Wallpaper cards!

I hadn't made any wallpaper cards in ages, but when I found this design in a wallpaper sample book I just got from Sherwin Williams, I knew immediately what I wanted to do with it! For those of you who have never worked with wallpaper, I encourage you to see if your local wallpaper store will give you their discontinued books. At the end of each month, our local Sherwin Williams allows people to come claim them. I nearly always forget, so often there are no books. But I finally remembered a couple of months ago.

Anyway, I decided to use my cuttlebug for these. Wallpaper is not firm, so I glued it onto cardstock before die-cutting. :-)

Simple gift: wallpaper journal

I did not have time before the last craft fair to design any journals, so I decided to just to use wallpaper, and label them "use as is, or embellish with ...." I made ten all together, though I forgot to photograph them before selling, so I don't have all of them.

As you can see, I have a problem with the "wood" look: I evidently did not spread the glue evenly, so even though I weight the covers down heavily overnight, proper glueing matters!!!

I wish the spacecraft journal had photographed better; the wallpaper is simply amazing!

If you've never used wallpaper before, try going to your local wallpaper store; chances are they have retired wallpaper catalogues needing a good home! The wallpaper works great for mitered corners, and unlike paper, can be cleaned.

EDIT: I generally use PVA glue, which is meant for bookbinding. However, I do recall that I accidently used my Aleene's tacky glue for a couple of journals. It's possible that that was part of the problem with my wood-look journal. However, I know I did several journals before realizing my error, and only one other journal has a minor bit of wrinkling.

Fruit of the spirit journal

Vellum is always tricky to work with: not every ink will adhere to it, and some inks will spread a bit, making for a blurred image. Embossing looks great, but often warps the vellum. I weight it down after embossing for a day or two before trying to attach it if it has warped. I usually don't have a problem, but I once had a couple of cards I had to remove from the store ... I called them "botulism cards" because of the bubbling the vellum caused, warping the cardstock on top of it.

The wallpaper background made the choice of scripture obvious. :-) The fruit on the purple border is gold embossed on gold. It looks much nicer than the photo showed.

They that wait upon the Lord...

I love this chapter from Isaiah!

This set of journals I am working on is featuring the wallpaper more than usual, I normally just use it because it makes for stronger corners than cardstock. But this sky design was perfect for this stamp!

Journal time!

The coffee/gift shop in which I sell my cards needs some new journals. I am working on five, this is the first one I've completed. I wanted to use my friend Becky's aging-themed ATCs, but when I finished designing the cover, I realized the wallpaper I used was really more appropriate for the dieting themed ATCs. I hope I won't regret making this one!

Before punching the holes with my binditall, I put a flap-less clear envelope over the cover to protect it while in use.


Something I figured out in doing this journal is how I want to make pockets. I purchase cardstock almost exclusively in the 8.5" x 11.5" size, and to make a secure pocket by folding up a single sheet of cardstock meant either a too-short pocket, or a too-short page. I also wasn't sure how to make it strong enough for frequent use. So, I came up with this design.



I hope these instructions make sense: 3 5/8" seemed a nice pocket height, so I used a scoring blade to mark the line on the long side of the cardstock. Then on the side which would be where the coils are, I cut a strip 1.25" in from the top of the cardstock down to that 3 5/8" line. On the other side, I cut a 1.75 inch strip down to the line. I cut in from each side at the scored line, eliminating thos strips, and leaving left the center at the journal width of 5.5", with an 8.5" strip remaining at the bottom (picture an upside down "T". Folding the "bottom" of the "T" up, I folded the narrow side toward the back. For the wider side, I did a triple fold with my scoring blade at quarter inch intervals. I made a valley fold into the pocket, then the third fold to the back. This made for a deeper pocket. The finished length is about an inch shy of the 8.5 lenght, so I simply glue the pocket onto a piece of 8.5 x 5.5cardstock, resulting in added support for the pocket. I added the strip of wallpaper over the top of the pocket to keep it from wearing away.

copper buck

I had two of these bucks stamped with black embossing powder on copper glossy for probably over a year! I must have not been able to decide what to do with them at the time. When I rediscovered them, I decided to use a nicely textured wallpaper background.

Wallpaper books make a great resource for stamping! I am amazed at the wonderful things I have been able to use it for. It's great for journal covers; a good bit more durable than cardstock, and more flexible!

Ordination card

I've begun making ordination cards. My friend who sells my cards in her store told me that with all the tons of cards that various companies sell there, an ordination card has never been included. When I made my first sheet of stamps to sell, I remembered that, and made this
"Congratulations on your ordination" image.

Scripture is from Eureka, and the background papers are wallpaper.

Edit: Click on the "ordination card" label below to see an alternate version of this card in blue, and several different Ordination designs.

Wallpaper mailbox!

I've had so much fun with my papers, I really didn't consider using wallpaper. But in trying to make a non-frilly, non-pink, non hearts/flowers design for my dd Karen, I was coming up blank. I had made one in the post below, figuring she could pass it on to a friend. (I actually had thought of doing something humorous: I had some green lizard paper, which she'd get a great kick out of, but then, if she didn't want to keep it, who would want green lizards?). But then I looked through my wallpaper, and found this textured red. Karen loves South America, particularly Cuba, so a palm tree seemed like the perfect image! So, this is definitely not really a Valentine themed mailbox, but it's right!

wallpaper covered journal

The background of this journal is wallpaper. I have been using wallpaper on the back of every journal I make because it's so easy to dirty the back of a journal, and wallpaper can be wiped off. I'm guessing the corners will get less wear as well. This time I decided to use wallpaper for the cover as well, and I really like how it turned out. I used coordinating wallpaper on the inside and back cover.

I was short one soft gold brad, so I applied versamark ink to a bright gold brad, and embossed it with some really old gold embossing powder that had lost it's luster. It is a near-perfect match!

Text is from Biblical Impressions,.

Travel Journal

I don't know what to call the matt I am using. I found it at a craft going-out-of-business sale, right along with scrapbook papers, but it definitely is real wood strips. If you look in the lower left corner you can see that cutting the matting snapped threads. I plan to glue them down, but wanted to scan first; I glued them down once before, but in punching it with the bind-it-all they all came up again.

Wallpaper Fun

We've been away on vacation, and one stop was at friend's of ours whose daughters are learning to stamp. I had brought them a bunch of wallpaper to use for cards, and wanted to show them examples of cards made with wallpaper. (Our local Sherwin Williams used to allow anyone to take their wallpaper sample books when they expired). Unfortunately, when I went to my website to show the girls some sapmes, I realized I only had a couple in my galleries; I'd forgotten to upload them from a separate "wallpaper cards" file. So, this post is for them. The background is a very textured piece of wallpaper that reminds me of birch bark. I had a beautiful birch tree outside my bedroom growing up, and I absolutely loved to look at it. I hope it wasn't my fault for the times I just could not resist peeling it, but it was taken down years ago by the next owners of the house. I was so sad when I learned that! Anyway, wallpaper can be absolutely wonderful to make cards with!