Scrapping by Design

I made these Wreath Christmas cards using a combination of techniques: rubber stamping, heat embossing, paper layering, eyelets, Spellbinders Nestabilities Classic Scalloped Circles Die Template and ribbon.

They look considerably better in real life than in the scanned images.

I cut the wreath shapes with the Nestabilities dies, then stamped them using the Peruvian Lily Set by Rubber Stamp Tapestry. The set contains a dragon fly image, which I omitted. I substituted a candy cane stamp that I had in my collection since I was going for a Christmassy look and feel.

I stamped with Ancient Page die inks, then heat embossed the entire wreath with Versamark Ink and clear embossing powder. After having made several cards, I remembered a product in my supply shelf called Simple Shine by Simply Stamped Papers and Rubber Stamps. The Simple Shine was faster and did a nicer job than the heat embossing.

The sentiment is a stamp from Hero Arts.

I used various colors for the backgrounds — some red, some green, some brown and some bronze. All have four white eyelets at the corners and all have a small green, flower-shaped rhinestone in the middle. Ribbon varies depending on the background color.

These wreath Christmas cards went out to various friends this year.

This cute little stand-up Santa Claus Christmas card is made with a pattern from the Nov.-Dec. 2009 edition of Paper Crafts Magazine. You can download the pattern — and a number of others as well — from their web site.

The card stands about 4 1/4 inches high and 3 1/4 inches wide.

The directions say to cut all the pattern pieces from card stock. I modified that somewhat. I cut the card base, the face, the nose and the black shoes from card stock, but I used red and white felt for the body, beard and trims.

By felt, I refer to the low priced pieces of felt you can buy at Michaels for a dollar or less.  I like the felt because the card is going to a young child and kiddies of that age are very tactile. I think the little guy will like the feel of the felt.

I decorated both the front and back of the card and they are the same.  I wasn’t sure what the back of Santa’s head would look like.

I think these Santas would make awesome place cards at a Christmas dinner table, but it would be quite an undertaking to make several.  They’d also be a good craft project for a classroom or for a school.

Since the online files are available as a .jpg, you could resize Santa to make a centerpiece or any other decoration you wanted. Perhaps even hang them from the tree.

Can you tell I really like this stand-up Santa Christmas card?

We made this Thomas Kincaid Christmas Card with Burnished Velvet Glitter at Clipper Street Scrapbook Company open house. The scene is one of the Thomas Kincaid Christmas scenes, stamped in black ink.

We covered the stamped image with burnished velvet glitter. If you aren’t familiar with this technique, please refer to my video demonstration of Burnished Velvet Glitter.

We didn’t color any part of the stamped scene, but some of the demo cards in the store had been spot colored with  Copic Sketch Markers.  They were stunning.

I didn’t buy the Thomas Kincaid stamp because last year I made about 35 holiday cards featuring a snow covered house. Still, the stamps are lovely.

I made these pop-up photo cubes and the holiday ornament ball using the Sizzix BIGZ Dies 3D Ball PopUp.

Its cut on the Sizzix 655268 Big Shot Cutting-and-Embossing Roller-Style Machine, and you need a Sizzix extended cutting pad to handle the Bigz die.

If you haven’t used the Big Shot, I have to tell you it has quickly become my favorite crafting tool, right after my Fiskars Paper Trimmer. There is a video demo of the Big Shot at this link.

These photo cubes will be Christmas gifts for two little boys, and the blue ball makes a neat Holiday ornament. Although the shape lends itself well to Christmas and the holidays, these balls would work well at any time of the year.  Using black and white images makes a truly elegant photo cube, based on some pictures I have seen.

I like these little pop-up balls quite a bit. You can flatten them in an envelope or between folded card stock and mail them. When the envelope is opened, the balls pop up. The high tech items that make them work are good old-fashioned elastic bands.

The balls are easy to make, once you know how. I am not particularly skilled at figuring things out, so I confess that I struggled with the instructions for quite some time.

I have made video demonstrating how to make these 3D pop-up balls.

As for the photo cube, I have to say that sizing the digital photographs and printing them out to the right size and shape was a time consuming project, at least the first time I did it. It was much easier the second time around when I made the second photo cube.

Don’t know how to resize or shape your digital images to use them in this photo cube? I have a post describing how to resize and shape your images using Photoshop CS or Photoshop Elements.

In the meantime, how about these other great Bigz Dies at eBay? I need to win the lottery.

This Holiday craft project is a candy holder made with card stock, acrylic and a ribbon. It couldn’t be simpler, but of course, you could decorate it any way you choose.

The inspiration came from a make and take at Clipper Street Scrapbook Company, a craft store in Langley, BC. It was one of the make and takes at their annual Christmas open house.

In the video demonstration below, I used a Spellbinders Nestabilities Classic Scalloped Circles Die Template to cut the shape in the middle. At Clipper Street, we used the Spellbinders S4-220 Nested Pine Trees Die Template. That’s the one shown in the picture above.

One tip: if you’re going to do this using a die cut machine (I used the Sizzix 655268 Big Shot Cutting-and-Embossing Roller-Style Machine
), its a good idea to tape your die in place before cutting. Otherwise, it can slip a bit during the cutting and that destroys the symmetry of the candy holder.

Here is the video demonstration:

Although this little 3-D candy holder is made as a holiday or Christmas craft project, you could adapt it easily to make wedding favors, or to make a holder for Valentines Day, birthday parties, Easter, Halloween or any other holiday or special occasion.

These Christmas cards (0r Holiday) cards are easy to make, eco-friendly and economical. They can be quite attractive too, depending of course on your choice of papers and embellishments. They can also be considered “altered art” since essentially I altered an existing object to make them.

I used a box of Christmas cards from the Dollar Store, but recycled cards from last year would work well. Naturally, you can make from scratch if you want to cut card stock and fold it in half.

The papers I used are scraps from my stash, left over gift wrapping paper from last year and scraps of attractive paper that arrived in the mail.

Embellishments are stamped images, ribbon (gift wrap ribbon from last year), stickers, bits of lace and rick rack, buttons, paper flowers cut with a craft punch, hand journaling and pretty much anything else you want to use.

Here are seven cards made from the same design:

Here is a video demonstrating how to make the card. If you’re an experienced paper crafter, I doubt if you will find anything new in it, but if you are new to card making and crafting, perhaps you’ll be interested.

This season,  I plan on saving my Christmas cards that I receive and recycling them next year, as well as any salvageable gift wrap, stickers and ribbons that come into my home over the holiday season.

I was trying for something a little different the year I made this Christmas scrapbook layout with serendipity squares (or more accurately, serendipity circles).

I cut up holiday cards into little pieces, and glued them to the pages to form a wreath shape. I made sure to carry some consistent colors throughout so the “serendipity” would have consistency rather than a cacophony of colors. I used left over ribbon to decorate the wreaths, and I hung “ornaments” featuring mugshots and journaling.

I like this because it recycles cards and ribbon as well as keeping some memories of the holiday cards and ribbon received.

I’ll do a video tutorial some day showing how to make serendipty squares for those who have not previously tried this technique.

Thanks to Making Memories Scrapbook Store in Vancouver for this winter mini-album that is bound with the Zutter Bind It All.  I made it at a make and take that I attended a few days ago. Let me tell you, it was a great break for me to go to this little event. I had been struggling with a particularly nasty computer virus that took several days to fix and I really needed to focus on something more pleasurable than computer trouble shooting.

Anyway, back to the winter mini album. As you can see, its wire bound, designed with a blue monochromatic color scheme and decorated with punched shapes and scrapbook paper.

Here is a video demonstration showing the inside pages.

I love the Zutter Bind It All. I just wish I had waited and bought the new version that came out awhile ago. The new one can cut through more layers of paper or card stock at once, and can make wider rows of binding without having to stop and measure. Also, as they keep point out, its PINK!

Amazon carries the ZUTTER BIND IT ALL PINK VER 2 SCRAPBOOK & PAPER CRAFT TOOL

I’ve made these three 2009 scrapbook calendars from a Maya Road Chipboard Mini Album. They’re Christmas gifts for various friends, and each has a different theme.

I made a variation of the yellow one at a class run by Clipper Street, a Vancouver scrapbook store. I changed a few things to make it different and uniquely my own.  Most importantly, I changed the calendar pages from transparency paper to card stock. The transparency paper that Clipper Street used was lovely, but it is also quite costly to purchase, and may not be readily available everywhere. Additionally, not every printer can handle it. I decided card stock was a safer bet.

This class was over a year ago. I thought perhaps the Maya Road Ring Binder album was no longer available, but this morning, I received an email saying that Two Peas in a Bucket has them. Not only do they have them, but there is a sale on right now. Spend $35 on Maya Road products and you get some free embellishments. Here is the link to the Chipboard Binder Mini Album, 6 “.

These binders also come in other sizes, most of which would work just as well for this project.

Here is the video tutorial for this scrapbook calendar:

As for the calendar pages, I used a free template found on the Web. Google “calendar template 2009″ and you will get plenty of hits. The one I used was from WinCalendar. I also added the birthstones and the flower to each month.

These scrapbook calendars are attractive and functional. I have made mine as a scrapbook, in that they all contain photographs. Naturally, you could create them as an art calendar instead, using images or embellishments that you have created.

Happy 2009!

A hockey puck box like this one is a fun craft project for kids. They also make a great stocking stuffer gift for the young hockey fan in your life.

It’s so easy to make these little projects. Michaels Arts and Crafts store (and probably various other craft stores) sell the little round boxes at a low price. They cost $1.69 here in Vancouver, where I live.

You paint them black with craft paint, line the inside top and bottom with red paper or felt, then add hockey stickers.  The little blue skates came from Michaels also. They’re made of wood and cost something like fifty nine cents.

Here is a video tutorial showing how I made the hockey puck boxes. It shows a few other small boxes that I decorated as well.

These hockey puck boxes attracted a lot of little boys to my table at a craft fair awhile back.