Scrapping by Design

Today’s mail brought this delightful birthday card from Pat Rose, another member of CST (Canadian Stamp Talk) email group.

This is such a fun card. The scanning distorted the color somewhat. The real thing is much nicer than this picture.

The little mouse is a stamp. The coloring may be Copic markers. Financial considerations have stopped me from investing in Copics, but I certainly love the look of them.

The balloons are punched shapes and the word party appears to be punched as well.

This birthday card is charming.  Thank you to the sender.

Be Inspired is a new, online craft publication from a UK publisher, Trimcraft. It’s 100% free to subscribe. They send you a notice by email when each new edition goes up.

I love the UK and Australian craft magazines. Their projects seem to appeal to me.

If you like them as much as I do, you’ll like Be Inspired. The first edition came out a few days ago. The feature project is a Smirk-inspired Advent Calendar.

Here’s the link: Be Inspired craft magazine.

This Easter card also uses a picture of collage art — a cute bunny in a garden, courtesy of Crafty Secrets.

I’ve used the burnished velvet glitter technique again, layered the image on purple shiny paper, then did some layering with blue and white checkerboard scrapbook paper.

I have a couple of embossed borders made with the Cuttlebug Frills embossing folder.

A white satin bow completes the look. I may decide to put three white buttons vertically, along the strip of blue and white checkerboard embossing.

The jury is still out on whether I will do that or not.   Buttons can add bulk which can create problems with Canada Post, and this card will be mailed across Canada.

I’ve just received notice that the Pergamano Company has published some free Pergamano craft patterns for Easter.

If you aren’t familiar with Pergamano Parchment craft, I have a video demonstration here: Pergamano Parchment Craft Video Tutorial.

The patterns are at this link: Free Pergamano Patterns. They also have some pretty free patterns for colored bears and a few other things.

Anyone wanting some beautiful images for St. Patrick’s Day art work, you’ll do well to check out The Original Printables Holiday Countdown, published by artist Lisa Vollrath.

Lisa has some terms and conditions, but those terms are more than reasonable. She asks only that you post a link in your blog or on a forum or email group in exchange for downloading the graphics. Also, the graphics are for personal use only, and cannot be used on a project you intend to sell.

I intend to edit these images using Photoshop CS or Adobe Photoshop Elements 10 and use them in one or two St. Patrick’s Day projects. No doubt I’ll post pictures and possibly a video of what I make.

I made this background paper at a make and take at Making Memories with Scrapbooking in Burnaby last week. It’s made with acrylic stamps, die inks, the Provo Craft Cuttlebug Machine and an embossing folder which I think was the Stylized Flowers folder.

The embossing doesn’t show up well in the scan, but it is truly lovely. The flowers are stamped using acrylic stamps with three colors of die inks.

Actually, the make and take had some more steps but I preferred the paper the way it is so I stopped at this point.  From here, should anyone want to try the real thing, the store staff member rubbed black ink here and there over the paper, leaving black smudges. She then used Versmark’s new Champagne watermark ink to give a shimmer to the flowers. I liked the Versamark effect okay, it was the black smudges that didn’t do it for me.

Apparently this years CHA show introduced two new colors of Tsukineko Versamark  — Tsukineko VersaMark Watermark Ink Stamp Pad Large Dazzle Frost and Tsukineko VersaMark Watermark Ink Stamp Pad Large Dazzle Champagne.
These inks produce a glimmer effect when stamped, or when rubbed over other elements in the paper. Champagne works on light colored paper; Frost works best on dark paper.

I’m getting more and more interested in the Cuttlebug. This last embossing sample really appealed to me.

This Coffee Sleeve Valentine Card was a project for a kid’s craft workshop that I did on Saturday.  For that reason, its designed and decorated very simply, but obviously you could make it as sophisticated as you wanted.

I like this Valentine craft project because it uses recycled sleeves from Starbucks and other coffee houses. I’m a fan of anything recycled.

I suppose you could also call it altered art if you wanted to make it more elaborate. I wouldn’t go so far as to call this example “art.”  LOL

The “I Love You” embellishment on the front was cut from the Cricut Machine using the ; Mini Monograms cartridge.  The hearts inside the card are cut with the Cricut Cartridge: George and Basic Shapes

Here is the video tutorial for this hand made Valentine:

The great thing about scrapboooking is that it can lead you into so many other paper crafts as well — including experimenting with ideas and items that you find in your home or in your daily activities.

The concept of this Five Things I Love About You mini album has been around for awhile, but I decided to revisit it as a Valentine craft project.

I believe I first learned this project at a workshop at Clipper Street Scrapbook Store in North Vancouver — many years ago!

I’m doing a crafting workshop with a group of eight year olds on Saturday, and this is one of the projects they’ll be making. I have created kits for the kids, so essentially all they have to do is glue things together.

The pages of this mini album are made from coin envelopes with the flap cut away. Each envelope contains a tag numbered one through five. Each tag has a space where you can write one thing you like about the person who will receive the project as a gift.

The numbers on the tags and the Number Five on the cover are cut with the Provo Craft Cricut Expression and the Mini Monograms cartridge.

I printed the text from the computer, using the Calvin and Hobbs fonts, then tinted the white card stock a pale pink using decorator chalk.

I think it works well as a Valentine project, although obviously by changing the paper you can make a gift that’s suitable year round.

Here is the video tutorial for this Valentine craft project.

Over the years, I’ve made several of these Five Things I Love About You mini albums. It  it continues to be one of my favorite craft projects.

I absolutely love the cards made with Holly Berry House medallion art stamps. These three  heart medallion cards are made with their Hearts and Stripes stamp.

This link leads to the Video Tutorial for the Heart Medallion Card.

These medallion cards take a fair amount of time to make. They’re great for people who enjoy heat embossing, precision cutting with scissors or a clipping tool and applying glitter.

Obviously, you can apply as many layers of matting as you want, and add as many layers to the medallion at the stamp allows. I have used six layers of matting (including the card base) and seven precision cut layers for the medallion.

I’ll be sending these cards for Valentine’s Day. So far, I’ve made six, each essentially the same design but each somewhat different in terms of colors and layering.

The heart medallions are good for Valentine’s Day. They’re also a lovely card, wall hanging or memento for any time you want something a little special.

Oh, and if you don’t know how to do heat embossing, I have a free video tutorial on this blog called How to Do Heat Embossing.

Holly Berry House has a lovely selection of art stamps — some with medallions and some with other layering effects.  I have made five of them so far,  including the Holiday Drummer Boy card.

The holidays are barely over and I have people with  birthdays coming up.

That means its time for me to start making my hand made birthday cards. I made four of the ones shown here. They’re made with Outline Stickers. I can’t remember the brand. Possibly it is Magenta. The package has two sets of dresses, purses, gloves, shoes, necklaces and flowers.

For the first card, I applied the gown sticker to a sheet of floral patterned scrapbook paper. Next, I cut it out and adhered it to my layered card stock.  I added the shoes, necklace, purse and a few flowers and stamped Happy Birthday along the side.  Finally, I added a bit of color with a red glazed pen.

For the second card, since I could not find my special tape that you buy to transfer the reverse side, I simply cut out the gold outline, complete with the white interior, and adhered the entire thing to the card.   I did the same with the accessories.

I’m hoping these hand made cards with the elegant gown will be a hit with the young teenage gals that I give cards to every year.