Scrapping by Design

I made these three hand bound books based on instructions found in this book: Book Arts: Beautiful Bindings for Handmade Books

The one on the extreme right is bound with paper. The other two are bound with a faux leather fabric purchased at Fanny’s Fabrics, a fabric store in Vancouver.

I had a dickens of a time gluing to the faux leather fabric.  Although the fabric is sturdy and will no doubt stand up longer than the paper version, I would not use it again for that reason.

These books were designed to be Welcome to the World Books, a family heritage book that I designed.  I have made a different version of the Welcome to the World Book, using bookboard and the Zutter Bind-it-All. I will be talking about that soon, and showing the video that I made.

In the meantime, I am inspired to think about new book binding projects from the Book Arts book

PS: After I published this post, reader Lauren emailed me and suggested using the Xyron tape on the faux leather. Lauren said she has had great success using the Xyron adhesives with hard to manage surfaces . “That stuff sticks to everything…even glass and me!”, Lauren wrote.

It’s too late for these books — I’ve given them away — but I’ll be trying that next time, for sure.

This child’s birthday card uses a fold called the Triangle Fold Room. This card is based on a make and take at Making Memories with Scrapbooking in Burnaby.

Its a fast and easy card to make.  It would be a good craft project for an older child or for someone new to card making who does not have a lot of tools and supplies.

The monkey image inside is a pop-up. It is much easier to assemble than many popups that I have seen in the past.

The card requires only one color of card stock and one double-sided scrapbook paper with suitable images on it.  You could also use any paper you have available and cut images from magazines or other sources.

The sentiment is a stamped Happy Birthday.  A sticker would work just as well, or you could write the message freehand.

As for tools, scissors and adhesives are all that is needed. A paper trimmer such as the Fiskars 12 Inch Ultimate Craft Trimmer would come in handy.

Here is a video demonstration of how the fold is made:

You could easily modify these cards to make them appropriate for an adult or for any other occasion. They are by no means limited to being a child’s birthday card. I’m thinking I might use this design for my Halloween cards this year. I can visualize a ghost or witch popping up.

I made this altered art brooch using an irregularly shaped piece of CD or DVD disk.  It’s an example of Melt Art as popularized by Suze Weinberg.

To make this brooch, I heated a CD disk in boiling water until it was somewhat softer and easier to cut.

I cut it into pieces using old scissors.  If you try this, be sure to protect your eyes. Little pieces of CD can fly around when you make the break.

I painted the front of the CD using craft paint, then stamped an image using part of a stamp and black stamping ink.

When dry, I coated with about two coats of Ranger Melt Art UTEE Ultra Thick Embossing Enamel, Clear. I heated  it with a heat gun to melt the UTEE, and applied two coats of UTEE.

I attached a brooch pin on the back.  You can buy them at Michaels Arts and Crafts Store, or at other craft stores.

On some of the other brooches that I made, I punched a tiny hole in the bottom and dangled a charm through the hole.

This is a green craft project that makes good use of unwanted CD and DVD disks.

I made this heritage photo frame from two recycled CD or DVD disks.

The CDs are covered with heritage scrapbook paper, and there is a stamped frame as well, which is by Anna Griffin.

The instructions for making the CD album are found in my video, CD Mini Album

Altered art is such a wonderful way to recycle CDs, DVDs and other disks. This is one of the projects on my Squidoo lens, Green Scrapbooking.

Valentines Day is approaching so I decided to see what a Popup Valentine Ball would be like.

I made these pop-up ball using the Sizzix BIGZ Dies 3D Ball PopUp.

Its cut on the Sizzix 655268 Big Shot Cutting-and-Embossing Roller-Style Machine.

Additionally, you need a Sizzix extended cutting pad to handle the length of the Bigz die.

I made a similar popup ball ornament at Christmas. The video demo is here: Popup Photo Cube Using the Biggz Die.

I decorated this with ruffled lace at the top and bottom. I found it quite challenging to work with the lace as it seemed difficult to get the top and bottom parts of the ball to fit together properly and to “stay stuck”.

Other embellishments are circles punched from a paper doily, a pujchy art flower, and small flowers created with heart shaped punches. I gave the heart shaped flowers a rhinestone center.

I hung the popup Valentine ball ornament with a pink ribbon.

My Christmas gift giving this Holiday season includes these two hand-made garden journals.

Both of these garden journals are wire bound, using the ZUTTER BIND IT ALL PINK VER 2 SCRAPBOOK & PAPER CRAFT TOOL

If you are not familiar, I have a video demo of the Bind-it-All at this link.

I made the two journals using essentially the same design — but with a different style and layout orientation.

The first one has a light floral design, and has a portrait orientation. This book features coordinated scrapbook papers with matching beads, flowers and stickers that I purchased especially for the project. Therefore, the colors and images work together well.

The second has a rustic, grunge look which I hope will be reminiscent of a garden. It has a landscape layout.  I made this one completely from my stash, so I did not achieve the amount of coordination that the floral one has. Although the picture above does not show this embellishment, the rustic journal is closed with another Zutter product, a very nice little clasp, called the Bind-It-All Closure-Frame. You can see it in the video below. The rustic one also contains collage images with a garden theme, most of which I have covered with glitter using the burnished velvet technique.

Both garden journals contain places for seed packages, pages intended to hold photographs and journaling and decorated envelopes to contain receipts, invoices, newspaper clippings, articles, etc.  There are also several pages of graph paper for sketches, several pages of lined notebook paper for notes, and four miscellaneous pages that can be used for notes, clippings, sketches, dried flowers or whatever.

Thanks to various members of my CST Yahoo group who advised me on content. I am not a gardener and wasn’t sure what to include.

Here is the video showing the pages of the journals.  At one point, I make mention of a product called the Microfleur, which is listed on Amazon as the Large Microwave Flower Press For Drying Flowers. It is a great little tool for drying flowers and leaves in the microwave. Undoubtedly you can dry them without this tool, but the Microfleur does simplify things.

I made three of these garden journals, one right after the other. I truly hope the recipients like them. None are likely to visit my blog so the gifts should be a surprise.

Yesterday, I showed a video demonstrating how to make this 3D pop-up ball that you can make into a photo cube.

The second challenge is obtaining suitable photographs to attach to the photo cube. One way would be to cut shaped pieces out of your prints.  In my view, this would rarely work to your satisfaction since photos tend to be much larger than this small ball.

The better way, at least in my opinion, would be to resize and reshape your photos in an image editing program. I used Adobe Photoshop CS4, but the more affordable Adobe Photoshop Elements 8 would work in much the same way. Undoubtedly you could use many photo editing programs, but my instructions are specific to Adobe Photoshop CS. For others, you will need to figure out how to do the same things.

The first thing you do is either save the two shapes below in your own computer so you can open them in your image editing software program and use them as templates, OR scan your own two pieces into your computer and use them instead.

	To save these images, right click your mouse in the image. This brings up a menu with several options. Choose Save Image As, and save the file to your own computer.

When I made my first photo cube, I didn’t realize that that the top and bottom part of the ball are reversed shapes, so foolishly I printed out 12 pieces that were all the same shape. Talk about wasting glossy photo paper and ink!

Now that you have the two shapes, open them in your software application. I will say Photoshop CS from now on for the sake of simplicity. Make a copy of the two templates. Work with the copy and save the original.

1. The first step is to check and possibly change the resolution of the templates. If you are using my pictures, the resolution is 72 pixels per inch (or ppi), which is suitable to display on the web but not suitable for printing. If you scanned your pieces, the resolution will be different depending on how you have set your scanner. You need to decide what resolution you intend to use to print your photographs. A resolution of 350 pixels per inch is the minimum number I suggest, but even higher is better. I used 350 ppi.

Change the template resolution to 350 ppi (or whatever res you are planning to use). To do this in Photoshop, refer to the Image menu at the top of the screen, and go to Image Size. A window opens. In this window, be sure to put a check mark beside Scale Style, Constrain Proportions and Resample Image. When you have the three check marks, put 350 in the Resolution box and adjust the right side of that box to read Pixels Per Inch. Click Ok. The template is resized. Save it to be sure you don’t lose your work. To see it as it will appear when printed, to go the View menu and select Print Size.

2. Open the photo that you want to use. Chances are good that you will only want to use a small part of this photo, perhaps a face. In your ToolBox, select the Rectangular Marquee Tool. Draw a selection around the part of your photo you want to use. When that part is selected, copy the selection to your clipboard (Control-C). Then , go to the File menu and open a new file. It will open at the size and resolution of the image in your clipboard. Paste (Control-V) the selection in the new file.

3. You must now change the size and resolution to fit into the template. Using the same procedure that you used earlier, open the Image Size window and change the resolution to 350 ppi, or whatever you are using. In the part that says document size, change the width and height to approximately the same size as the template. The template is 2.4 inches by 2 inches. Your photo can be a little larger than the template, but it should not be smaller. Click OK. Change the view to Print Size as you did before.

3. Copy Selection to Clipboard. With this new file active, go to the Select menu and choose Select All. Then, copy (Control-C) this to your clipboard.

4. Paste the Selection into the Pink Template. Activate the Template by clicking on it. Using the ToolBox, select the magic wand tool. Click it in the pink part of the template. This will select the pink part but not the white. With the pink selected, go to the Edit menu and choose Paste Into. Voila! Your picture appears INSIDE the pink selection. It may be off kilter, however. To rearrange it, select the tool that you use for moving things. I don’t know the name of it but it appears directly beside the Marquee tool. It has a small triangle with an X underneath it. Move the image around inside the shape until it is positioned to your satisfaction.

If you are dissatisfied with your image, you may need to repeat the steps using a different selection from your picture.

5. Save your Image for Printing. When satisfied, refer to the file menu and save your file as a JPEG or jpg.

6. Repeat this procedure another five times with five different pictures. To remove the previous photo from the pink template, I refer to the History window. I delete the history from the entry that says Paste Into. This gives me the original template with its pink middle, ready go work again.

7. Repeat the same procedure with the reverse template, creating six files for printing.

Color Tip: Should you want to print your pictures in black and white instead of in color, you simply go to Image->Mode-Grayscale. Alternatively, your printer may have a function that allows you to print color images in black and white. Use whichever is simpler for you.

Printing Tip: If you have Ms Office on your computer, you should have a software application called MS Publisher. I open a blank page in MS Publisher, then insert my 12 pictures for printing. You can move them around on the page to be sure you aren’t wasting expensive glossy photo paper. Print when you have your pictures arranged on the Publisher page.

And this is how I modified and printed my digital photos for the photo cube.

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.

I made a posting a couple of days ago about the Halloween House project that I made.

Today I took a notion to make a little video of the house. It’s a good way to show the four sides in a way that a still image cannot.

Here’s the spooky little video now:

I have a video demonstration showing how I made the Halloween house. It was for St. Patrick’s Day, and I also made one for Easter.