Another Squirrel

Since I had taken out a variety of things to complete our current Squirrely Challenge, I decided to make another card.

My photo ended up crooked, but you can see the card. I really love the clock embossing folder - maybe I should use it more often!

Tuesday's Tag

My friend, Nancy, gave me this wonderful collection of patterned papers and embellishments from My Mind's Eye(Ruby). The papers colors of reds, pinks, white/cream and gray are very versatile. I decided on a French twist - I think this will make a fun addition to a card!

Maisons des Artes

was the theme for this year's Scramp Camp. My co-hostesses and I decided to spend the fee on a guest instructor at a local community clubhouse rather than at a hotel conference room. Since we planned to rent KJ's "Ranch House", we wanted to spiff it up a bit and go with a house (maison) theme. Part of the decorations were these mini paper houses from Club Scrap. They came in several color combinations, although we used the Halloween kits. KJ and Mariana kept to the Halloween theme (for the most part).

We put battery operated mini candles inside. I kept these two fairly simple - adding flower soft flowers to the purple house.

These three were themed. The black house was celestial with stars stamped and glittered, with the addition of stamp brads. The middle...Halloween-ish with Alfred Hitchcock (stamped on shrink plastic and shrunk down). The purple is a royal house with crowns and fleur-de-lis.

I will show the remainder in my next post!

Smash Book Part 2

As I mentioned in the previous post, I decided to make my own version of the Smash Book by K&Co. I used materials I already had. After cutting the cover and pages, I added 4 divider pages (cut from Club Scrap card stock) and 4 pocket pages. I also stamped and punched out tabs for each divider.

I pulled out my Bind-It-All and a length of coil. After deciding on the number of holes/length of binding, I punched away. I had not realized how many pages I was cutting - so the book is quite thick! I  quickly decided to add a bit to the cover with decorative tape and rubber stamping. The above photo is of the closed, completed book.

When opened, you can see the divided sections and tabs. On the back cover, I attached ribbon to make a pen holder. The ribbon is attached with 2 small brads. To cover the backside of the brads, I made a vertical pocket for miscellaneous stuff. I think this is an easily translatable project. You can make journal, sketch books, appointment books etc. Many of you probably have the materials you need on hand.

Tuesday's Tip

There a plethora of  decorative and colorful brads on the market. If you are like me, you probably have several colors and shapes. I often use brads as decorative embellishments on a card or page. But, remember that they work well in fixing mats to cards or scrapbook pages. After all, they were originally marketed as a paper fastener. With so many decorative uses, we may forget their original purpose.

Stencil Play

Club Scrap's Pro Scrapbooking League (PSL) is in full swing. This week's challenge involves the use a stencils. I thought I would make some cards using a couple of stencils, ink and Technique Junkies Millefiori technique from this month's edition.

On a 12 x 12 piece of white card stock, I inked a variety of flowers from Club Scrap stencils.

I trimmed the card stock into square panels to add to cards. In the photo below, I used 6 of the 9 panels to make 6 cards. On some of the panels, I added additional images to the originals.

Brads, ribbon, and Dimensional Pearls were used to embellish the completed cards. All card stocks, stamps, and stencils are from Club Scrap.

Tuesday's Tip

There you are in the midst of a creative maelstrom - supplies covering most of your work area. As you reach for your brads or eyelets, your hand is knocked by your stack of materials. Brads or eyelets end up all over your work area and, more than likely, on the floor/carpet.

Sound familiar? Trying to pick up little bits can be a real pain. I read this great tip from the October issue of VampStampNews: Use a magnet! Pat Smith submitted this idea and it sounded like it worked wonderfully. Give it a try - I know I will!

Tuesday's Tip

Seems I have been making a lot of floral cards lately. Do you go through phases in your art?  To add variety to stamped and cloth flowers, I often use brads in the center. Given the variety of brads - solid colors, glitter, rhinestones - it is easy to personalize.

Twinkling H2O's and Glimmer Glaze

After comparing Twinkling H2O's and Tattered Angel's Glimmer Glaze/Glam, I decided to try painting on white cardstock. I black heat embossed the flower on the same white cardstock. I painted the card on the left with Twinkling H2O's. I used a moderate amount of water to keep the colors vibrant.  The card on the left was painted with Glimmer Glaze. As you can see, the colors were more muted - almost like a wash.

Although I like both types of paints, I think I will use the Glimmer Glaze as a background or wash. It is hard to beat the vibrancy of the "Twinks". What do you think you would prefer, and why?

Glimmer Glaze/Glam and Twinkling H2O's

I tried Glimmer Glam and Glimmer Glaze at the the Tattered Angels booth at the Santa Clara Scrapbook Expo. I bought a couple of each and thought I would compare them with Twimkling H2O's.   For the make and take at the Tattered Angelsbooth, I used their preprinted acetate die cuts.  I stamped my own acetate with permanent ink for this comparison.

On the top card, I painted the tulip images with Twinkling H2O's.  I painted the back of the stamped image. The colors are vibrant and dried very quickly.  The card below was painted with Glimmer Glaze and Glam from Tattered Angels on the reverse of the image.  Although the paints dried quickly, the colors were less intense.  The "twinks' can be further diluted to lighten the intensity - I would not recommend lightening the Glimmer Glaze/Glam paints.

  For a color that pops, I would recommend the "Twinks".  The Glaze and Glam would be fun for a background or stain.  I also tried both on white cardstock that has the image embossed. Stay tuned for my next post!

Tuesday's Tip

During the past week, I had been using fibers and ribbon in a variety of ways. Either as an accent or frame, ribbon/fiber adds texture to your scrap pages or cards.

You can combine fiber with other embellishments to make a frame around an image on a card. Set your focal image to a matte using brads in the corners. Wrap your fiber around the brads for a quick frame!

Greetings-to-Go Part 2

As I mentioned previously, I resisted this product for years. But, I now really enjoy using some of the pieces and adding my own stamping and embellishments - rather than just using the pieces is the kit.

I have added punched images, other kit's/company's stamps, brads, and flowers.

The great thing about this product is you can make 15 cards that have their own envelopes. Plus, I often find I have left over pieces to use for different projects. The possibilities are numerous - cards, postcards, cards for gifts. The basic are all there - just add your creativity!

Tuesday's Tip

I periodically like to use brads to add accents to scrap layouts and cards. Sometimes, it is difficult to find the right color. No problem- you can color your own a couple of ways. Alcohol inks work well on plain silver. You can also color emboss over any finish of brads (I keep a collection of small brass colored for this purpose!)

Alcohol Ink Play

There is a ongoing challenge using Tim Holtz's Compendium of Curiosity. I have been incorporating some of the techniques with recent card making sessions for Club Scrap's PSL. I used alcohol inks and a craft mat for part of these 2 cards.

I used 4 different alcohol inks for this technique - Alcohol Ink Monoprinting. All the cardstocks and stamps are by Club Scrap.

Some Scrapbook Pages...

Club Scrap's Pro Scrapbooking League competition has began anew. I have signed onto a scrapbooking team and card making team, once again. This week, the challenge is stamping. Not much of a challenge to me, as I started as a rubber stamper. In the above page, I used stamps for my title and embellishments. The center of the large "daisy" has flower soft added over the coloring.

Once again, I stamped my title block. It is easy to line up the letters if you have a lined acrylic mount (which I highly recommend if you use unmounteds)

Tuesday's Tip

I was cropping this weekend for National Scrapbook Day with some friends. One of us needed a brad or paper fastener in a specific color that could be found. Have you ever been in that situation?

Metal embellishments are easy to color - using a permanent or alcohol in to do so. Sharpies, Copic and any other alcohol marker will work. You can also use alcohol inks from Ranger and Us ArtQuest.

Cardmaking

I've been in a card making frenzy in the past 2 weeks. Competing in Club Scrap's Pro Scrapbooking League has been keeping me busy! Here are a few of the cards I've made. The challenge was to stamp cards and use at least 50% Club Scrap products. The red-based birthday card was made using Chapter One kits Greetings to Go. I stamped the sentiment tag and the border swirls. The kit also came with a variety of ribbon (used on the tag) and colored brads.















This very bright card was made using an older kit - Bistro. The cafe scene was stamped and I added 3 circles with black gemstones.





The following week's challenge was for use to use any February kit - past or present. I used the most recent February kit, Artifacts, with it's stencil. I covered the stencil openings with Judikin's Microglaze - this forms a resist. I removed the stencil and placed the cardstock in a child's Spin Art machine. I turned it on and dropped Ranger alcohol inks onto the cardstock.