Sand the top of it. Don't worry, it's not made yet, so it won't hurt.

2. Push the sanded top into a VersaMark embossing pad and sprinkle with white embossing powder. Emboss. Repeat to emboss with 2 layers of white powder.

3. Decide how you will decorate the lid. Place brads or stitch as desired. Cut a circle of cardstock to glue to the inside of the lid so that you can't see through any space that might be left in the holes.

4. Cut a circle to fit the front of the lid. (This required at 1.5" circle.) Cut across the circle at a good point to form bangs. Ink the edges with black ink and doodle hair lines. Adhere to the front of the circle, covering the pour spout.

5. Decorate as you see fit--I added buns, using the bones to attach them to the front of the lid and foam adhesive underneath to hold them up.

I added a little bit of thin foam adhesive to the underside of the lid and also used some glue around the edge when I stuck it to my card. The little outfit is a drawing I colored with markers.

I have to admit to being eager to use up some more of my spices to get more of these. Some of my spice shakers have lids that look like stars which will be scary cute when stitched!

Zipper Pulls, Purse Charms, and Greeting Card Kits

2009-10-21T20:39:00.001-07:00

I promised some more images of the non-jewelry beaded items I've been making. Here are a few of the ones I've done recently:

The cell phone charm is the one with the black loop, and it features the "Colors of Faith" design. This charm is looped through a spot on a cell phone. If yours doesn't have one, you can still use these handy findings to create zipper pulls by looping them through the ends of zippers.

The chain and cross charm piece is meant to be a purse charm. Basically, there's a length of about 5" of chain with a dangly cluster charm attached. The chain is meant to go around a purse strap. This little creation already has a designated future home--on the purse of one of my good friends at church who pretty much never wears ANY jewelry, but still appreciates shiny, pretty things.

The little skull piece is another style of zipper pull which you hook with the lobster claw clasp onto the end of a zipper. Make sure that if you're using one like this, you're not actually pulling on the charm itself, but still using the actual zipper piece to open the zipper.

The funnest part about this little skull design, I have to say, is the fact that it's not a real charm. I feel embarrassed admitting it, almost, but it's actually a leftover from a set of press on nails I got a while back. I had to have them because I adore cutesy skulls and just couldn't bear to throw the extras away. Basically, I just used a drill with a 1/16" bit to drill a hole near the top of the nail, which I then slipped a jump ring through so that I could use it as a charm. I've made pairs of earrings like this, too. I'm almost out of my little nails, though. :( I have to try and find some more and use the entire set as charms this time around. ^_~

AND my funnest thing from today--the BasicGrey greeting card kit I put together! I LOVE this! I got the Marrakech card kit for my birthday (because I love everything BasicGrey, but I love NOTHING more than I love anything Marrakech from BasicGrey) and opened it up when I got it to see that it had all of these pieces designated for certain cards, with little included instructions for making them all. Well, at first I must admit to being somewhat of a little art snob. Me make something from a kit? *sniff, sniff*

I intended to save all of the pieces and make my own designs later, but today I thought, "What the heck?" Teaching paper crafts at TWO stores and freaking out over producing samples and such (which I still haven't finished yet) might do that to you. And all of us need a kick in the pants now and then to release us from our inner snobs. (We all have one somewhere, and if you're utterly convinced that you don't--there it is!)

My favorite online papercrafting store right now is www.live2scrapbook.com. It's a Tuscon based company, so all of you people located in the Phoenix area are thrilled, I'm sure, to know that you get really fast shipping. I love their selection of BasicGrey items, and I HIGHLY recommend these card kits to anyone looking for something different, or to anyone looking for a present for people you know who love to make cards. You learn a lot of great ideas, too, because you're actually putting the designs together instead of just seeing them in some magazine, you know? And once you know how they're constructed, you can duplicate the techniques in your own work.

Here is the Nook and Pantry card kit (one of their newest collections) $11.25:
http://www.live2scrapbook.com/servlet/the-7022/Basic-Grey-Nook-and/Detail

AND the Indian Summer card kit $11.25:
http://www.live2scrapbook.com/servlet/the-7001/Basic-Grey-Indian-Summer/Detail

AND (I can't believe it!) the Wassail collection Christmas card kit for only $10.99!:
http://www.live2scrapbook.com/servlet/the-6596/Basic-Grey-WASSAIL-Holiday/Detail

Each of these kits makes 8 cards. It includes all of the supplies AND envelopes. I have almost an entire sheet of rubons left from my Marrakech kit that just weren't used in the cards. I would assume that they include this in case you don't want to put a particular message on one card so that you could change it if you would like, or add extra embellishment as you see fit.

I'm probably getting the Wassail one next. I just drool over how beautiful they all are. I mean, I know some people out there probably don't see it. LoL. But BasicGrey is my love and my adoration amongst all scrapbooking supplies. I encourage you, if you're so inclined, to check out the kits. They'll give you great ideas for your own creations and a fun, mindless afternoon of completely no-pressure crafting.

Clay Guild Beads

2009-10-17T21:45:00.000-07:00

These are the beads I made today at the Arizona Polymer Clay Guild meeting. I'm thinking about submitting the instructions for making them to Polymer Cafe magazine.

The image above shows both sides of the smaller beads (which are almost identical). Below is the side of the larger bead.

Anyway, these are all made completely by hand using various techniques (which I can't share, of course, in case I do decide to submit instructions to a magazine), and it's really fun and I hope I can get published. ^_~

Wine Glass/Mug Charms

2009-10-16T16:52:00.001-07:00

The first beading-not-jewelry project I'll be showing is for the wine glass/mug charms. I'm going to be referring to much of this jewelry terminology under the assumption that you know what you're doing as far as jewelry construction goes. If terms such as "simple loop" and "wrapped loop" mystify you, or if you are unsure how to properly open and close jump rings (or if you weren't aware of the fact that there IS a "proper" way to do that!), go to http://jewelrymaking.about.com or www.firemountaingems.com to get some basic jewelry instructionals. Actually, I learned virtually ALL of my basics from http://jewelrymaking.about.com almost 9 years ago when I first started making jewelry. Tammy's got a soft place in my heart because of it. ^_~

Here's what you'll need to make charmies like mine:

-Silver plated chain of any kind with holes big enough to add bead charms (I'm using chain that lies flat which I picked up at JoAnn or Michael's)
-Jump rings, preferably 18 gauge, about 5-5.5 mm O.D. (outer diameter) (I get mine from www.firemountaingems.com... these are silver plated)
-2.5mm silver plated beads
-Silver plated headpins
-Various beads (at least enough different ones to make all of the charms different since the point of these is to be able to tell drinks apart--they CAN'T be the same!)
-Basic Jewelry Tools (flat nose, round nose, needle nose pliers, wire cutters)

On the charms below, I made sure that each of the large, bottom beads were different from one another, then I filled in the rest as I desired to do so.

-Cut a length of chain. I made mine 3 links long. Attach a jump ring to the top of the chain. Attach a large bead to the bottom link with a wrapped loop, slipping a silver plated bead to the bottom of the headpin if your bead hole seems to large for the end of the headpin. (I do this quite often, even if I'm just a bit worried.) This keeps the bead on, but also gives the look of the expensive ball end headpins without the expense!

-In the image above, you can see the middle green charm is the one I'm working on. I circled the other charms I made around so that you could see how I arranged beads for different charms. Basically, I put the largest bead on the bottom and arrange the extra beads in pleasing combinations (I hope!) from biggest to smallest up towards the top. I also arranged the top layer of beads relative to the inner layer of beads, meaning the smaller bead of the top row went on top of the smaller bead on the middle row and vice versa. This gives a nice drape to the cluster. Taking the time to play with and arrange your beads before you start attaching them really saves you creative frustration later.

-Attach the two lower beads to the middle link of the chain with wrapped loops as shown.

-Attach the final two beads to the top link of the chain with wrapped loops as shown.

Making the Wine Glass Charm Rings

I hunted all over (at two stores, and called a third, which is usually about the extent of my "all over" when I'm hunting, since I have to carry my 3 year old along with me) and couldn't find ANY premade wine glass charm rings. The closest I found was at Michael's with premade earring hoops, but they were sold in packages of 60 with varying sizes and I didn't want that because some were too big, and some were too small and only a few were just right.

I didn't check Fire Mountain Gems, which probably has them (because they have EVERYTHING!) mainly because I was in the mood to make them TODAY and didn't want to wait to get something shipped.

So, I just sort of came up with how to make these on my own. I'm sure that I'm not the first person to do this (VERY sure, in fact... Tammy might even have a better tutorial somewhere over at http://jewelrymaking.about.com), but here goes. I also tried to use stuff you'd probably have around your house. So any jewelry snobs who want to criticize my technique and say I should have used a ring mandrel because it's the PROPER tool (*sniff, sniff*)--to you, I say, "BLAH!" I DO have a ring mandrel, but decided to use a highlighter, because the average jewelry hobbyist doesn't have a steel ring mandrel sitting around.

You'll need...

-20 gauge wire (I used silver colored craft wire)
-Thick thingie to wrap the wire around (either a big highlighter or one of those big dry erase markers or permanent markers will work pretty much perfectly)
-Basic jewelry tools (flat nose, round nose, needle nose pliers, wire cutters)

-Cut as many 3" lengths of wire as you need. I recommend doing your very first ring with a 6" length of wire. Complete it according to the steps I'm laying out, then measure what you have left over. Subtract that length from the original 6" and you have the measurement you need to make a complete ring. Always add at least 1/4" to that for variations, and to give you room to complete final steps.

-Make a simple loop at the end of your wires, as shown above.

-Here's the big highlighter I used to make these. For ease of typing, I'm going to call this the "mandrel" from now on. Wrap your looped wire all the way around the mandrel. Lay the loop itself flat against the mandrel, then pull the wire tail all the way around, curling it all the way to the end. Do it as tightly as you can, but don't hurt yourself. Let go of the ring. It will spring back a bit, but that's okay.

-Grip the tail of the ring with your pliers as shown above. Let the edge of your pliers rest against the end of the loop. Don't be stretching the ring open. If your tail is all short like this one, grip it with another pair of pliers and bend it straight up so that you don't hurt your fingers.

-When you do this, your ring should look like the above picture. Clip the tail close, but not TOO close, to the ring. Leave about 1/8" of wire bent above the ring, like the picture below. Allowing the bend to be at the end of the loop rather than perfectly centered lets the ring stay closed when you close it because the tension of the wire keeps it pulling against the loop, which keeps it closed.

Here is one completed set of Wine Glass/Mug Charms... Some lucky relative is getting these for Christmas. (Sorry if I just spoiled it for anyone...)

If you're feeling lazy/don't like as fancy of a look, make your charmies like the ones below, using a single large bead instead of clusters. Just attach the wrapped loop component with a jump ring to the rings.

Here are a couple of pictures of these babies in use. Man, I want to keep them now and use them for my party on the 24th!

And one last note on using these: Don't open the loops wide to slide them onto something. Just allow them to open, then gently press against the object you're slipping them onto (the thinnest part of the wine glass/SIDE of the mug handle) and allow the opening to just slide open and then closed again, then latch them. Oh, really one more thing... This works out best (ESPECIALLY on the mugs) if you're doing it when the cups are empty. I just figured it out for the photos. I'm so glad I didn't do this at a party or something and spill hot chocolate or tea everywhere. I'd say have them on the glasses/mugs already when your guests arrive to save time.

Alright, that's it... I'm on to more Christmas presents. I've made two sets of charms and one purse charm so far. But I'll post on that tomorrow or the next day. After all of this typing and photo editing, I'm ready to not be on the computer for a while. ^_~

Beading for people who don't wear jewelry...

2009-10-15T20:43:00.000-07:00

Well, first of all, I'm happy to be posting my very first post on my NEW blog which will cover the entire spectrum of my crafts. Because I do so much more than just one thing, I figured I'd have a big melting pot to showcase all of my work and ideas.

Please, if you enjoy my blog, make sure to start following it. And make absolutely sure to leave some comments. I'd love to hear from people who are helped by what I post!

My first posted topic for this blog (all the posts previous to this one were imported from my old blog which was all about scrapbooking and paper crafting) is about jewelrymaking. All in all, it's a very fun craft to get into. But it can get frustrating when Christmas and birthdays roll around and you realize that you have several people on your list who just don't wear jewelry. What to do!?

I've begun brainstorming for just this situation--I've come up with a list of things to make for people who are not jewelry friendly. I'm going to make these projects, too, and I'll post them later with pictures.

-Bookmarks
-Purse charms
-Keychains
-Napkin rings
-Wine glass/mug charms
-Cell phone charms (which are great, but I discover, much to my chagrin, that virtually NO cellphones are still made with a little place to hook these little lanyard type charms to, which brings me to my next idea...)
-Zipper pulls

That's what I have so far... The mug charm was a stroke of brilliance, I thought, because I was going to make a set of wine glass charms for some relatives who like wine, but then it occurred to me that the little charmies would work just as well hooked to the handle of a mug or tea cup, and they'd serve the same function at parties where coffee and tea are the main offerings, rather than wine (which, I must admit, are the kinds of parties I throw/attend most often... I'm not really in any kind of sophisticated circles).

So... what do you all think? (All 2 of you who'll read this... lol...) Do you have any other ideas for non-jewelry beaded items?

New digital stuff/Digital paper freebie

2009-09-09T14:27:00.000-07:00

Well, I got a Bamboo Fun tablet for my early birthday present and I have been having TOO much fun with it. It came with Adobe Photoshop Elements 6.0 and I have been having some fun exploring the options I have with that over the 2.0 that I've been using for all of this time. There are a few things (like the quick selection brush) that I am just drooling over (this is how I'm making most of my fun new elements for digiscrapping now), and all in all it's turning out really well!

Here's a page I made that I am so proud of. All of the digital elements were made by me. I am doing so much with sequins lately. Sequins, sequins, sequins... Everything I'm making seems to have sequins all over it. I'm especially having fun creating little digital elements with sequins because it's a lot easier than using tweezers and glue. ^_~

And, just because I feel like it, here's a freebie. It's a .jpeg image, sized at 12x12 at 300 dpi for you to use in your own digiscrapping. Please respect the source, as in, don't claim it as your own, and if you use it in something and post it somewhere, please credit me (Kathy Canuel) as a designer. I wish I could figure out how to upload .png images somewhere for downloading because then I'd share some of my other fun elements.

Basically, click on this image and then right click on it when it opens up in the new window. Click "save picture as" and save it to your computer. I think it's about 7 megabytes.

Happy scrapping! ^_^

Good find for digiscrappers... or not??? Also... newest digiscrapping site discovery!

2009-09-03T12:32:00.000-07:00

I just got back from one of the most torturous shopping expeditions of my life. Excuse my vent there. 3 stores with a 3 year old doesn't seem to be a very good idea AND I didn't get one of the main things I went out for because they didn't have it! Urgh!

Again, again, pardon the vent...

Anyway, I found some Dover electronic clip art books at Barnes and Noble. Apparently you just put this CD-ROM in your drive and you can use the images from there in your favorite software program. I'm going to try and use some of these images to create a nice paper for digital scrapping.

I got the "Authentic Art Nouveau Designs" CD-ROM and book. It was $16.95, but with my member discount and the recent 15% off coupon Barnes and Noble just sent to their subscribers, it was cheaper. Barnes and Noble is one of those ones you can subscribe to and it will actually do you some good sometimes. ^_^

My new site for digiscrapping elements that I LOVE is www.peppermintcreative.com. I thought I'd never find one I love as much as www.shabbyprincess.com, but I think they're about equal in my esteem now. They have me so desiring to get my Bamboo tablet and create my own designs!

New contact paper project!

2009-09-02T18:54:00.000-07:00

So I promised to post pics when I did something in my house using the contact paper instead of Cricut Vinyl. Here is the wall behind my kitchen table before:

And here it is after:

Here is a clearer shot of the wall art, straight on. I saw this mug in my Graphically Speaking cartridge and KNEW I had to put it on my wall somewhere. I'm not one of those people who loves coffee or loves tea exclusively--I love them BOTH, and they're really a big part of my life. The quote comes from an old song, I'm sure most of you can hum it.

Cartridges used: Graphically Speaking (mine) and Opposites Attract (borrowed from my very generous neighbor--thank you!)

-I cut the letters at 3 3/4", using the upright option on the Opposites Attract Cartridge.
-I did a fit to page on a 12x12" sheet of the contact paper for the mug and it came out at 8 1/2", I believe. The steam was 5 1/2". The "delicious" jumble was cut at 4".

The mug was, by far, the most ridiculous part of this entire thing. I tried to do the very bottom first and then stuck the rest on very, very slowly. You can reposition the contact paper as needed.

I did a lot of measuring and drawing on the wall with my pencil before putting the letters up. I had everything laid out before starting (you can see this a bit on the table in the first picture), and I took measurements of how wide the phrase was, then centered everything and marked the edges of the phrase where it should go. I worked from the outside in, placing "coffee" first along the line I drew, then "me", then "&" on either side, etc.

All in all, this took way longer than I thought it would. (Probably because I'm using the contact paper and therefore didn't have the ability to just wipe all of the pieces onto the wall at the same time like you can with the Cricut vinyl when you use the stabilizer paper stuff they sell.) But I think it was still WAY worth the extra time. (I screwed up an entire sheet of cutouts and didn't have to cry about it, lol.)

So, hopefully your imaginations are getting fueled! And thanks to Nicole for Tweeting my last post! LoL. Maybe I'll get some more followers and start to look important. ^_~

Alternative to Cricut Vinyl--Contact Paper!

2009-09-01T15:03:00.000-07:00

So I have to admit to some envy over here as I have salivated at the mouth and had pretty intense chest palpitations over the sheer gorgeousness of things created with the Cricut vinyl. I mean, I have a Cricut Expressions, but I never got around to making anything with the vinyl for several reasons, some of which I will list:

1. Cricut vinyl is way expensive. ($9.99 for a package containing two 12x24" sheets)
a. It never goes on sale.
b. You can't EVER use coupons on it. (All craft store coupons exempt Cricut products.)
2. You actually ALSO need to buy stabilizer in addition to the vinyl in order to do good wall layouts. I think this is so that you can apply the entire piece as one sticker, which helps with your layout.
3. I could never come up with an idea for using the vinyl. (Probably primarily due to concern number 1)

Enter the glorious online community, which came to my rescue. I wish I could remember who it was and where in the Cricut forum I saw a person who said she just used contact paper for her wall art. I wish I could credit her and douse her with kisses but, alas, I cannot. All I can do is share the tip!

Instead of using the Cricut vinyl for your wall art, I recommend contact paper! I got a roll of beautiful black faux leather contact paper at my local Home Depot for about $7.00. It's 18" wide and 15' long. I think it's a good investment!

The other cool thing I was unaware of is the fact that the back of the contact paper is marked with 1/2" grid lines so you can easily cut yourself a piece of 12x12" (or 6x12" or 12x24", depending on your mat size) to work with on your machine.

Using Contact Paper instead of Cricut Vinyl with your Machine

Supplies:
Contact paper (shown in the picture below)
Cricut Machine
Cricut Cartridge of choice
Cutting mat
Ideas

1. Cut your contact paper to the desired size. Don't pull it away from the release paper. Stick it to your mat contact paper side down. You should be staring at the grid marks after sticking the piece to your mat.

2. Make sure your FLIP option is selected. Any text you cut MUST be flipped or it will come out backwards on your wall. Proceed to cut your shapes and text, always making sure you have the flip option on. If you're desiring to cut, say, a flower that's facing left in the cartridge book, and you want it facing right on your wall, cut it without the flip option on.

3. Peel off the individual shapes once everything is cut. Follow the directions you got with your paper for adhering it to things. (Mainly make sure your surface is clean before peeling the backs away and adhering the cut pieces.) Here are the names I did for my sons on their bedroom doors. I should have cleaned the bottoms of the doors before taking a picture. Funny how you only notice these things after you show a ton of people how dirty your house is.

4. I obviously didn't get them as straight as I could. (This is probably where that Cricut vinyl stabilizer stuff comes in handy.) If you were maybe NOT in a rush like I was to see if this would work, I'd recommend lightly penciling a line across where you'll be putting text or images. Make some sort of markings to get yourself centered and straight. (These letters were cut at 5.5", by the way.)

5. You could also cut small images. The letters above were cut with my Storybook Cartridge using the Tall option. They're 1.5". The swirlies you see were also cut using the Storybook Cartridge (shift 7), at 2.5".

As soon as I get more fun wall art finished, I'll be posting pics of it. ^_^ Hopefully someone out there can use this idea and have some fun! I can't wait to get some new colors, actually, so that I can do some layered designs.

Storage Solution/Party Bag Show off and project!

2009-08-28T13:14:00.000-07:00

Recently while wand'ring aimlessly through the aisles of my local JoAnn (which I do quite often because I teach there and like to wander and find new stuff), I came across these little beauties in the jewelry section:

As far as I remember, these things are usually $6.99 (but were 40% off when I bought them!). There are 30 tiny little vials which are PERFECT for storing small items such as brads, buttons, eyelets, clips, jewels, etc... I just absolutely love them. They make storing all of this stuff quite compact, too.
Also, I bought a different storage set with 12 large vials inside which I was using at first to store larger embellishments. I still have it, but also got another one because I realized that they were about the same size as my embossing powder jars which I was having trouble storing in my space. I emptied the embossing powder into those larger jars and now have a nice, compact, portable way of carting them all around (which is probably more important for me as a teacher than it would be for you if you're a stationary paper crafter, but I still felt it was cool enough to share!).

Also... I know that a little while ago I promised a series on projects you could do with the Storybook Cartridge on the Cricut. However, I may do a series on projects using only the Plantin Schoolbook and Accent Essentials cartridges which come with the Cricut Expressions machine. I was almost forced to do this the other night because I sat to make the bags for Elliott's birthday party on Sunday (turning 3... I can't believe it!) and I realized that my neighbor is borrowing my Tags, Bags, Boxes, and More cartridge. She just recently went out and bought a Cricut Expressions because she really liked it when she saw me using it at my most recent paper party (and I might just have one more husband who isn't speaking to me, lol...), but I digress... Anyhow, as it often happens for those of us with munchkins and other time consuming daily responsibilities (which is probably all of us), I was crafting late at night and knew I couldn't just call her and ask to get it back. I remembered that the Plantin Schoolbook cartridge has bags in it, and to my great joy, I saw that the Roly Poly option would create a nice square bag the kind that I was looking for. So here is the party bag design I made for my sweet boy's birthday party! These are what the kids will take their treats home in.

Goodie Bag (A Plantin Schoolbook Cricut Cartridge Project):

1. Hit the roly poly option, then the bag. Set your size to 5 1/2". This size will cut two bags on one 12x12 piece of cardstock even though if you try to cut a quantity of 2, it will tell you it doesn't fit. The machine is just being weird on this, I suppose. Cut the image, hit the line return button, then repeat last, and cut the same exact image again. My cardstock is kind of a dark brownish gray. I can't quite describe the color. It was from an earthtone textured cardstock package I picked up at Walmart.

These are the pieces I cut:
Star: 1 plain (blue), 1 shadow (black), both at 2 1/2"
Circle: 1 plain (red), 1 shadow (black), both at 2 1/4"

-In case you're not quite familiar with the Cricut, using the shadow option cuts an image slightly bigger than the size you select. You don't need to set your size larger to get that larger size when using the shadow button. In fact, trying to create this shadowed effect by just using a larger size doesn't always work--especially in letters.

-When choosing your sizes, remember that your chosen measurement is how tall your finished image will be. (Think of the fact that cutting a 2" letter A yields a 2" tall letter A.)

2. Glue and layer your pieces as shown below.

Here is the finished goodie bag without any extra embellishment:

3. Embellish with chosen items. I used a stamped, embossed, colored, and cut image from the Cupcakes clear stamp collection from The Paper Company.

Finished bags:

I've decided not to put El's name or stats (such as a 3 or whatever) on these bags because I would like for them to be reuseable. I really like how this turned out (and I was just as surprised as anyone else at just how cute these are, lol). You know, I think these could work as a small bag for a teenager, or as a super cute way to give a gift card to someone.

I'm feeling really kind of pushed to start figuring out more uses for these two cartridges now! I'll be posting more projects as I come up with them. (Likely a birthday banner pretty soon.)

Photo Corner Tutorial

2009-08-19T15:40:00.000-07:00

Continuing on my ecological/economical scrapping kick, here's a tutorial I put together on how to make your own photo corners. Photo corners are such a popular adornment in scrapbooking. I rarely see ones that are meant to actually function as photo corners. More often, they're purely decorative and meant to put on the corner of some element in your design (not necessarily a photo, either!) to make it look more finished.

You can use these in card making or scrapbooking. I've done an example of pretty big photo corners in the tutorial because huge embellishments seem to be a fad that isn't fading any time soon. You could buy these, of course, or even buy punches to make them. But why not just make them yourself? Save some dough. Save some trees (read: use your scraps!).

Photo Corner Tutorial
Supplies:
Cardstock/paper of choice (I used a double sided paper from K & Company's Classic Designer Paper Pad)
Marker/Pen (I'm using an acid free sharpie pen because it soaks into the paper and dries quickly, but any other kind of felt tip pen will do)
Ink (for inking edges of finished photo corners, if desired) (I used a VersaMagic DewDrop in Jumbo Java)

Tools:
Metal ruler with cork bottom (for cutting... or just use a plastic ruler, but be warned: you might get frustrated from repeatedly cutting your ruler instead of your paper)
Craft knife with sharp blade (as in if you haven't changed the blade in five years, CHANGE it. The old, dull blade is why you hate cutting with the craft knife.)
Cutting mat (mine is a very small quilting mat picked up for about $7.00 in the quilting section at JoAnn)
Scissors

1. Decide on the finished size of your photo corners. Like I said, I was going for big, so I'm starting with 2" squares.

2. Slice the square from corner to corner using the ruler and the craft knife (with your SHARP blade, right?). My cutting mat has a handy-dandy 45 degree angle across it to help with cutting. I didn't find it helped so much, but you might find it useful to line yours up if you have one. Alternatively, if you just HATE your craft knife (but I really think you should try switching the blade out and give it another go), use the ruler and the marker to trace a line from corner to corner (on the BACK of the square), then cut that line with some scissors.

3. Measure from the very corner, along the longest side of your triangle, to the point at which you feel you'll make a good sized photo corner. I'm measuring one inch from the corner. (I'm using the 2" mark on my ruler as the 0" mark in this photo) Measure the same distance from both corners and make a mark on the BACK of the triangle.

4. Using your cutting mat, line up the bottom of your triangle (looking at the back) with one of the horizontal grid marks. Line up one of your marks with a vertical grid mark, as pictured.

5. Line your ruler up along that vertical grid mark and draw a line from the top to the bottom of the triangle. Using the grid lines to line up your triangle/marks will allow you to draw lines at the right angles so that you'll create really nice looking photo corners.

6. Do this same thing for your other mark, flipping the triangle around and lining everything up as showin in the photo above.

7. This is what you should end up with after doing steps 5 and 6.

8. Cut out the small triangle.

9. To make a second photo corner, you can save yourself some hassle by using the first one you just made. Line it up with the other triangle you have (from cutting the original square apart) and just trace the cut out part onto the uncut triangle (make sure to trace on the back!). To keep it the same size, when cutting this triangle, make sure that you're cutting on the outside of the traced line. Try to cut out the triangle in such a way that the little triangle keeps the black lines on it.

10. You can make different sizes and layer these together for cool looks. I inked all of the edges above with the Jumbo Java ink. The layered photo corners above were made starting with a 1 3/4" square which was cut into the larger triangles. Each triangle was then marked at 3"4 from each corner before the lines were drawn inside and the small inner triangles cut out. In general, a good proportioned photo corner seems to be one that is made by marking the cut triangles at 1/2 the measurement of the original square. For instance, in my example, I used a 2" square and marked from the corners of the cut triangles at 1" from each corner before drawing my lines and cutting. In order to make a nice layer (basically 1/8" all around), I just decreased all of the measurements by 1/4", just like you'd do for any scrapping project.

For tiny photo squares (say squares that start off at 3/4"), you can just eyeball and cut the squares in half with your scissors. Still mark and draw lines, however, to get a good look to the cut out piece in the middles.

Also, in order to make things easy on yourself: If you REALLY love a certain size and want to use a lot of them in your work, make yourself a template or two out of white cardstock. That way you can just make your square, cut it in half, and then use the template to draw the inner triangle and then cut that out.

Hopefully someone finds this useful! I'm going to make some fancy-schmancy glittery ones, and sequin covered ones... I'm having fun!

Spiral Binding Tutorial/Various Musings

2009-08-12T14:52:00.000-07:00

This post is a real treat, I think. I'm going to share this little method I came up with for doing spiral binding. It's probably not new. In fact, I bet plenty of people smarter than I am have already figured out even better ways to do it. But I'll share it anyway!

First of all, though, here are a couple of pictures of things I've made recently. I've been writing in this old unruled composition notebook for a long time, filling it with various ideas and sketches from all branches of creative expression in which I currently participate. I had fun using some of my BasicGrey paper (from the Periphery collection) as well as some of the die cuts that came with the paper to create this simple journal cover. I used 1" skinny letters cut from my Storybook Cricut cartridge to spell out the words and added a couple of little rhinestones. I LOVE it! And it makes me laugh every time I look at it. I swear I'm not a snob! LoL. I think we all could benefit from personal pick-me-ups, though.

Below is a glittery snowflake I made while coming up with things to put on the board for my Glitter class at JoAnn. I'm going to give it a new holiday spin to get people into the idea of taking the class nearer to Christmas. It's going to be great, I think! Also, since I'm sort of in charge of doing decorations for the ladies' Christmas event this year at church, I'm thinking there will be about 120 of these on the trees for that event. I've got a lot of work to do between now and then, obviously. But what sweet little decorations/take home gifts! (At least I think they are!)

Okay... and what you've probably been waiting for...

Spiral Binding Tutorial
(I used pages cut from my Cricut Graphically Speaking cartridge, but you could adopt this technique to bind pages that you cut and punch holes in yourself. Although obviously it would take quite a bit longer.)

Materials:
Cardstock, double sided or single sided (if using single sided, you won't have to glue pages together or make as many pages, but your final piece will feel more flimsy)
20 gauge craft wire in your choice of color
Glue

Tools:
Graphically Speaking Cricut Cartridge (or slide cutter and hole punches)
10mm wooden dowel (or size fitting your chosen amount of papers)
Wire cutters
Round nose pliers
Pen or marker

1. Start off by cutting your pages. Mine are cut at 5.5" from the Graphically Speaking cartridge (shift, "1" button). You'll get four to a 12x12 page this way. If not using the cartridge, cut your pages to the same size and then punch holes evenly along edges. Use first piece of punched cardstock as a template for punching the rest of your pages. In order to make sure the holes will line up if using single sided cardstock, put two pages wrong sides facing (white sides facing) before punching.

2. If using the single sided cardstock, go ahead and glue all of the pages back to back to form the double thickness pages for your project.

3. Line up your paper so that the holes are going straight across the dowel rod. (To choose the right size, look at the size of your paper stack as well as just how far the holes are from the edge of the paper. Your spiral needs to be large enough to accomodate the pages as you open them, so that each page can lie flat. Your wrapped spiral will spring out just a bit, but not by much. Just make sure to get a dowel that's big enough!) Using your marker or pen, mark on the inside of each hole onto the dowel as shown below. This will show you where to wrap your wire.

4. Make sure to make at least three extra marks on each end of the page. (Move the page and line up the holes with the marks already made.) This will ensure that you still have enough wire after it springs, but also give you some extra wiggle room at the end.

5. Leaving a long tail at one end, and holding the dowel tightly, begin to wrap about 3-4 feet of wire (for a project about 6" tall... mine is 5.5") around the wood, meeting each wrap at a marked point on the rod. If you need to, move your hand up as you wrap, but keep in mind that the wire will spring out a bit from the wood when you move your hand. Just move it into position along your marks and continue. Wrap until you've wrapped wire around each mark, including the extras. When finished, carefully slide the wire coil off of the dowel.

6. In order to bind your piece smoothly, you'll need to clip an end of the wire coil so that the end is going with the natural curve of the coil, as shown in the picture below. You don't want a long tail. This will not work unless your end is curling with the coil.

7. This is the exciting part!!! Stack all of your pages together, facing the front cover towards you. Before messing with your wire, take a second to look through the holes and make sure they're all unobstructed. Working from the back to the front, insert that curved end of the coil into the top hole of your pages.

8. Turning the coil clockwise, begin to thread it through the holes in your binding. Mine went through surprisingly easily! If you hit a place where it's not quite going through, just wiggle gently and check again to make sure the holes are clear. Just continue turning the coil clockwise until you have the coil through all of the holes on your project.

9. Go ahead and clip the wires so that you're left with almost another entire coil at each end. (It may be helpful to clip only one end at a time.)

10. Take your round nose pliers and form a loop with the wire end, facing towards the outside of the book. Repeat on the other end. If you left enough wire at each end, you should have no problem with opening and closing your book. Just make sure your wire loop is big enough that it won't slip through the holes in the papers.

The finished open book: (I just had to show off these gorgeous papers from the DCWV Indian Summer collection!!!! It's not the BasicGrey Indian Summer collection... but I'll take what I can get. ^_~)

Also, after binding, you may notice certain spots in the wire spiral that aren't quite even. It's easy enough at this point to go along and pinch certain parts together or pull certain coils apart. Just don't get too paranoid about it or you might end up ruining your coil. You're just aiming for a smooth opening and closing.

Other ideas:
You could make these and punch only three or four holes in either end of your paper in order to save time and wire. Use a shorter coil and follow the exact same procedure at the top and bottom of your pages. You'll end up with two little pieces of spiral holding together your finished project, but it still looks cute!

Hang beads or other charms from the loops you formed at either end of your coil.

Match the color of your wire to the theme of your project. For instance, green or red for Christmas; or red or white for Valentine's Day; or silver or blue for Hanukkah.

Here it is all finished and closed up and ready to be embellished. I have no idea what it's going to become. Well, it's a mini album. But I'm not sure what it's about yet. I'll have to wait for a while and see. ^_^

I hope you enjoyed the tutorial! Make sure to leave comments if you have questions, and if you appreciate the post, become a follower! ^_^

Magazine Funk

2009-08-07T13:34:00.000-07:00

I recently got my newest Creating Keepsakes magazine, which usually really motivates me to get going and get scrapping with many awesome new ideas for me to tweak and try in my own work.

However.... sometimes I go into what I can only describe as my "magazine funk". I flip through page after page of glorious designs seemingly from the same people every single month (Can we say, "Mou Saha"???? [And I'm not saying that meanly... I think I'm her biggest fan!]) and I just see, like, this glorious hierarchy of creative geniuses the likes of which I will never be...

And it puts me in a funk.

I don't know why I think I should be published in some magazine or admired by others in order to be "good" at what I do. I mean, essentially, what this is all about is doing what I love and recording my family's history and leaving a story behind for future generations who will love what "Grandma Canuel" did and to whom names the likes of Mou Saha will not mean a thing.

But still. I'm kind of in a funk today.

Although, I don't think it's 100% the magazine. I'm nearing the end of summer with an 8 year old and a nearly 3 year old, both boys, who have been running me ragged for quite a while. I'm watching my grandma's sick doggie while she's visiting my aunt in California. I'm a bit overwhelmed and a bit overworked, perhaps, and even buying my brand new Graphically Speaking cartridge today at Hobby Lobby with some hard earned JoAnn teaching money isn't making it all go away. Maybe that's the real reason all of this is bothering me.

Maybe all of this is just to say how much I really NEED to sit and scrap. Maybe this is all pointing even brighter and more obviously to the fact that I need to sit and not think about my house which is actually pretty well taken care of (all laundry and dishes currently done... yee!) or my crazy kids, one of whom is just about to go down for his nap.

Maybe I should stop looking at what other people do as the unattainable goal I seem to think it is and look at it more as an inappropriate goal. I mean, why the heck should I want to scrap like Mou Saha? Why in the world don't I just scrap the way I scrap? Why not spend more time figuring out exactly how it is I scrap? Why is what I like to do suddenly feeling not good enough? Why is what I naturally love suddenly feeling boring? Is it because what I do doesn't look like what other people do? Isn't that totally awesome, though? Shouldn't I be kind of jumping up and down and feeling a bit thrilled that my own style is starting to develop?

I think that maybe I should try to forget the magazines. I should even try to forget Mou Saha (who I would SO love to send some chocolate to) and her glorious work which I adore... Just for a while. Maybe I shouldn't pick up a book. Or look at a magazine. Or search for project ideas online.

I think that maybe, just maybe, I need some time to find a little bit more of myself. After all, I don't think this is a process which we should ever feel is complete. Each day, each new experience, each frustration, triumph, joy, and heartache adds yet more layers to each one of us--layers that deserve to be explored. I think I really should just play for a while without thinking of making something good enough for a magazine. I'll just create for the sake of creating.

You know, I'm reminded of a story my choir teacher in high school read to us. It was basically about a little cricuit who, through the entire story was longing to be a butterfly. She constantly was saying, "I wish I was a butterfly." She sought out the wise old owl of the forest who essentially told her that she was made for singing, and she was special because of that. And her heart was filled with so much joy, she began chirping and singing a beautiful song. At the very end of the story, a butterfly happened to be flying by, heard the song, and thought wistfully, "What beautiful music! I wish I was a cricuit."

Anyway... I guess none of us are more beautiful and desirable than when we are who we truly are. Why should we try to be anything else?

QTip Box Project/Box Template

2009-08-05T08:18:00.000-07:00

I had a super productive day yesterday around my house. A lot of my time was spent reorganizing my scrapping space (again). I made a whole bunch of folders (top row of my tall, thin cabinet thingie to the left) which I'm teaching in my Scrapbook Social at JoAnn this month. I also made a row of boxes based on the gift bag template I taught at last month's Scrapbook Social. I made labels for the folders and boxes, just printed off of the computer, and really like the way everything looks now, all neatly in place and labeled! I'm such a dork!

Here's a closer shot of the tall shelf thingie I have next to my desk, along with the new label I made for my paper scraps binder, which is also now sitting on my desk instead of the floor. The top row of folders is holding all of my pre-made cards and card blanks. That row of boxes underneath is holding basic things that used to be floating around in my drawers without a real home. Unfilled mini albums, unfinished projects, things I'm saving to cover later, etc. Freeing up all of the space in my drawers (from the cards and the random stuff) allowed me to move most of what was in these shelves before into drawers. Also, this is going with my new kick, right? The eco-crafting (ecological AND economical) by which I am using what I have ALREADY to do projects and whatnot. So instead of buying a bunch of expensive containers, I'm using what I have.

Notice the little plastic bin. The first decorated jar in there is holding punched shapes, and it used to be a bread machine yeast jar. The second bottle, the pill bottle, is holding pre decorated punched shapes, with glitter, or whatever. I haven't decorated it yet, but I will soon! The third and fourth jars up there are old spice jars that I didn't decorate because I thought they looked so pretty with their contents showing--the ribbon scrap jar and a jar full of tiny flower stems from some huge bunch of flowers I picked up on clearance one day months ago at JoAnn for, like, $1.00. You've probably seen little flower bunches like this around. I finally tore all the little flowers off for use in future projects. I saved the leaves, too, and threw the rest away. *gasp* This was one of those times when I KNEW I wasn't going to use what I had left over (all of the floral wires and whatnot), so I decided to go ahead and chuck it. You can think I'm a horrible person if you want to, but I have a slightly minimalist bent about my space and I like being able to actually WORK in it rather than letting it pile up with random crap I KNOW I'm not going to use. So some sacrifices must be made.

Anyway, anyway. I said there was a project and template here. So, here it is! This is a basic box template. You can follow this basic idea for creating a box of almost any size. Think of your finished box size (I wanted a box that was 2" wide from the front and 2" wide on the side and 3" high).

The measurements across the top of the box template represent side, front, side. The measurements down the length of the template represent height, side, height. If you wanted a box that was 4" wide from the front, 2" wide at the side, and 4" high, your template would stretch a bit. The panels across the top of the template would be 2", 4", 2". The measurements down the side of the template would be 4", 2", 4". SO... using some of that math you swore you'd never use as a kid, you can see your final template would need to be 8" wide and 10" long. You're always going to cut in the same place--those two middle lines that are outlined red in this template.

Now that I've explained (hopefully clearly) how you can create your own box template, we'll move forward with this specific size.

Kathy's Q-Tip Box

Here's the template:
Here is what-all you'll need for the project:
Glue (tape runners really don't cut it for this)
Sanding block (optional)
Buttons (optional)
Paper trimmer with cutting and scoring blades
Glorious paper worthy of your project (here I am using BasicGrey... I LOVE BasicGrey!)
Scissors
Bone Folder

1. You'll be using the buttons (if you want to) as feet for the box to make it look cooler. I decided to stack two buttons for each foot. You can do this without sanding, but your joins will be much better and stronger if you sand. Start off by sanding the back of the button that will be on the bottom. It will take the shine off of the button and allow the glue to stick much better. You can see the difference between the back of an unsanded button (below left) and the back of a sanded button (below right).

2. Sand the back AND front of the button being used as the top of your feet.

3. Glue the buttons as you want them for your feet. I used a smaller button on top of a larger button because the larger button is what I'm gluing to the bottom of the box, and it will create a cool tapered look to the feet.

4. Cut your paper to size according to the template and score all of the lines where indicated. Until you're familiar with how your scoring blade works, use a very gentle pressure when scoring. It's better to be gentle and have to go over the line a few times than to push too hard and tear right through it.

5. Cut where indicated, then fold all of the lines. (It really is easier to cut the lines BEFORE they're folded.) When you've done that, your piece should look something like the picture below.

6. If your paper has a very large or a particularly pretty un-repeated pattern, like mine does, you might want to do a dry run of your box to see which panels you want to be on the outside. This is what I did because this particular paper from BasicGrey has this awesome pattern that is simply gorgeous and I wanted as much of it on the outside as possible.

7. Begin gluing the box together. You can try to hide the little cut portion in between the two sides if you want to, or just go with it. I've never found that it matters that much, so do whatever floats your boat. When you glue both of the larger panels in place, it can be hard to get your fingers in there to push, so you might want to lay the box down and use your bone folder to push the panels together and make sure you have a good join. Make sure you wipe away any glue you might get onto your bone folder.

8. Here is a picture of the glued box. So pretty, isn't it!? You can make it fancier, if the insides will be seen at all, by using double sided paper or by stamping all over the back of the paper before you use it. But I wouldn't be paranoid about it.

9. Time to glue your feet on! Turn the box over and glue them at the four points, as I've shown here. If you sanded the buttons, they should stick pretty well. Once they're not sliding around anymore, flip the box over and let them dry with the box sitting on top of them.

The finished box in its new habitat!

I'm going kind of box crazy over here. Pretty soon my entire house is going to be full of these boxes. It's a great way to use up old pieces of cardstock you bought that are either slightly out of style now or just no longer to your taste. Or, like me, you could actually use your most precious hoarded papers in this kind of project. This way they're not being shoved in some album or mailed away on some card to people who can never appreciate what a sacrifice it was to give that piece of paper away. They're being displayed beautifully and functionally, and they'll make you smile every time you see them. ^_^

Scrapbooking, among other things

2009-08-03T14:00:00.000-07:00

Most of us don't live in some remote mountain palace full of servants to attend to our every want, need, and whim. Most of us don't have people to do our dishes and laundry, to clean up the messes, or cook all of our meals for us. Most of us also don't live free of responsibilities to other people in our lives--most of those responsibilities usually dealing with the people right under our own roof.

I think most scrappers and paper crafters are like me. Not only do I not live in a far away, remote mountain dwelling--I live in a house right in the middle of a bustling metropolis. I don't have servants to do work here. I am, as I like to say, the busiest slave in the house. I don't have people to clean up my messes. In fact, I have people who make messes. I've got two kids. I think that pretty much sums it up--I have a LOT going on!

One of my greatest challenges is balancing my responsibilities to my family (as a full time SAHM) and my "real job" (as a part time papercrafts teacher at JoAnn) and myself! A lot of this might seem silly to those of you with B.O., or, "born organization" (that reference to you stinking is absolutely intentional, but meant in a joking way), but, nevertheless, I proceed...

How to get the housework done and still have time to crop? I've put together some of my own favorite tips, some "original" (at least, I thought of them myself, although they can't be new) and some definitely not.

Keep up on it! I know this seems obvious and silly, but as the most resistant-to-cleaning person who ever existed, who has been known to put things off for fear of "never" being finished, this was my major breakthrough. Just DOING the stuff gets it out of the way.
Dishes: Taking 5 minutes to load the dishwasher every night or taking another 5 or 10 minutes each night to clean up after dinner really does save a lot of work and heartache in the long run.
Laundry: Fold/hang while watching your favorite movies/TV shows. This is the only thing that gets me to do it. I bring a pile of hangers from every room and hang as I sort, then carry the already hung clothes to the rooms, along with the folded items. This is also an excuse to get some TV/movie time in, and I love it.
Take a note from Flylady: "I can do anything for 15 minutes!" If you don't know where to start, just set a timer for 15 minutes (lately I've pushed it down to 10 because it just feels shorter and nicer and I still get a LOT done) and clean. Load the dishwasher. Dump some clothes in the washer. (This means you get to pop a movie in later.) Do some sweeping. Change the trashes. You'll be amazed at what you can do. Check out her awesome organizational system for cleaning at www.flylady.net. It seriously changed my life.

Delegate! This is probably the hardest one for any of us to do, but it is probably also the one that has helped me out the most. I'm so lucky to have a very sweet, caring husband who understands (because he has seen for himself) that he gets 2 days off every week from work, and I get NONE. I mean, dishes, sweeping, laundry, and the like don't get a break and, if anything, having him AND the kids home all day makes even more work for me! I don't force him to do a ton of chores, by any means, but occasionally delegating a few tasks really helps me out and it helps me keep from getting overwhelmed! Also, I've got this strapping 8 year old son who is perfectly capable of doing any number of chores. And every time he complains about what he has to do, I offer to switch jobs with him, and that's typically the end of it. ^_~

Seek out and destroy time suckers! No, I'm not talking about your kids. Although some days they certainly seem to qualify. I'm talking about mindless watching of TV or activities that were a good idea in the beginning but have become little more than drains on your energy and sanity. Let me give a few personal examples.

Our family has become more and more guarded of our time together, but I have also learned to be more guarded about my personal time. For instance, I know that I will not be signing up for my church's women's Tuesday morning bible study this coming year. They're doing a study I really want to do, but I know that after the honeymoon period wears off, I'll be left with yet another responsibility (bible study homework) and yet another weekly mark on my calendar and will eventually be waking up on Tuesday mornings thinking, "UGH, I have to get ready, I have to get Elliott ready... when am I going to get the boards done for my next class..." And on and on and on. Also, I have to look at what this activity is really aiming to acheive. Closeness with God, obviously, which I attain in my day-to-day life as I pray and do my own personal study, so I don't need another activity to do that. It also is meant to acheive some friendship and intimacy with other women in my church. I run a kind of small group ministry at my church in which I already meet with other women and form relationships and all of that, so I don't need another activity to accomplish this. Although this is a hard decision, I've got to say that this coming year the Tuesday morning bible study isn't happening for me. If I get to the end of this school year and find that it left a gaping hole in my life, I can always sign up again the next year.

I was recently offered the papercrafting/scrapbooking teacher position at another JoAnn store. The potential for more income was a huge draw, of course, and the fact remains that I just LOVE to teach! I love the idea of getting more students. In the end, though, I had to decide that I wasn't going to do it. The draw on my time and energy, not just in the actual teaching time, but in showing up for the Teacher Open House days, making boards and supply lists for the classes (not to mention coming up with the classes themselves!), and all of that just left me thinking that it wasn't something I could take on.

I think there's a definite weighing process that we have to go through in order to decide what it is we will and won't do with our time. It's a precious commodity. Once it's spent, it can never be taken back again. It may mean rearranging the things you already do and even cutting some activities completely out of your life. It may mean committing less time to something you already do. The bottom line, I think, when deciding what you will and won't do is to ask yourself this: "Can I still be performing at 100% in every other area of my life if I add this?" Or, "Will no longer doing this allow me to start performing closer to 100% in all other areas of my life?" As long as you're still able to fully give of yourself in each area of your life, I think you will be able to strike the right balance.

Schedule time for yourself! No matter what your schedule primarily consists of, you MUST make time for yourself. Whether it's a certain block of time each day or a standing one hour every day that you spend for yourself, whatever time it should happen to start or end, it's very important to do this. Forget deserving it. You NEED it. If you're anything like me, your time spent creating is the best therapy. My entire world can be chaos, but for those moments, I can create order. I mean, I have my own personal relationship with God to let me feel general peace in my life even through crazy circumstances, but even still! I need this time to myself. It helps me to be the best person I can be in all areas of my life. And if taking less than 5% of any day can help me to perform at 100% for the rest of it, I'd say that's a worthwhile investment. Wouldn't you?

I feel sort of silly even posting this. I'm afraid of what other people might think about me for writing it, actually, because I am essentially admitting that I have trouble keeping a lot of things straight, and I don't run my house 100% by myself and I need help with organizing my cleaning schedule and, in general, I am not a B.O. kind of person. But I think a lot of it should be said. I think that MANY creatively bent people out there are so much like me and will never admit it. It comes from being more right brained than left brained--from becoming easily overwhelmed with the little things in life. From processing information so quickly that you can, as I once read in "Right Brained Children in a Left Brained World", get the answer without ever realizing the question. I'm also a very young woman still, I know (25 years old!), and a lot of this is just me still figuring things out like housework and working and caring for my family. In spite of what everyone seems to make you think, either intentionally or unintentionally, this stuff isn't just natural. We aren't just born knowing how to do everything. We DO need help!

It's important to keep all of our responsibilities in check, and to free up time for ourselves, and to not have a huge amount of chaos in our lives. If anything can help your scrapping/paper crafting, I believe it's that.

Button Embossing Video!!!!!

2009-07-31T15:04:00.000-07:00

WHOA. I have just discovered my newest awesome thing.... EMBOSSING BUTTONS!

Here's a little video (poor quality, I know, but hopefully full of enough information to make uploading the darn thing to my blog worth it) showing my process and the very first time I ever tried to do it (which was about 20 minutes ago... so I'm uploading it NOW so that I can go and play more while I'm waiting for the computer and blogger.com to get together and put the thing on my blog).

I would REALLY love to hear from anyone who benefited from this. There's something in me (probably the teacher in me) that just really loves to do little videos. If it's helpful at all, I'll keep posting more.

I'm also going to post some more pics pretty soon of other buttons I've embossed. I'm thinking of embossing some teal-ish/green buttons with copper to see if the green poking through will make it look antique-y. Anyway, anyway... I'm off to play some more.

JoAnn August Scrapbook Social Project

2009-07-29T12:11:00.000-07:00

Here is the awesome project we're making in the August Scrapbook Social class at the Riverview JoAnn. The class is only $10.00 and will be on Friday, August 14, 2009 from 6:30-8:30.

Basically, this project is a cardstock folder which is very easy to make from a single sheet of 8.5x11" cardstock. It will hold standard A2 cards (4.25x5.5") and envelopes. Add a ribbon for a perfect way to present a set of handmade cards to a friend! Also, you can see that I've started to use these folders to store pre-cut pieces of paper for my own cardmaking. They look so pretty all lined up in a row. AND I'm going to start using these to store my ever increasing stash of premade cards for various occasions: birthdays, sympathy, etc.

I'll be covering how to change the sizes of the folders, too, in order to create folders that will fit other sizes of projects, too!

I hope, if you're located close to me, that you'll consider signing up for the class! It will be a lot of fun!

Cricut Tips--How to find the right size for your paper (without the software!)

2009-07-26T17:49:00.000-07:00

I'm not going to pretend that this post is earth shatteringly amazing, but I think it at least qualifies as pretty neat. I was playing around with my Cricut the other day (much of this was birthed from talking with the ladies who came to my party on Friday night... thanks for letting me experience your brilliance for a while!) and figured out a new trick for finding the right size cut for a piece of paper.

Note: This isn't done with the software!!!! If you have the software, then good for you. The first smarty who posts that I need to get the software can feel free to buy it for me, mmmmkay?!

Basically, I make a lot of cards, and I really enjoy decorating the cards with somewhat large pieces from my Cricut. However, sometimes it's really hard to know what size to cut of a certain image. The first one I'm showing below is a good example.

FIRST, I've got to clear up what you're selecting when you're selecting the size of your image. This was one of those moments of brilliance from Friday that I just LOVE to experience when I'm around other crafters. A few of the other ladies who own a Cricut and I were talking a bit and I mentioned (with much agreement from them) that I had a really hard time remembering when I selected my size if it was selecting the measurement from top to bottom or from left to right. One of the ladies, however, spoke up and said, "Well, it's top to bottom, isn't it?" And I said, "But how do you know? I keep meaning to write it down, but I never do." And she said (genius!), "Well, when you cut a 2" letter, it's 2" tall. So I think it's top to bottom." And NOW I'll never forget. And if anyone is just laughing at me for being so naive, that's okay. But if anyone else is with me on this and having an epiphany moment right now, I embarrassed myself just for you and it was worth it.

Okay, okay...

The thing I'm cutting right now is from the Storybook Cartridge. I'm cutting the swirlie twirlie border piece you get in the extras from the #2. If you look at the image, it's wider than it is tall. But I want it to go across a piece for a card. This is the kind of thing I'm talking about with figuring sizes--How do I know how tall to cut it when I don't know how wide it will end up being?

So, this is what I did...
I set an 8.5x11" piece of paper in the bottom left hand corner. (8.5x11" is just what I had lying around... anything bigger than what I'm describing will work.)

I used my arrow keys and moved the blade to the left, to 7.5", then I moved it down to 6.25" and hit the "set paper size" button. It set the paper size as 4.5x5.75". Now, I know a standard card is 4.25x5.5", but you'll understand why I set it bigger in a sec.

Now that I've done this, I can hit the "fit to page" button. I'll select "Tall", then press "shift", and then press the "2" key. This will give me my swirlie twirlie border. Now, make sure (for your own future reference) that you're keeping a notebook right by you so that you can jot stuff down as you do this yourself, for whatever thing you're trying to cut to the size of your card or whatever, because when you hit "cut", you'll see the little screen says, "Calculating fit to page", then it shows you the size, which in this case is 2". It cuts the piece, fitting it to the 4.5x5.75" page size, which gives you a nearly perfect piece for the standard card which is slightly smaller because the Cricut NEVER cuts all the way to the edge of the page.

Now, keep in mind which edge you want your piece to align to (the 4.25" or 5.5" side). You may have to experiment a bit to find the right orientation for each project (you may need to have the blade go 6.25" left and 7.5" down instead, to get the card rectangle flipped). BUT, if you keep a notebook with you, like I said, you'll have the information for future attempts and will not need to go through all of this figuring again. AND... IT'S ONLY PAPER! You can recycle it if you mess up.

Below is the piece that the Cricut cut, which fit the card pretty nicely. Remember this is Tall, Shift, 2, set at 2". Now... this wasn't good enough for me at first. So I thought I'd try it at 2.25" just to see what I got, and see if it'd match better.

I put the paper back on my mat, but just let it be up in the corner, like you see below. I know that the piece I'm cutting isn't going to be too big for this paper, so I don't have to worry about aligning it in the bottom corner and setting the paper size. I'll just cut from here, the same image as above, at 2 1/4". (Make sure you turn "fit to page" OFF before doing something like this right after your last cut.)

Okay, it turned out too big! So the other one is the one I love. I'll use the extra for something else at some point. OR, it could also be put on a card, but have the extra hanging parts cut off. You just have to decide which you'd like better.

So I did those two things and figured I'd do one more thing on this paper. I aligned it in the bottom corner like I did at first and went over with my blade 7.5", then down 6.25", then set paper size to get my 4.5x5.75" piece of paper set in the Cricut. I chose a pretty branch corner piece. Once again, select fit to page, and then select your image. In this case, "fancy/corner", then "shift", then "Z". Again, before you press cut, get your notebook ready so you can remember the size once it pops up on the screen. I hit cut, then saw the size pop up as 4". Now I know that if I want to use this branch again, I need to cut it at 4" to fit well on a card.

Below is the picture of my branch. Pretty cool, huh? ^_^

Now, one of the things people talk about a lot is what to do with the leftover paper you have from cutting stuff on the Cricut. You can be uber savvy and save things for stenciling or something, but I've learned that if I save everything, I never use anything because I have too much crap piled around to find the stuff I want. Also, I've learned that as I file my scraps, it's really hard to file scraps that have all of these holes in them.

So, below you see I've cut the holey parts of the paper out. Anything reasonably large enough to use later for punched shapes or more cutting, I'll keep. Anything else, I recycle. I'll recycle the pieces with the holes and keep the strips, which are already in my plain black cardstock scrap file as we speak.

I figured I'd show the card I made with the branches here, too, since I messed with it a bit. I decided that I couldn't get just the right angle I wanted with the piece exactly as it was, so I cut it at the joining point and slightly angled the bottom piece.

Then I stuck a cutesy thing on top. The letters are cut from the Storybook cartridge, too, using the Fancy/Corner option. I also cut the little bird from the Storybook cartridge. I thought it looked so cute, looking behind itself like that, almost like it is all solitary, looking for another bird. I like to use that one a lot on cards for missing people.

Okay, so thar she be. More tips to come, I'm sure... If you found this particularly helpful, please leave a comment. And if you tell me I need to get the software, you can refer to my comment above. ^_~

Cricut Storybook Cartridge Banner Project

2009-07-25T14:28:00.000-07:00

I am so wickedly blessed to own a Cricut Expressions machine. The thing is nothing short of awesome. In case you were wondering if it was really any good or not--it so IS. (Good, I mean.)

They go on sale sometimes, and you should never even think of paying $500.00 for a brand new one online. I had a party at my house last night and we just sat around making paper crafts--it was SO fun, and one of the ladies there mentioned that she had gotten her Cricut Expressions on eBay for about $180.00. Still not chump change, but after saving up for a while, that's doable. And I DO recommend that if you were ever planning on getting a Cricut that you just save up your money to go for the big one, the Expressions machine, instead of the Personal trimmer, which is still cool, but doesn't cut as much as the Expressions (Personal trimmer uses 6x12 pieces of paper, and the Expressions can cut up to 12x24 papers.). And the Expressions has a few extra little machine features that I like, too.

Anyway, anyway. So, being the crafty person I am, one of the things I love the most (besides actually making things) is looking around at what other people have done and just soaking up their brilliance. I especially was excited to start looking around online for Cricut projects so that I could learn to use my machine. I was very disappointed, however, to find that there are almost no projects out there, and the ones that are seem to seriously be lacking in the information department as far as what buttons, what size, etc., and if I wanted to spend forever staring at a picture to figure a project out on the Cricut, I guess that's okay. But, being me, I tend to not do that, so... I figure things out on my own! (After all, as I've repeatedly told myself, it's only paper. And I DO recycle my waste.)

ALSO... my big beef with a lot of the projects out there is how many cartridges are used in creating them. I don't know about you, but I'm not going to buy a million cartridges just to make one project. So, I think I'm going to start featuring projects for a while using nothing but the Storybook Cartridge. That cartridge is SO full of cool stuff, it's definitely worth the money. Only, again, not the $100 you pay for it in a craft store (unless it's one of those rare times they're on sale for $39.99)--either hit Walmart and get it for $60.00, Amazon to get it for $54.00 or so, www.cricutmachine.com if they have a sale is usually pretty good, OR hit eBay and get one for $30.00 or so.

Okay, okay. So, here is the party banner I made for my party using the Storybook Cartridge:

Storybook Cartridge Banner Project

Supplies:
Storybook Cartridge
Cricut Machine (This one will work on the Personal Electronic Cutter OR the Expressions)
Color A Cardstock (Light Green on mine)
Color B Cardstock (Black on mine)
Color C Cardstock (Darkish Red on mine)
Silver Eyelets
Black Ribbon

1. Using color A, cut six 5.5" scalloped squares. (Load paper. Push Accent Blackout, shift, C.)
2. Using color B, cut six 4.5" square swirlie background pieces (Load paper. Push Accent Frame, shift, 7.)
3. Using color B, cut 4" shadow characters for banner (P, A, R, T, Y, !). (Load paper. Push Shadow, [character].)
4. Using color C, cut 4" normal characters for banner (P, A, R, T, Y, !). (Load paper. Type in characters, making sure that "shadow" is turned off. Cut.)
5. Assemble as shown in pictures. Glue swirlie background to scalloped square. Center shadow letter over background, adhere. Center normal letter over shadow letter, adhere. Set 3/16" eyelets in the top two corners of banner. Tie all pieces together with ribbons, making loops out of the very end pieces of ribbons, to hang on the wall.

If I was super smart, I would have made it in different colors. (It's green on a green wall, which made it not stand out too much. But, oh, well.) I love the fact that this doesn't look like Christmas even though it IS red and green. I know that surrounded with Christmas stuff, however, it WOULD manage to look Christmas-y, so I'm definitely saving it for when I have a holiday party, which I'm sure I will, because I LOVE having parties.

So hopefully this was a helpful project idea. Like I said, I'm going to start posting more projects using this one cartridge. I'll do it until I get sick of it, but the thing is so absolutely brimming with glorious images, I think it will take a LONG time to ever use it all.

6x6" mini album project plus examples

2009-07-18T16:20:00.000-07:00

I recently posted a text only instruction set for this album in the http://scrapbooking.about.com forum (SUCH a cool thing, check it out! [look at the guide's picture, and right underneath her name it says, "my forum", which is where you go to set up an account and join), but in that piece, I made it simpler because I didn't have pictures to back up what I'm going to be talking about here.

So here is the REAL 6x6" mini album as I make it. It seems complex at first, but is really quite easy once you know all of the pieces.

Kathy's 6x6 Mini Album:
Supplies:
If using double sided cardstock: 2 12x12 sheets
If using single sided cardstock: 4 12x12 sheets
Glue (I love Scotch QuickDry Adhesive)
Ribbon, 18-24" (I don't ever go bigger than 1/4" thick)
Stamping inks, if you want to ink edges

Tools:
Slide Cutter/Paper Trimmer
Bone Folder
Paper piercer (something to poke holes in the paper, the ends of very sharp scissors work, too)
Tapestry Needles (For sewing ribbon through holes. Mine are DMC size 22.)

Instructions
(My pictures show the steps to make the album with single-sided cardstock because it's more complex.)
1. Choose which of your papers you would like to be your cover.

These are the pieces that you'll cut to make your album:

For double sided cardstock, cut only A and B pieces. For single sided cardstock, cut all. Choose your own colors for the inside pages. After choosing the cover, I usually just let mine be random.
A: 6x12 (1) (This is the cover piece)
A1: 6x5.75 (2) (These are the two pieces you'll cut to glue inside the cover if you're using single sided cardstock.)
B: 5.75x11.5 (3) (These are the pages of the album.)
B1: 5.75x5.5 (6) (These are the pieces you'll cut to glue inside the album where the single sided cardstock leaves white pages.)

The picture below shows all of the pieces cut and ready to work with.

2. Take piece A and the three B pieces and fold them in half, with the white side inside (or the secondary design inside, if using double sided cardstock), as shown in the picture below. They will sandwich together and form the album, as shown.

3. Leaving piece A folded, measure 1 1/4" down from each end on the fold and make a small mark. You may prefer the look of a slightly smaller tie on the outside, in which case you can measure 1 1/2" in from each edge. My example below shows both measurements marked. I typically do 1 1/4".

4. Using your piercing tool, poke a hole through the paper at the fold, one through each mark.

5. I started inking the edges of my papers here so that they'd be easier to see (but it also looks cooler, I think. ^_~) Center a single B piece over the OUTSIDE of the cover, as shown below.

6. Because the cover is on the inside of the page, you can see the holes from the inside. So, keeping everything centered on the outside, and using the holes already punched in the cover as your guide, pierce the page as shown below once through each hole.

7. Set the cover (piece A) aside. One at a time, complete step 6 with each of the other two page pieces (2 B pieces), only instead of centering, just align them as shown in the photo below and pierce the holes, using the holes in the first pierced page as your guide.

8. Once all three of the pages are pierced, check to make sure all of the holes were aligned by stacking it all together and piercing through the holes. They should be perfect if you actually did things one page at a time like I said, but you should still check.

9. At this point, if you want to start getting fancy and inking all of your edges, as well as the outer and inner seams of the pages, have at it. The middle is going to show as the pages are turned in the finished album, and, like I usually tell my students at JoAnn: it's these little details that take your project from "handmade" to "handcrafted".

10. Take your cover (piece A) and set the A1 pieces on either side, making sure you have the right length facing the right way (you should have the piece covering the entire cover from top to bottom [unless your cutter misbehaves like mine did and you end up with slight shortages] and there should be a 1/4" space between the fold in the middle of the cover and the beginning of your A1 piece, as shown below. I always tell my students to do a "dry run" before gluing pieces like this. For instance, I did cut these slightly too short, but I was able to see that and figure out where I had to glue it to make it look good BEFORE the thing was covered in adhesive and very difficult to move around. It's worth it to check.

11. Glue the inner cover pieces (A1 pieces) to the cover as shown below. If you did your dry run, you shouldn't have had very many problems, if any at all. Set this piece aside.

12: Take the rest of your book pieces and assemble them the way you want them to be BEFORE gluing them. This entire step is a dry run! Sandwich the pages (3 B pieces) however you want them to go. Insert your B1 pieces every place there's a white spot, like you see at my left hand page below. Make sure, again, that you're lining up the correct height and width. There should be a 1/4" space between the fold in the middle of the page and the part you just glued in. Also, I'll say that I think we scrappers waste too much time on steps like these. Seriously, if you picked well coordinated papers, this step can be completely random and it will still look great. You may want to ensure that you always have a different paper another, or you may decide to do a 2 page layout in here somewhere and you want the two papers the same. Either way, just get it done. Don't agonize over it!

13. Go through the book now and begin gluing the pages. I tend to find it easiest to just do it with the album semi-assembled like in my picture below. I go through, flipping pages, and gluing the loose ones down wherever required. This step is super fun! The book is starting to look like something!

14. TIME TO SEW!!!!! Put your cover over your inner pages. Thread your piece of ribbon (18" usually works well, unless you want a big, flashy, droopy thing, then go with 24") onto your tapestry needle and thread it through all of the pages, starting from the OUTSIDE of the book, like the picture shows.

15. Leaving a long tail on the outside of the book, go through the other hole, to the outside cover, as shown below.

16. Pull the ribbon snug against the inside of the book and unthread your tapestry needle. Even out the ends of the ribbon. Look inside and see if your ribbon got all twisty (it probably did). If so, Pull the ribbon up from one end slightly and smooth the ribbon on the inside to at least as long as the space between your holes. Look at the picture below.

17. Still holding onto the ribbon at that spot, pull the tail on the outside of the book until you have to let go. Your ribbon should be nice and straight again.

18. Tie it all up! On the outside, I usually tie a square knot and then a double-knotted bow. You could tie a little less securely if you want to add a page later, or if you mess up and decide you need to remove a page, or whatever. But I usually just tie it all up because I'm not sure what I'm going to do with it yet. Like this one... I have no idea. But I like the grays a lot!

Tips:
-Using double sided cardstock makes the entire process faster, but not as sturdy. In the method used above, you get two layers of cardstock per page instead of just one. It's still not that big of a deal, but it's something to consider before you make your project.
-Using actual glue (such as Scotch QuickDry Adhesive, which I LOVE... did you know that yet??? If not, you haven't been reading my blog until now, have you!?) instead of a tape runner seems to end up making the whole thing less bendy when you're done. I guess the glue dries harder than a tape runner. Also, it holds together better over the long run. Using only a minimal amount of glue greatly diminishes the possibility that you'll end up with puckers in your finished piece. Seriously, it doesn't take much!
-I do special cutting on these because I like for everything to be contained inside of the cover. You could decrease the time it takes to make this project simply by making it up of 6x12 pieces of paper. The finished product never looks quite as nice, but if you're in a hurry, it works.

Here are a couple of other finished examples I've made:

This one is going to be a chronicle of my weight loss. I purposely used a photo of myself at my max weight where I was dressed up, smiling, and happily doing crafts. I entitled the album, "Kathy or Something Like Her" kind of as a statement of this cover photo not showing the real me, specifically as our modern culture views overweight people. No matter how much thinner I am now or how much thinner I ever will get, I will never be more "me" than I was at that point (dressed up all girlie and doing crafts!), but everyone seems to view me differently. Anyway, I know people are trying to be nice when they congratulate me on my progress, but on some level it feels insulting, as if losing weight is progress of my person rather than progress of breaking bad, unhealthy habits. I mean, I'm no more worthwhile as a person now than I was then, and no matter how thin I get, I will never be worth more than I was at that moment. I will always be worth exactly the same. It'll just look a little different. I don't know all of that makes sense, and it's probably a bit too personal for this post, but here it is.

This is the inside of this album. I'm not sure quite yet what's going on all the pages, but while I'm still in the planning stages, I'm sticking post-it notes with notes on the inside. I know that the second page is going to be a before and after kind of thing. The rest of it is going to include a lot of my reflections on this entire stupid process. ROFL... Okay, I guess I got myself in a mood by talking a bit up there about this whole thing. But this one is too personal to NOT explain. ^_^

Here is one other album I did, completely blank, and not at all decorated yet. I think I might turn this one into a present album for pictures of my friend's little girl. I don't have girls of my own and I really need to use all the pink, girlie stuff I have on SOMEONE besides myself! ^_~

Mini Album Project/Scrap Storage Solution

2009-07-15T15:59:00.000-07:00

Starting in September, I'm teaching a really cute mini album class at the Riverview JoAnn. Those projects, unlike this one, are made of nothing but cardstock (except for a couple of hardware pieces: eyelets, binder rings, and ribbon on a few of the projects). This one uses two plastic cards as the base of the covers. I'll go through showing you how to use these kinds of things in your own projects!

Gift Card Mini Album a la Kathy
Materials:
-2 credit card sized plastic cards that you can get rid of (I'm using an old DQ card and an old insurance card... just make sure you're not using a real credit card or any other kind of card with raised numbers on it. Your cards need to be totally flat.)
-Good glue, such as Scotch Quick Dry Adhesive (which I LOVE because it dries so fast!)
-Papers or cardstock for covering the cards
-Cardstock for inner pages
-Binder rings

Tools:
-Sanding block (mine is fine grit, picked up at JoAnn)
-Cropodile Punch and Eyelet setter (necessary for punching holes in the cards)
-Bone folder or BasicGrey rubon tool (optional)
-Ticket Corner punch (optional)
-Scissors

1. Start off by sanding your cards until they're no longer shiny, and you can see some of the sanding scratches on the surface.

2. Once sanded, your cards are ready to receive glue and paper! Put a bit of glue all over the surface of the card, but not TOO close to the edges. With your chosen paper wrong side up, press the card into the paper. If you don't want to burnish the card, then just push pretty hard and it should be good. To ensure a great connection, though, flip the card and attached paper over (before cutting!) and rub on the paper (looking at the front of the paper now) with the rubon tool (using the black paddle at the end) or a bone folder. This ensures that glue gets between the card and the paper well, and eliminates possible air bubbles (which aren't likely to form if you're pressing the card with glue onto the back of the paper on a flat surface, like I said before). Be advised, however, that you'll end up squooshing (the technical term) glue from the sides of the card by burnishing it. Just flip it back over and use your fingernails to scoop excess glue from the edges of the card. Let it dry.

3. Cut with the scissors as close to the edge of the card as you can without cutting the actual card, then sand only the edges of the paper so that they're even with the card. With the paper facing you, sand only down around the edges of the card, paying attention to the corner, too.

(Picture shows step 2 in progress [the DQ card] and step 3 already finished [the tan flowery paper on the left]) Once one side of the card is finished, repeat steps 2 and 3 on the other side of the card.

4. Decide where you want your hole(s) and make marks on one card with your desired front paper facing you. Using the Cropodile, center the mark in the 3/16" hole puncher and punch through the card. Decide which side of the other card you want to be the back of your album. Face that side towards the back and hold the two cards together, the front cover with the holes facing towards you, and the back cover without holes facing away. Sandwich both of the pieces into the cropodile, centering the previously punched holes in the 3/16" hole puncher, and punch the holes into the back card piece.

5. Cut pieces of cardstock for your pages (these cards measure 2 1/8" by 3 3/8"). I like to make two pieces of cardstock per "page" in the album. I've made seven pages for this album, so I cut fourteen pieces of cardstock. Before gluing their wrong sides together, I used my ticket corner punch to punch the corners of the pages. This ensures that their corners aren't sticking out of the edge of the album. Alternatively, you could cut each individual piece against one of the covers and get rid of the extra corners. I'm too impatient for that, so I just used my corner punch. I'd use the cover to cut the corners with my scissors if I was using only 1 ring and setting it in the corner.

6. Once you get the pieces cut and glued together, get your pages arranged in the order you want them in. Sandwich up to four of these pages (remember, two cardstock pieces per page, so you're actually cutting through 8 layers of cardstock--like butter! [oh, I LOVE my cropodile!]) behind the front cover and center the holes in the 3/16" hold puncher. Punch the cardstock holes. Take your remaining pages and do the same, so that all of your pages are punched and the album is ready to be assembled.

7. Using the binder clips, put your album together! Keep the front cover facing the front and the back cover facing the back.

Here's a shot of the album open. Isn't all pretty inside with those cute, muted papers and the corners punched out?

Now, you could ink edges or do any other number of decorative stuff to these albums. They are TOO cute. They fit 2x2" cropped pictures very nicely, and you could include some kind of sentiment or saying or whatever. Just keep in mind that when choosing your embellishments, keep them relatively thin and also remember that you can't really poke a brad through one of these pages (it'd stick out on the other side). If you do decide to do that, you have to design something on the other side of the page to cover your ends up. I have NOT found that it's okay to do brads or whatever before gluing the pages together. The extra bulk between the cardstock pieces distorts the final page every time.

STORING SCRAPS!

Okay, now here's a shot of my big binder of scraps. I love this thing! Since I started using it, I'm almost never cutting up new pieces of paper. In fact, the entire mini album I just made was made completely from scrap pieces in my scrap binder.

This is an awesome way to use what you have and stop being so wasteful, both in an environmental and a financial sense. I know that if you don't have a scrap storage system, you're probably like I used to be--with huge amounts of space in your area devoted to scraps, but they never seem to get used because it's almost impossible to sift through them all!

I use a 2" binder filled with 8.5x11" page protectors. I store solid colors in one protector, then directly behind it I store patterned papers or cardstocks that are primarily the color of the solid papers directly in front of it. For instance, in this picture you can see my brown section. I've got solid colors of brown on the left and papers that are primarily brown, or make me think primarily of brown (such as the large piece that is mostly blue and green, but all I see are the brown squares, so it goes in the patterned brown paper sleeve) on the right. You can see the beginning of my orange section directly behind the brown patterned paper section.

This way, when I go to do a project, I look first through all of my scraps and pick out pieces that will work. I am saving SO much money this way! And I know I'm doing something good for the environment. If it can help anyone else with their own paper issues, I'd be happy to hear about it! ^_^

Making your own digital chipboard/letters for digital scrapbooking

2009-07-10T21:26:00.000-07:00

So here is what I figured out how to do today while I didn't have enough time to get everything done that I had to get done. Well, if anyone benefits from this, I'll consider it worth it.

I used my Adobe Photoshop Elements 2.0, so if you have anything higher than that, you should be able to do this, too. I did some screen prints so that you could see exactly what I was clicking on in a couple of these shots.

First thing to do is grab a scrap of cool patterned paper that you have lying around. Either use that plain or rough it up like I did. Just crumple it several times, even sanding a bit on top of the crumpled pieces to get extra wear and tear, and you'll get a cool texture to work with in the program.

Scan the paper into your computer at 300 dpi or ppi and open the image up in Adobe Photoshop Elements (from now on I'm calling it APE... lol... that spells ape! Why do I find these things funny?). If you don't know how to do that, consult your scanner instructions or, if you're lazy like me, google "How to scan at 300 dpi with ..." and insert whatever the name of your scanner is. You should pop some instructions up.

Now, to create a letter, and using your little toolbar (either off to the side, like mine is, or up top if yours has merged with the top), click on the type tool. Specifically, click the "horizontal type mask tool" option on the little drop down menu that pops out, as the screen print below shows.

Once you've done that, you can choose your font and size (I chose 150 pt. Sophie MF... type 150 into the area where it shows the size option or whatever size you want if you don't see it on the drop down menu). Click at some point on your image and type the letter. It turns all weird and red, like the screen print shows below in my APE program.

Once that's done, go over and click on the Marquee Tool. That should make the red background disappear and let you see the letter shape selected. Once you see those little blinkie lines traveling around the shape of the letter, you can go up to Edit and click "copy", then over to File and click "New from clipboard".

You should open up a separate image that shows only your letter, but it's all cool and textured and looks very unlike a plain ol' letter. (Sorry to not have screen prints of all the junk I just said, but for whatever reason, the compy wasn't letting me do it, or I was probably doing it wrong.)

So just repeat the steps for another letter. Or, if you were smarter than me (which you probably are, especially if you know that technically, gramatically speaking, I mean, I should have said, "If you were smarter than I," instead) you could use a much larger scrap of paper than I did and type out an entire alphabet this way. Copy the entire thing, then open a new document. From here, you'll use the rectangular marquee tool and copy each individual letter, then open a new document, and save the letter as a separate file. Or you could just save the entire alphabet all typed in one layer and as you scrapbook, just copy and paste each individual letter you need to the document.

Here's a silly example I did, using a pic of me and my hubby from Valentine's Day this year. I put my name. Using the layer styles options (over in the tabs at the upper right hand corner of the screen), I went into the "bevel" options and chose "simple out" to make these look all 3D. I then went through the "drop shadow" options and chose "soft edge" to make it look even better. All of this work barely showed up on the dark background, but I think they still look pretty cool.

So maybe next time you go to buy a digital alphabet somewhere, you'll remember about this tutorial and be able to make some of your own. Hope it was helpful!

Oh, and I'm typing this pretty late at night after teaching a class at JoAnn and I'm not entirely clear right now, so if I left some gaping hole in the instructions, please let me know and I'll fix it post haste!

Tea Box with Chipboard Flowers

2009-06-25T13:09:00.000-07:00

I posted yesterday about my box I covered. I haven't finished it quite yet, but I did want to post some pics and show off what I did so far.

So here is a slightly blurry shot of my covered box and the teabox I used to make it. A week or so ago, I was staring at the empty teabox after using my last tea bag and thought it looked about the size to hold 3x5 cards. Turns out, it's the PERFECT size. Once I finish this box I'm probably going to give it away as a recipe card box or something. I've noticed that a lot of tea boxes are about this size, so you can check yours out. Maybe it could work for holding 3x5 cards, too!

I decided to cover the box using only pieces of scrap paper from my paper stash (except for the initial layer of cardstock I put on all of the faces of the box, for added strength), and more specifically only those scraps that were still on my desk, yet to be filed. I really like the way it turned out. It ended up having combinations I never would have thought to use before. I did a lot of sanding and really like the way it turned out.

I used my paper punches to create the cute little "chipboard" flowers (as described in yesterday's post).

And here are a couple of clearer pictures of the little mini albums I did yesterday. As I mentioned, these are examples of one of the mini albums I'm teaching in my upcoming class at the Riverview JoAnn. The letters and numbers are also "chipboard".

Being Cheap! Making "Chipboard"!

2009-06-24T17:36:00.000-07:00

So lately I've gotten hugely convicted, like a lot of people, about not only my personal finances and spending, but how much I effect this planet I'm on. Combine the two (serious budgeting and being more conscious about not being wasteful in my paper crafting) and you get my latest thingie--making "chipboard"!

Basically, I love chipboard. I think it looks awesome in finished projects, but I'm not so super fond of the prices. I also see the chipboard shape packs and think that although a lot of it is cute, a lot of it is stuff I'll never use. So I've gone for quite a while without using chipboard at all in my designs.

I'm blessed to have a Cricut Expressions machine. It's what I used to cut the letters in the little mini album project I have pictures of here. You can use paper punches, though, to achieve the same results and create your own "chipboard" flowers, hearts, scalloped squares, or whatever.

Basically, to make your own "chipboard", just cut four layers of cardstock in whatever color you want to be your base color. (I usually use cream or off white because it seems to look more like real chipboard, but other colors can look cool, too!) Just make sure you make all four layers the same color. I like to cut one more layer either in a patterned paper or another patterned cardstock. I like for them to be white core (white on the inside... you can discover whether or not your paper is white core by either looking closely at the side of the paper or ripping a small part of it... if the tear shows white, it's white core) so that I can create cool sanding effects.

Glue the underlayers of cardstock together, making sure to align them nicely. Glue your final piece on top and let it dry for a while before trying to sand. These aren't as sturdy as real chipboard, but they still look really cool, I think.

This first one shows the letters all lifeless against my plain mini albums. (I'm teaching a new class at JoAnn on how to make your own mini albums, another part of my budget/green crafting binge.)

Here are the letters with four cardstock shapes made for each one to turn into "chipboard".

Here are my finished mini album fronts. I decided to do the dates, too. On the smaller numbers, I did only two layers of cardstock beneath the top layer.

I think I'll post later on how I organize my scraps for maximum future usage. Also, some on my new vow to not buy any new supplies at ALL unless it's a consumable and I'm replacing something I've just used up. (Adhesive refills, glue, stamp ink, specific papers I use a lot [white cardstock, etc.], black pens, etc...) I'm not sure how long this is going to go for. But I've decided to do the best I can with what I already have. After all, constantly consuming more and more isn't just wasting the money I'm currently spending--it's really wasting the money I've already spent, too. Right? Because I'm not using what I bought already, it's essentially going to waste.

Anyway, so hopefully someone likes this idea and uses it. Ooh, I need to post the teabox I covered! I used some of my little "chipboard" flowers on that, too, and it turned out totally cute.

Digital Scrapbooking

2009-06-07T21:37:00.000-07:00

Lately I've been really into doing digital scrapbooks. I have learned that my printer (Canon MP480) is capable of printing borderless 8.5x11 sheets. WHOA, am I excited!!!! Below are two images of a two page layout I did in Adobe Photoshop Elements 2.0 (yeah, 2.0...) in an 8.5x11 format. They printed off perfectly on Canon Photo Paper Plus Glossy II sheets. I'm not being paid by Canon to say that or anything, but I have learned from personal experience that, yes, there IS a dramatic difference between the products made for your printer and products you may try to buy of any other brand. I'm more than satisfied.

I made this layout using the Barefoot kit over at www.shabbyprincess.com. This was a kit I bought (*GASP!*) because I just couldn't resist. I love the fact that this kit is really made to celebrate boys. There are far too few things out there meant to do any kind of craft projects for boys, as if moms of boys are any less inclined to craft about and for their children than moms of girls.

What I LOVE about the digital scrapbooking is the fact that you basically have limitless use of what kit items you get. For instance, I just made my entire title and a little subtitle out of the awesome distressed looking letters that came with the kit. I didn't have to give any thought to the fact that I was using up my letters in this project because I can never run out! Even though I use up paper and ink in printing these sheets, I'm technically not using as much as it seems because I'd be using a lot of this ink to print the pictures in these pages anyway.

For those of you who have a good photo printer, but can't print borderless 8.5x11" sheets, go with 8x8 sheets! You can print the 8x8 square onto a sheet of 8.5x11" photo paper and then cut it out and slip it into your album. I've been making an entire album for my husband for our 5th anniversary like this. It's totally cute.

Oh, and for anyone who thinks using the ink is too expensive--on my printer so far (I've been keeping an ink journal), I've printed 12 4x6 photo sheets, 8 5x7 pictures, 5 8x8 sheets, and 2 full 8.5x11 sheets and my ink is saying I've only used up half of it. My ink refills cost about $24.00 (I use the ColorXL, too... more ink for less money!).

So I'd encourage people to try out some digital scrapbooking! Go to my favorite digiscrapping site--www.shabbyprincess.com--for all kinds of free kits you can experiment with!

Covered memo pad with some product discussion

2009-05-23T08:19:00.000-07:00

Pictured here is my latest little project--the product of the first time I've been able to sit down at my craft desk in nearly a week. It's a covered memo pad, just a cheap little top-bound flip pad I picked up in the clearance rack at JoAnn after Easter this year. You can see the pads pictured below at the left. They came two to a pack for $1.00.

I won't go into project details on this because I teach my method for covering and embellishing these books in a class and I can't give away my secrets on this one. However, I will talk about how I made the bird embellishment, and some of the products I used.

You can see the Ranger Inkssentials Glossy Accents bottle to the right of the memo pad. This is one of my favorite things! I've tried other clear coatings only to want to throw them away (Aleen's Paper Glaze, for instance) because they, well... SUCKED. Ranger hasn't ever disappointed me before, and they have proven themselves worthy of my love again in this product. I remember when I first started using the glazes on my papers and I could NEVER find any information as to how long they take to dry. Here it is: Everything on these products says something about drying times being effected by the thickness of the coating. Maybe this is true. However, it alwayst takes at LEAST an hour for these things to dry, and if you do more than a very thin coating, expect to wait at least two or three hours. Point being, don't expect to set it aside for twenty minutes while you're doing something else and come back to it in a bit.

Also, you will never cease to amaze yourself with all of the ways you will destroy the glaze coating while it's drying. Take it from me, you will NOT remember that it's drying in your area and that it's wet. Just set it somewhere high and out of the way for a few hours. You'll be glad you took the time to do so.

Okay, and one of my favorite uses of all for this: GLITTER embellishments!!!! I'm actually talking about one of my favorite kinds of pens, again, from Sakura, called Stardust pens. They write with a glittery look to them. You need to look for the cap that is clear with just a hint of glitter and a shooting star on the piece that comes down (whatever that's called). THOSE are Srardust. If you get a pen with a cap matching the color of the pen that is all glittery--that's NOT a Stardust pen.

I love to stamp images and color them in with the Stardust pens, and then cover the colored pieces with the Inkssentials Glossy Accents. Once it dries, you are left with a really popping glittery look that will lend some sparkle to your design without lending its sparkle to everything else your paper project comes in contact with. (Glitter has been called the "herpes of crafting supplies", and while I don't agree with the bad rap glitter gets for getting everywhere [I've been described, in a positive way, as having "glitter on my soul", because I leave sparkling traces of my presence everywhere I go], I know some people [glitterphobes!] don't like that.)

These stamps, too, are my newest favorite set, purchased for me by my awesome mother in law (thanks, Sumolo! [I wonder if anyone thinks that's your real name? LoL]) at JoAnn called "Gem Stone Birds", by Inkadinkadoo. This stamp set lends itself so perfectly to the coloring with Stardust pens and glazing projects I love to do because they have little jewel shapes built right into the designs. Once colored and glazed, they really look awesome!

I apologize for these crappy pictures, too. It's been gloriously rainy and cloudy for about three days here in the Phoenix area (I saw one of my Facebook friends say in her status that she was enjoying it, and said to a relative somewhere else where rain is common, I think, that "this is like sunshine to you there"... I couldn't agree more. It makes me want to stay outside all day when it's all pleasant and overcast like this!), so the lighting isn't the best, but I was sick of waiting to post again, so here goes. ^_~

Love 'em! (Some random product discussion)

2009-05-19T14:45:00.000-07:00

I'm going to randomly gush about some of my favorite products, just because I feel like it. Now I'm in no way affiliated with any of these companies, and I don't get any commission from JoAnn for talking up any of their products, and not all of these things can be bought at JoAnn anyway. So here is a list of MUST HAVE products, just from the top of my head:

The first thing that comes to mind is the BasicGrey Rubon Tool. It's gray in color and has a roller ball at one end and black paddle shaped piece at the other end. It does SUCH a marvelous job of attaching rubons that this product is singlehandedly responsible for my current rubon obsession which is very great, indeed. They sell for about $6.99 each and I've found them locally at Scrapbooks, Etc. (Gilbert, AZ) and I've also seen them in Hobby Lobby.

Random Tip for Storing Rubons: I store mine standing up in a scrapbook file. If they get squished, the rubons can stick to the "non-stick" paper and come apart when you try to peel them away and get ruined. Don't ever stack anything on your rubons.

For rubber and clear stamping (mostly clear for me!), I absolutely ADORE almost any ink manufactured by Tsunkineko. VersaMark, VersaMagic, etc... I love, love, love the Versamagic Dewdrop inks. They're sold in packages of four at $9.99 each when they're not on sale, but they are often on sale when I go into JoAnn. JoAnn, as a rule, has a much better selection of colors than Michael's, and I'm not just saying that because I teach there. I particularly adore the set marked "Jewel Box". It comes with Perfect Plumeria (a rich, deep red color), Purple Hydrangea (an absolutely beautiful darker purple color), Spanish Olive (a warm, dark green), and Aegean Blue (a glorious sapphire blue color). The card at the left of my banner on the top of this page was made with the red, blue, and green from this set. I LOVE those colors!

For glue, I don't think you can beat the Scotch Quick Dry Adhesive. This glue creates a nearly instant bond from paper to paper (you have a few seconds to work with it, or reposition, but seriously... only a FEW), and will securely hold buttons and acrylic jewels and other little attachments to your paper crafting pieces. Probably my favorite thing about this glue is that it has a cap that will support the glue when it's turned upside down. I like to just use the cap like a little docking station. I glue what I need and set the glue upside down in the cap, not even screwing it back on. I get to go through my entire project that way very quickly!

I may come up with more products later, but those are the three that popped into my head today. I'm going to get a project together and photograph it using two of my other favorite products which I can't just tell anyone about--I have to show them off!!!

Clear Stamps Video

2009-05-14T15:12:00.000-07:00

Here's a little video I put together on how to work with clear stamps. Hopefully you'll find it useful even though it's not the clearest thing in the world. My camera is very old and it was cheap when I got it! LoL. But the information is good!

New Embellishment Project/Color Thoughts

2009-05-12T14:06:00.000-07:00

Mother's Day weekend has come and gone, and life is getting back to normal around here. My kids are blessed to have so many people to celebrate Mother's Day for, including a Great-great grandmother!

I'm hosting a Paper Party at my house this Friday night. I set out my tools and supplies and allow people to make whatever they want to for a while. People really love coming, and I really love getting things together for the party. This is one of the ideas I was playing with as a little inclusion in the gift baggie everyone will get. It turned out so cute, I had to share it on here.

Making your own embellishments not only saves you money and time (YES, time, because you're not going to the store and you're not shopping for hours and agonizing over which embellishments to buy because you have to stay within your budget and you can't get them all!) in your own paper crafting, it can help you in giving gifts to your good friends who are also paper crafters. I love to give my handmade embellishments as presents, knowing that it's something my friends will USE. And since paper crafters often give their own creations away, your present is like a double present--one for your friend, and one for whoever gets it placed on a gift from your friend. Awesome!

Anyway, in making these, and getting ready to post, I was reminded of what my students often ask. How do I pick colors? Well, I'm not a genius, I can tell you that. But I am aware. I look through things I LOVE and when I do love them, I take time to pick apart the colors that are present in what I love, and then I use those combinations in my work. For instance, color inspiration (dark blue, orange, red, and white) for this little project came from BasicGrey's Marrakech collection. To view this and other completely awesome collections from BasicGrey, go to www.basicgrey.com.

To do this same embellishment, you need the things pictured below.

Two paper punches, one larger and one smaller (or just use two punches that are the same size... really, play with what you have!)
VersaMagic DewDrops in Night Sky and Pumpkin Spice (I believe they come together in a set)
Sakura Glaze Pens, dark blue and orange (they came in a set together)
Red Marker
Flashy Floral Clear Stamp set from Inkadinkadoo! (My favorite set right now!)
White cardstock
Glue
Center embellishment: I'm using a dark blue button from a bag of tiny buttons I bought at JoAnn. (The last time I shopped for buttons there, I was pleasantly surprised at all of the new, cute colors I saw in the cheap bags of buttons. They used to only have a few, and now there are a lot more!)
1/16" thick dimensional adhesive... this is to keep the bulk of your embellishment down, and also because every store-made layered embellishment I've seen uses 1/16" and NOT 1/8". You need to look and make sure that it's thinner, or make sure the package says that it's 1/16", because most of the foam adhesive out there is 1/8". If you can't find tiny circles of it, just cut the pieces until they're small enough to fit under your chosen punch.

1. Punch your pieces out of white cardstock, or whichever color you choose.

2. On a piece of scrap paper, trace around the outside of the punched pieces with your marker. This will leave an inked edge look. Don't worry about it being perfect. I obviously didn't. (Look at the large flower.) It will blend in later. (This is the super awesome way of doing this that I stumbled upon just for making this embellishment, and I seriously cannot hide my excitement over the fact that I now have a superbly easy way for making the inked edge look on my punched and cut pieces!!!!!!)

3. Using Night Sky ink and the Pineapple stamp from the Flashy Floral set, stamp the larger flower. Ink a smaller portion of the stamp and stamp again to get any areas left white during your first pass. Clean the stamp (I use baby wipes) and let it dry. Ink a small portion of the stamp (enough to cover the smaller flower--you don't need to ink the whole stamp every time!) and stamp over the smaller flower. Clean the stamp and let it dry before you put it away.

4. Go through with your glaze pens and draw in some of the patterns left by the stamp. Use dark blue on the dark blue and orange on the orange. This is not an exact science--aim to color about 50% of the outer petals. If using the Sakura glaze pens, make sure you don't put ink in the middle of either flower (it will get covered up anyway, but could also interfere with some adhesives). I love the Sakura pens because they leave a slightly raised sheen that makes these embellishments look less handmade. You could skip this step entirely if you want to.

5. Using your Sakura pen, or another similar sized gel pen, shape the petals of your flowers. Place the pen in the center of a petal and curl the petal around the shaft of the pen. Repeat for all petals. On the smaller flower, do this same thing, but you may want to squeeze the petals slightly when you finish to give it more of a defined look. Just don't squeeze hard enough to leave a big crease.

6. Attach the top piece to the bottom using the 1/16" dimensional adhesive. You can eyeball it, but to dramatically increase your chances of doing this well the first time, use this little trick: peel only one side of the foam adhesive away and stick it to the back of the TOP piece. With the bottom part of the adhesive still covered, center the top piece where you would like it to be on the bottom piece. Look at it. Pick up the smaller piece and peel the adhesive cover away, THEN carefully place the top piece onto the bottom piece. I don't know why it works, but this is what I show my students, and every single one of them has more success when they do it this way. It's like your brain remembers where it's supposed to be and puts it there. Pretty neat!

7. Glue or attach your chosen embellishment to the middle. I thought this look just begged for a button instead of a jewel, so I used a tiny button that I bought at JoAnn.
All of the supplies for this project can be purchased at JoAnn except for the smaller flower punch. Hey, I don't get any commission off of my sales (I WISH I did, because I'd make some serious cash that way), I just say what I love, and I shop there all the time because I teach there. Hope this was helpful! Remember, check out colors around you and remember what you love, then include it in your projects.

OH, YES! To give these as gifts, I like to place small photo squares on the backs (if the punch is large enough). I just don't peel the adhesive cover off. When the lucky recipient of my embellishments receives them, they can the peel the cover and use the embellishment just like a sticker. If your embellishment won't work for this, just let the person know they can use a good paper glue like my fave, Scotch Quick-Dry Adhesive which is not just my fave because it glues really well and REALLY fast (the bond is almost instant between two pieces of paper), but the cap is made so that you can store the glue upside down. LOVE it!

May Card Exchange Card/Thoughts on Embellishment

2009-05-09T11:16:00.000-07:00

This is how I used the embellishment I did the demo for a couple of days ago. It's the card for my May card exchange. The paper is from BasicGrey, which I love, of course.

I also did a bit of doodling on the card front--something I never used to do, but seem to do more and more with each new design. A quick way to bring continuity to any card design is to trace the outer edges of the paper with a pen, the way I've done here. I know that I have to have seen it at least 100 times before it finally dawned on me it was there--it's amazing how it really does seem to bring everything together, and it's one of those extra touches, like inking edges, that you probably don't even notice, except to miss it when it's not there.

Hopefully people like it! I love to incorporate my handmade accents, especially the complex ones, in such a way that they're not necessarily center stage. I believe it helps accomplish even more the sense that it was something I purchased rather than something I made. Too often, I think, we make beautifully complex things and because they took a while, we want them to take center stage. Maybe the next time you do something like that, try making it just a supporting element rather than the main focus. Later on, when someone invariably says they loved the accent you put on the card, you can say you made it, and let them gasp and stare at it with new appreciation. ^_~

Free Digital Scrapbooking Paper

2009-05-08T10:18:00.000-07:00

Digital scrapbooking is possibly one of the most cost-effective ways of preserving your memories. Searching around on the web, you can find several awesome free downloads for doing your own pages. My favorite site with (I think) the best free downloads is Shabby Princess:

www.shabbyprincess.com

Here's a little page I made in my pathetic Adobe Photoshop Elements 2.0 program. Yes, you read that right. 2.0! I can't wait to get a newer version! It's a .jpeg image formatted to be 12x12 inches at 300 dpi. To lift this image, just right click it and click on the "save image as", then save it. Use it in PhotoShop or whatever other image editing software you have to create your own designs.

If you do take it, let me know! Feel free to use this for any of your digital scrapping needs. If you ever do use it in something or submit it to a magazine or whatever, I'd love for you to credit my blog. Otherwise, feel free to use it however you want, even as part of your designs to sell, if you do that.

Sakura Glaze Pens and Stamping Fun!

2009-05-07T14:33:00.000-07:00

I'm about to share something with you that is probably my most monumental thrill since starting to work with Martha Stewart craft glitters. And, oddly enough, unlike most of my past obsessions, it comes not in the form of product or tools, or really anything you can buy. My most recent artistic lover is the color combination: turquoise and red.

Turquoise and red were made for one another. I adore mixing cool and warm colors anyway, even though a lot of people say not to (gray and orange, for instance--a BEAUTIFUL look!). I think that part of what makes this combo work is the fact that Turquoise itself is a warm blue. And I love the look of turquoise with an especially warm and somewhat dark red. They just match!

With that in mind, I was in the process of deciding what I was making for my card exchange this month. I knew that turquoise and red had to be a part (I had just finished making five Mother's Day cards with this color combination front and center) and was absolutely thrilled to stumble upon this idea that I'm about to share with you.

Great artists aren't those who have the best ideas--they're those who have the best accidents.

(That was pretty close to brilliant, if I do say so myself.)

Supplies needed to create this exact awesomely cute embellishment are as follows:

VersaMagic DewDrop Chalk Inks in Turquoise Gem and Red Brick (they come in the same set--so smart!)--first picture
Sakura Glaze Pens (these are relatively new on the market, I think, and I absolutely love their fun look--the pens pictured here all come in a set--I used every color except the white and the dark blue)--first picture
Casablanca Clear Stamp set from BasicGrey (I LOVE BasicGrey!!!!!)--second picture
White cardstock cut into circles--2.75", 1.5", and 1.25", one of each for each embellishment. I used my Cricut machine to cut the circles, but alternatively, you could use punches, or just cut with scissors around your stamped images. I'll explain more in a bit about this because of one of the steps, so keep reading!

Okay, so this is what we're actually making:It's so much easier than it looks! Seriously, step by step... it's not that hard. And, yes you can do it. Yes you can. Don't argue!

Stamp your images as follows: the stamp shown above on the 1.25" circle in Red Brick. The stamp shown below on the 2.75" circle in Turquoise gem. Leave the 1.5" circle blank. Once stamping is complete, ink the edges of each piece as follows: 1.25" circle with Turquoise Gem, 1.5" circle with Red Brick, 2.75" circle with Red Brick. (The first circle in each image is without the inked edge, the second circle pictured shows the edges inked.)

Once you've completed the above step, assemble the piece as pictured below at left, and as described: Adhere the 1.5" circle to the center of the stamped image on the 2.75" circle, covering the lines. Adhere the stamped 1.25" circle to the center of the two circles with foam tape or other dimensional adhesive.

About the circles: You don't have to have some fancy machine or punches or whatever to make this embellishment. You can do it with scissors! Simply stamp the two images in the colors listed above and cut around them, leaving a bit of border all around. Please don't be crazy about trying to make it super perfect. "Perfect" is what it's called when you can make something without beating yourself up about how it looks the whole time. Consider the first one practice, okay?

Now, to cover the lines... Either you can try really hard not to get ink on them as you stamp (which is easier said than done in many cases), or you can do a technique called masking. You won't get the inner ring of Red Brick around the circle in the center of the larger design, but it's fine. Stamp the larger image on a paper. Cut out the center lines, discard the rest of the stamped image. Lay it down on your cardstock. Stamp over the piece of paper, making sure it's centered under the lines of the stamp (with clear stamps, you can do this!). Pick it up, peeling the extra paper away from the stamp itself if necessary. You've just blocked the inked lines from being stamped! Look how clever you are! Now you can move on to coloring the embellishment, which is, I think, the funnest part!

You need to be careful when using the glaze pens. Don't touch what you color/draw until the ink is absolutely dry, or you'll mess up the glaze effect. This is the main reason I work from the center out. If necessary, allow each color to dry before moving on to the next color.

Using the light blue pen, color in the center of the smaller stamped image and place dots along the outer edge of the intricate inner decoration, as shown. Place dots in between the flowers inside the ring on the larger stamp, as shown.

Using orange, color dots inside the intricate scroll work of the central piece, as shown. Draw lines coming out from in between the arches on the larger stamp, as shown.
Using the gray pen, color in small lines in between two of the rings on the smaller, center circle. It can be somewhat hard to do this one since you're coloring against the air, but you'll get through. The pens flow quite nicely! Color dots on the centers of the flowers on the larger stamp. Now color lines all along the outside edge of the larger stamp. Be careful to handle only the edges of the piece as you're turning so that you don't mess up the glaze before it sets--alternatively, you could let the lines on the middle circle dry and then use that to turn the embellishment as you color.

Now, using the green pen, color dots on the inner circle piece, all around the smaller stamped image. Color dots in between the gray lines you drew in the last step, again, being careful not to smudge any of the wet glaze ink. Now you're ready to attach your awesome embellishment to the front of a card, or for use in your scrapbook, or whatever!

Look at how fun the glaze pens look in the light. They shimmer a bit, and really add that "I so bought this instead of made it" look to your crafts which, I must admit, is what I'm usually going for.
Even if you don't have these exact supplies and won't create this exact project, I encourage you to experiment with stuff like this--working a tiny bit at a time to create something that looks complicated!

Maiden Voyage

2009-05-06T16:49:00.000-07:00

I'm a teacher at a local JoAnn store, and it's my absolute passion to share techniques and fun ideas with my students! This blog is meant to be an extension to those activities, and to anyone else on the web who may be interested in seeing some fresh content.

I'm an all over the place scrapper, a dabbler in nearly any technique I hear about, which makes me something of a wellspring of information. Not that I'm any kind of paper crafting guru--those people get in the magazines. I just look forward to helping anyone, if I can.

If you appreciate any of my posts, please leave comments. After all, comments are what keep a blogger going. No one wants to type into empty space.