Simple Cards: My Creative Scrapbook

I think my favorite part of kit work - besides excitedly opening each new DT box - is near the end when I gather the scraps from my projects to make a card.  By then, I know the line I'm working with really well. I know which patterns I like to mix and match and I have a lot of freedom.  The layouts I obsess over are done and there are no photos to edit. It's just me, some scraps, glue and my imagination.

I have a clean style so my imagination doesn't really have to work too hard...Below are cards I made with leftovers from two different November kits at My Creative Scrapbook 

The first is from the Creative kit, which featured the lovely Walnut Grove line from Pebbles:

I admit: I unabashedly love the pennant craze.  I made the "thank you" pennant by folding a sticker around a long toothpick. 

The soft muslin pennants under the vase are Pink Paislee trim.  The bottom row is natural (straight from the packaging) and the top row is misted to match the flowers.  

The second card is from the Album kit, which featured The Good Life, a pretty new line from Fancy Pants. I really loved the colors and the punch of black. 

I thought this card was perfect for retirement.  I used a very simple design, just stitching patterned paper on part of a card, then adding a tag. 

To make the tag, I started with a plain white shipping tag.  I used a zig zag stitch around the edges just for a hint of texture and added a ribbon to cover the reinforcement hole at the top. Then, I added a sentiment sticker and a piece of chipboard that overlapped the tag and grounded it to the card. To finish, I added a couple buttons for bicycle wheels.

My Creative Scrapbook features four different kits each month.  Here's a photo of the two November kits I used.  You can find out more about these kits, including a Christmas special, here.

Thanks so much for stopping by!

Altered Frame: Hexagon Punch

Hi!  Today I have an altered summer frame using hexagons as my backdrop. 

For my project, I altered an old picture frame. I used patterned paper from Canvas Corp and Bella Blvd, cutting them with a hexagon punch, and adhering them them to black cardstock. 

I used seven patterns from Canvas Corps White Basics line and two patterns from Bella Blvd’s Sunshine and Happiness collection for the base of my project.

Then I used a hexagon punch from Creative Memories to punch a bunch of shapes for the base of my project.

I arranged the the hexagons on black cardstock and stitched around the edges to form the base of my project. I love the way the black makes the color pop. Using black also gives the project more depth when inserted in a frame.

Here's a closeup of the top of the altered frame.  I used a large burlap flower from Canvas Corp as the sun and added a tag as a title spot.  Alphas are Webster's Pages.  Banner pieces are October Afternoon.

Here’s a closeup of the bottom of the frame. I added a photo of my son in the pool and a piece of chipboard from My Mind’s Eye to the hexagon background. On the frame itself, I added waves punched from Canvas Corp paper and a large felt flower. I wrapped some burlap string around the flower stem to echo the burlap sun at the top.

Thanks so much for stopping by! 

Gathered Ribbon Flower Tutorial and Sneak Peek

I'm really honored to be a guest designer for the August kit of Freehand Scraps. The new kit is chock full of yummy goodies, which I can't reveal quite yet. But I can show you a few sneak peeks.  Today, I am going to show you how I used a few products in the August kit to make a gathered ribbon flower.

One of the items in the Freehand Scraps kit is this Crate trim from the "Neighborhood" collection. Love Crate trims! I used the shell-colored ruffle ribbon to make my flower. This trim is perfectly suited for flower making because it has the nice elastic at the bottom, which is easy to run a needle through.

I used orange embroidery thread here so you can see my stitches. The stitches won’t show so you can use any color thread you have on hand. Make sure you tie a good knot at the end of your thread because you will have to pull on the ribbon to gather it.

Use your needle to make long running stitches on the elastic part of the trim. After you’ve stitched the length you need for your flower, use your fingers to gently gather the trim. The ribbon will naturally curl into a circle. You can make your gathers tight or loose, depending on the look you prefer. Once you have your circle, either backstitch or tie a knot in the other end of the thread to secure it. Then stitch the two ends of the ribbon together to hold the circle. Don’t worry about stitching neatly because none of the stitching will show once you add a decorative center.

The ribbon was a little too pink for my project, so after I had gathered the flower, I misted it with Tattered Angels’ “Peach Delight.” I love the way you can use mists to color ribbon and trim.  I always mist lightly first, then again if I want more color. The photo above shows the flower after a first spray with mist.  To give the flower a deeper hue, I misted it again.

The last step is to embellish the center. I used a small circle sticker from Basic Grey’s “Out of Print” collection topped with an adhesive pearl. Both the sticker sheet and adhesive pearls were in the August kit.  After my flower was completed, I used it as a decorative center on a die cut butterfly to mimic the butterfly wings in my photo.

Now you have a sneak peak at one of my Freehand Scrap projects. I'll post the full layout next week. 

A Summer-themed Project

I am primarily a layout maker, but I really do love to absorb myself in altered projects every now and then. I had the best time playing with Echo Park’s fun summer lines and a Tim Holtz configurations box for this project. This is the finished box.

And here are the steps I used to make it.  When, I opened the package, I found an outer box with a lid and several small inner boxes. You can configure the inner boxes in different ways or you can leave some out as I did. 

First, I used a thin layer of inexpensive white acrylic paint from a craft store to white-wash the inner boxes and outer frame. 

Next, I pulled out some mists from Tattered Angels, tested the colors on plain white paper flowers, then began misting the box. I laid some netting over one corner as a mask.

The last step was to gather some journaling cards and stickers from Echo Park. I used three different lines: Summer Days, Little Boy and Playground, putting things at different layers and heights in the box. Then I borrowed a white convertible Matchbox car from my son for the bottom right and raised the car on foam squares.

After the inner boxes were decorated, I glued them in and covered the project with the frame I had misted. The last step was to add a few Echo Park stickers to the outer frame. Below is a more detailed look at the left and right sides of the configurations box.

This project was featured on the Echo Park blog on 6/2/2011.  You can find the EP blog entry here:  http://echoparkpaper.blogspot.com/2011/06/i-spy-echo-park.html#more