Scrapping by Design

Yesterday I needed to gift wrap a birthday present. I thought I had wrapping paper on hand, but it turns out I didn’t.

I turned to my stash of craft supplies and found two sheets of scrapbook paper that were a light lavender in color with darker dots of purple.

Nice, but not very festive.

The recipient is fond of butterflies, so I found a large  butterfly stamp and some red die ink.  I stamped the red butterfly over both scrapbook papers, then stamped it on the accompanying envelope.

I added a couple of paper flowers to the envelope and placed a gold and pearl button in the middle.

It’s quite a nice look.  Given that craft supplies are more costly than gift wrap, I don’t recommend this as a regular practice. However, in a pinch, its a good substitute.

This hand made St. Patrick’s Day card has ribbon and stickers — plus a punched border, card stock, a stamped sentiment and some scrapbook paper.

It;s going to a 13 year old boy, so I stayed away from anything too feminine.

The checkerboard area is ribbon.

The green in the middle is scrapbook paper.  St. Patrick’s Day is stamped with a small acrylic stamp, and layered on green card stock.

The punched border going vertically down the card is made with the Greek border punch.

The leprechaun and tiny green shamrock are stickers.

I hope it meets with the boy’s approval. Who knows what kids of that age like?

Yesterday, I made this St. Patrick’s Day card featuring a stamped image of a carousel horse.

The stamp is Carousel Horse by Make an Impression, a stamp company located in Bellevue, Washington. I ordered the stamp from their online store a couple of years ago. I originally used it one year for Christmas cards. At that time, I made the horse white and decorated with red and green and gold punched shapes, plus a feather from my friend’s budgie bird.

I’ve been committed to using products on hand rather than buying new — a situation that developed when I realized my craft supplies were taking over my apartment and rather than using them, I was adding more and more.  Until I see a sizable dent, I am buying only occasional supplies such as glues and papers needed to match a particular project.

Therefore, I decided to see what I could do with the Carousel Horse stamp. I need five St. Patrick’s Day cards. They go to the teenage grandchildren plus a couple of  younger children that I send to.

For this card, I stamped the image with a watermark ink, then heat embossedwith chocolate brown embossing powder. I colored the horse with Twinkling H2Os and added a few accents with a glaze pen.

I used punches to make flowers in rose, pink and yellow, and another leaf punch to make leaves.  I put a daub of green glitter glue in the center of each small flower, then  used two sizes of shamrock punches to make the shamrocks.  The bigger shamrock at the top is stamped in black ink using “Top of the Morning”, an acrylic stamp from Studio G.

The white image is matted with green, which is 3D’d on the card. The card itself is a brown Bassill card stock with a layer of green,  tweedy-colored scrapbook paper.

This will do for four of my cards. I will have to make a different design for one of my St. Patrick’s Day cards, since two cards go to the same home.

I made this birthday card using a combination of stamping and a punched shape.

The pink card stock and the paler pink scrapbook paper is stamped Hero Art’s Leaf With Stitching Stamp. I used a pink die ink for a subtle background effect.

The flower is a punched shape, and I have placed a rhinestone in the center.

The Happy Birthday Sentiment is also a stamp.

It’s a simple enough little birthday card and looks better in real life than it appears on screen.

This hand made I Love You Valentine card is created with a lot of help from the Cricut 29-0001 Personal Electronic Cutting Machine.

I cut the I Heart You shape with the Cricut Font Cartridge, Mini Monogram.

The background is scrapbook paper, but I customized the solid pink paper by stamping with a Hero Arts stamp using a darker shade of pink for the ink.

The inner border is cut with a border punch.

The two hearts at the bottom are cut with the Provo Craft Cricut as well, and the string of pearls is something I found in my stash.

I think this hand made I Love You Valentine is going to go to my granddaughter.

This is an Easter Bunny House craft project that I made yesterday.

The top picture is the front view. The bottom picture is the view from the back.

It’s made using the same pattern as the St. Patrick’s Day House I made awhile back. You can get the pattern and a video tutorial for the St. Patrick’s Day House at this link and adapt it to the Easter Bunny House.

This time I added a little pink chimney with a tulip growing in it, and some little wooden shapes that they sell at Michaels. Otherwise, its scrapbook paper, some of it embossed with a Cuttlebug embossing folder done on the Sizzix 655268 Big Shot Cutting-and-Embossing Roller-Style Machine

At the back, I placed a small bunny picture that I decorated with the burnished velvet glitter technique described in an earlier post

This is a video demo of the Easter Bunny House. I didn’t show how its made since I showed that in the St. Patrick’s Day House video tutorial linked to above.

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’m taking a trip down memory lane today.

I discovered scrapbooking about ten years ago. My first album was a gift for my son. It contained his childhood pictures. My second album was a gift for the friend who graciously allowed me to be a house guest while delivering the album to my son in a different city.  My third album was an album containing nothing but pictures of flowers that I took around the Lower Mainland of British Columbia.   I love flowers but I have no garden other than a few pots on my balcony.

I called the album “Flower Power”.

This picture is a double layout I made showcasing the first crocuses of spring. I lay on my stomach in wet grass to get the pictures.

How things change. When I look at the album now, it seems very old fashioned and plain, by today’s standards. I was also fairly new to scrapbooking and was still learning the ropes.

Bazzill card stock in the lovely monotone colours was newly on the market — and like every other scrapper in Vancouver, I fell in love with it.

I choose shades of beige because those colors matched the browns of the dead leaves and twigs that surrounded the crocuses.  The title is simply “Spring Time” and I used Sizzix alphabet dies(borrowed from the scrapbook store) and added a little glitter.  Beige buttons were the only embellishment.

Since none of the pictures was personal to me, for journaling I generally used legends or anecdotes about the flowers.

For the crocus layout, I printed “The Legend of the Prairie Crocus” onto vellum. The vellum moved a little in the printer, which gave the printing a slightly fuzzy look. Usually this would have been reason to discard it and try again, but the fuzzy fonts seemed to match the fuzzy stems of the flowers.  Sometimes a mistake turns out to be serendipitous.

Here is the Legend of the Prairie Crocus:

“To enter the world of chiefs, Wapee was required to spend four days and nights atop a lonely hill until a vision came to him.

The first night, no vision appeared. But with the dawn, the morning sun bloomed upon a beautiful flower.  She opened her petals and turned towards Wapee as if to welcome him.

When night fell, Wapee curled his body around his new friend to protect her from the icy winds. Three times he did this and three times when the Morning Sun rose, visions came to him.

When Wapee left, he said, “You have comforted and counseled me well these past days and nights. What three wishes would you have me ask of the Great Spirit?”

“Pray that I may have the purple blue of the distant mountains in my petals, a small golden sun to hold close to my heart on dull days, and a furry coat to face the cold winds in the spring.”

The Great Spirit fulfilled his prayer.

And that is the Legend of the Prairie Crocus.

I’m curious bout other scrapbookers and their older works.  When you look back at your older scrapbooks, what reaction to you have?  In some ways, I’m embarrassed at my old layouts, but in other ways, I think they showed perhaps more originality than the ways I do today.

This cone-shaped holiday tree makes an attractive decoration in your home or to sell at a craft fair.  It’s also easy enough to make that it’s a good Christmas craft project for kids. That depends on the age of the kids, I suppose. Wee ones would probably find it too challenging.

I made this cone tree with poster paper for the cone and scrapbook paper for the tree. It’s decorated with small rhinestones.

In the video, my bigger tree is a little lopsided. Be sure to squash the cone into place correctly before taping it together. Learn from my mistake. LOL

I love making hand made greeting cards. I am less enthusiastic about the ongoing challenge of finding envelopes to fit them.

Occasionally, I buy the blank cards with matching envelopes that you can get at Michaels and other craft stores. They work quite nicely, but the size is limiting. Also, they are a little on the costly side.

Usually what happens is this: I make the card first, designing it according to how I see the card in my mind. Then I struggle to find or make an envelope that fits it. Here are some of the approaches that I have utilized to get envelopes for my hand made greeting cards:

1. I make the card using scrapbook paper, vellum, old wallpaper, the back side of gift wrap paper or items such as paper placements from the local store that sells ephemera. Check this link for free envelope templates and other templates as well. You can use your photocopier or your computer to resize the templates to whatever size you want.

2. I visit the Dollar Store before and after Christmas and buy boxes of Christmas cards that come with envelopes. I use the cards for making serendipity squares or for other crafting purposes, and save the envelopes. This is truly a good trick. If you are lucky, you may get 20 envelopes for a dollar. Even if its only a dozen to a box, its still a great deal.

3. I sometimes visit stores like the Paper Zone. From time to time,they have packages of envelopes on sale. Last summer I found some beautiful vellum envelopes selling at a very reasonable price.

4 When dealing with large, bulky cards, such as Hollyberryhouse medallion cards, I wrap the card as a package, using any paper large enough. I may include a thin sheet of bubble wrap to protect the medallion during mailing.

How about it, crafters? What tips to you have for getting envelopes for your hand made greeting cards?