I have always struggled with tying bows. My bows tend to be lopsided and crooked. I found these great video tutorials on YouTube that demonstrate how to make foolproof bows using a fork as a tool.
And here are a few more fork-bow videos that are useful:
A few days ago, I posted pictures of a mixed media floppy hat that I had made for a swap.
On the weekend, a bouquet of long stemmed roses found its way to my house.
Low and behold, the roses were the exact same color as the ribbon and trim on the floppy hat.
I had to take a picture of them together, and this led to the decision to make a video showing how I made the hat.
Incidentally, the picture has been edited in Adobe Photoshop Elements 10
, only to clean up the background. I took the picture with the roses against a wall and sitting on a carpet. The carpet did nothing to enhance the picture so I removed it and added the cloud-like effect instead.
This is the cover of an envelope book I made for a swap at Art for the Creative Mind group on Yahoo. The theme of the book is Things I Love to Hear.
I opted to go with a humorous approach, so I made a list of some of the things I like to hear in terms of comments or compliments. I suspect my list would be similar for a lot of women.
I include such messages as “No, the dress doesn’t make you look fat’, “There are no calories in this cake”, “There are no mosquitoes this summer”, and more.
I used eight envelopes and covered them with scrapbook paper. The main colors used are brown, cream and turquoise. To bind, I dyed binder rings blue using alcohol links and punched holes with the WRMemory Keepers Punch and Eyelet Setting Tool.
Here on the front cover, I have used an image from The Graphics Fairy blog. I have added a painted chipboard flourish to which I added a large, pearl brad, and a number of quilled chrysanthemums.
I made the chrysanthemums using the Chrysanthemum Cuttlebug Quilling Kit, which I cut on the Big Shot. I have done quilling before, but this kit really takes a lot of the grunt work out of it. I love these flowers.
As far as I know, Cuttlebug has three kits: the rose/carnation kit, the daisy kit and the chrysanthemum kit. I have the rose and the chrysanthemum and I may get the daisy at some point.
Anyway, back to the envelope book. I have made a video, which is on the fuzzy side. I apologize for this. I bought a new computer a little while ago and had to replace some of my software. As part of this modernization process, I purchased Adobe Premiere Elements 9 to use for video editing.
It’s much more powerful than Windows Live Movie Maker, but it does come with a learning curve. This video was my first try and as yet, I do not have the software mastered. Expect to see improvement down the road. LOL
There are, of course, many ways of making an envelope book. This is only one of them. It strikes me that an envelope book is form of altered art, given that you are altering envelopes.
A few days ago, I posted a picture of a holiday snowflake ornament made using the Fleur de Lis Pendant from Spellbinders.
Today, I’ve made another one, this time using white and gold papers, and mounting the design on a ribbon spool. As I have mentioned previously, this design is created by AmazingPaperGrace.com.
I have made another fun discovery about these Fleur de Lis pendant dies. They make beautiful snowflakes when cut from waxed paper. I’ll be doing more with this another day.
This project is a combination anniversary scrapbook and guest book. I made it on request of a woman who is planning an anniversary party for someone’s 20th anniversary. She intends to pass the book around so guests can view the pictures in the scrapbook, then sign and leave a comment in the empty pages at the back.
I chose a ring-bound 8 inch by 8 inch album with a cover of black felt with silver threads running through. The ring bindings made it relatively easy to add the Guestbook pages at the back.
My instructions were to put a picture on the album’s front cover, and to use a simple design. With that in mind, this is the project I came up with:
I have attempted to make the facing pages complement each other, picking up colors and using similar scrapbook paper, card stock and embellishments. The entire book leans heavily to a red, white and black color theme. Those colors seem to match with almost of all of the photographs, and I’m told red is the wife’s favorite color.
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.
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.
This hand made birthday journal was inspired by a project I saw on a crafting community called Life on the Scrap Beach.
The journal is called My Year, and its a gift for a friend’s birthday.
I made the project 100% from my stash, since I’m trying to use up the supplies I already have before I buy yet more. The downside of stash-using is that not all pages coordinate well. The upside is that in addition to saving me some money and reducing the piles of craft supplies in my home, it also forces me to use more hand made embellishments and to strive for more creativity in design.
I’ve never been a huge fan of the Cricut because for quite some time I could not get it assembled correctly. Now that its working the way it should, I am warming up to it.
Here is my video demo of my hand made birthday journal:
I have used a number of techniques that I have demonstrated in other videos. People new to crafting or people unfamiliar with the tools and techniques might want to check them out: