Memo Board Class

Spend a fun afternoon creating a unique magnetic memo board and magnets to match.  You can use the memo boardfor notes, calendars, scrapbook ideas or pictures that make you happy.   I’m going to use mine to hold all my Sizzix Movers & Shapers  dies so  I’ll be able to see them all at once as I plan a scrapbook page.

During the class you'll learn techniques that you can use to make other memo boards or in other papercrafting projects.  For example, you'll learn how to make flowers with ribbon and glubers.  We'll use a variety of materials. 

You don’t need a lot of special tools so once you learn the techniques you’ll be able to make memo boards for children’s rooms, gifts, your office.You are limited only by the available scrapbook paper. Let’s face it there is always more scrapbook paper that you’d love to use so join us for a fun and productive afternoon. 

The class is Sunday May 6^th from 1:00-4:00pm.   To sign up, call ScrapbooksPlus at 703.263.9503.  Better yet stop by the store and you can see all the new items and sign up while you are there. 

A Snowy Valentine's Day Card

I really wanted to make a Valentine’s Day card this month but when I saw the papers with blues, greens and browns, it appeared that this was not going to work.  Then I saw one of the Cardstock Stickers in the set  said “I’d Melt for You.”  Presto I had a Valentine’s Day card idea.    

To make the card, just like I did you cut out two  6 ¼” x 4 ½” pieces of cardstock, score and glue them together so you have the Winter Plaid on the outside and the Snowy Aspen on the inside for writing.  Look carefully before you cut as there are some nice white designs on the plaid that you may want to place on the edge of your card.  Cut a 6 ¼” x 2 ¼” strip of Skate Scratch and put a small a strip of Brown Snowy Scratch cut with a scallop punch on each side.  Affix to the center of the card.      

Stamp a snowman on the Snowy Aspen paper with VersaMark.  I used the Basic Grey Snowman but any stamp would work.   Emboss with Chestnut Zing Embossing Powder and cut out.  Make a hat using the same technique.  Stamp three little hearts with VersaMark and emboss with Barn Door Embossing Powder.   Paint the snowman with Chandalier Glimmer Glam.    (You could also use small heart buttons or cut small hearts from a pretty paper. If you are affixing something to the snowman, paint with Glimmer Glam and then affix objects.)  Draw a face on the snowman with a pen.  Fastened the snowman to the right side of the card with pop dots.  Glue three chocolate hearts in red and silver foil to the left side using Glossy Accents.

Paint the Cardstock Sticker that says “I’d Melt for You” with Chandalier Glimmer Glam.  Stick the sticker on a piece of Brown Snowy Scratch and cut around the edge leaving a small border.  To make the card a little more Valentiney, make the word “Melt” red.  I used Claudine Hellumuth’s dash of red acrylic paint.  The tip on the bottle is so tiny that I was able to fill in the tiny word directly from the bottle.   Affix the Cardstock Sticker to the card.  

Stamp your Valentine’s message inside the card. 

A Holiday Thank You Card with Photo for Grandma!

Although this card could be varied to meet many needs, it was designed to be a thank you note for a child’s Christmas gift.  With space for a picture, it can act as a photo frame on a table.  It is made with StargazingC, Caroling and Tomato Velvet paper.  Buttons and twine make attractive closures for the card.    Detailed instructions for making the card follow.

1.     Cut a 6”x 12” strip from Stargazing.  Score vertically at 3” and 9” to form flaps that meet in the middle when folded. 

2.     Decorate the inside first as once you do the outside the surface will not be flat and it will be hard for things to stick.

a.     Center -- Cut a piece of Tomato velvet paper  just slightly larger than your picture as a photo mat.  Mine is 4” x  5 ½.”  I cut little slashes in each corner  to stick the edges of the picture in so it will remain in the card during transit, but remove easily if the recipient wants to put in a frame. Affix  photo mat to the card. Cut 3 stockings (front & back)  out of Tomato velvet paper.  Make three stockings from Tomato Velvet. I used a Cuttlebug die but any stocking will work.  I cut three and then cut three reversed and used two for each stocking so that both sides would be the same.  I cut a top for each stocking out of white paper and applied white flocking powder.   Run twine through a red heart button from Bo Bunny’s Father  Christmas Buttons from the back to the front & then back to the back.  Affix near top left of center piece of card with Glossy Accents.  Hang stockings. (I put knots in between to keep stockings from ending up all on one end.)  Put twine through the other button in the same way.  Affix to card on right side of center piece and trim remaining twine as desired. 

b.     Right Inside Flap – I used an ornament  (3”) cut from Silver Valley with Joys of the Season Cricut Cartridge. Using Detail White embossing powder, emboss the word “Thanks” on top of the ornament.  Tie a strand of red/white twine through hole in ornament.

c.      Left Inside Flap -- Cut a 6 x 3 ¼” piece of tomato velvet .  Fasten it to the left inside starting at the fold line.  It will hang over the edge approximately ¼”.   On the inside left apply  a 2 ¾” x 5 ¾” piece of Caroling.  Add  a gift (2 ½”) cut from Silver Valley with the Cricut Joys of the Season Cartridge.  Cut the ribbon from Tomato velvet.

3.     Left Outside -- Fold in the extra tomato from the inside and fasten firmly.  Add a  2 ¾”  x 2 ½” piece of Tomato velvet  on  the top left.  Add  a just slightly smaller  piece of Caroling. 

4.     Right Outside -- On the right bottom add a 3 ½”  x 2 7/8”  piece of tomato and a slightly smaller piece of Caroling.

5.     Closures -- Use green star buttons from the Bo Bunny’s Father  Christmas Buttons set and red & white twine to close; affix to two flat buttons with glossy accents.  (1^st run thread for bows through.  After dries tie bow & trim.  Affix twine to one of the underneath buttons with glossy accents; affix buttons to card with glossy accents; wrap twine to close. 

Creating More Journaling Space

Sometimes things fall into place when you just go with the flow.  I was struggling with the school theme of this month’s papers.  I really liked the papers but I didn’t have any school pictures to scrapbook.  After much thought, I decided that I would use the paper with books and just use a title about learning, such as “Learning Outside the Classroom” and started to work on a page with pictures from a August trip to Springfield, Illinois.  As I was working on the page it dawned on me that the paper fit perfectly – our favorite place was the Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum.  No need for special title.  Simply the Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum. 

For the most part the two-page layout is fairly straight-forward so I’ll just highlight a few things. I used the Life Documented Flash Cards for journaling.  One titled “Life Documented” for the place, city  and date.   I used Cosmo Cricket Tiny Type for the actual words.  I love using these as they are small enough they don’t take up too much space and I don’t have to worry about handwriting.  To list the things we saw in Springfield, I used a flash card with numbers.  These Life Documented Flash Cards have many uses.  I urge you to get a page or two before they are gone.

However, I still did not have enough space to tell the story of the day and display all the pictures that I wanted so I created a journaling flap. To make the flap, I used a plain piece of cardstock for the page base.  On the right side, I affixed strips of Study Hall & Letterman’s Jacket.  I then attached a 12” x 9 3/4” piece of the Fencing paper on the left side of the cardstock, affixing the top, bottom and left edge.  On the right edge, I affixed the piece of the Fencing paper only 2” from top and bottom, thus creating a flap in which to insert the journaling.  

For the journaling, I typed it on a piece of Oxford Dean’s List.  I folded it in half so it would be a little more durable and trimmed to size needed.  You could of course add more pictures on this.  I made two tabs for the journaling page using two pieces of ribbon (also folded in half).  I affixed these with Tim Holtz snaps.  You might prefer to use your stapler as the stamps are a little thick when inside the flap.  The ribbon shows when the flaps inserted.  This ribbon came from ScrapbooksPlus and is so elegant.  With other papers, twine would work well also.  That’s how simple it is to make extra space for that precious journaling of special moments.

I embellished the page with pencil stickers and Tim Holtz Idea-ology philosophy tags.   I used ones to express meaning.  I threaded a double string of brown floss through holes and tied.  (I used threaded needle to get the thread in the holes.) I affixed with Glossy Accents.  As usual,  I inked things liberally.  For this page, I used Black Soot Distress Ink.

4th of July Barbeque Page with Recipes

My 2-page layout this month gave me the opportunity to preserve our traditional 4th of July barbeque. I used pictures from two different years and included the recipe for the barbequed ribs that are the featured item every year. Most of the paper was from My Mind’s Eye American Made line.

To make this page, I started with Petticoat Plaid Red Polka Dot paper for the background. I added a 2 ½” strip of My Mind’s Eye Celebration Banner across the top. To make it a little more interesting, I cut the bottom of the strip in large scallops rather than a straight line. I added a 3” strip of Pieced Pinwheels across both pages.

I used two techniques to make the rather boring title (4th of July Barbeque) more fun – a banner & a chipboard star frame. I painted a chipboard star frame white. After inking it with Weathered Wood Distress Ink, I added some solid blue cardstock to fill in the inner star. For the banner, I cut individual flags using the Celebration Cricut cartridge. After string these on Lime Twist Fly a Kite “ Soar” Twine, I tied a small bow on each end and affixed with Glossy Accents. The “4th of July” was cut from the Petticoat Plaid Red Polka Dot paper using the Cricut. The “4” was made much larger. The “Barbeque” part of the title was cut from solid blue cardstock using the From My Kitchen Cartridge. The smaller “Barbeque” and “Chef” and the background ovals for each were also cut using this cartridge.

I printed my journaling on The Day We Celebrate paper so that I could create a box that overlaps the two pages and would use the papers border on three sides. In addition to journaling this box serves as a photo mat for two pictures. I also inked this. After printing the two recipes on The Day We Celebrate paper, I hand cut the recipes into the shape of recipe cards. To draw more attention to the recipes, I cut an outline for each recipe from polka dot paper (one red and one blue). The remaining photo mats were cut from Pieced Pinwheels paper.

To finish the page, I embellished with flowers, buttons and stars. All buttons were tied with twine. The buttons and the stars came from the BoBunny Liberty Button set. To make the flowers, I stamped plain white flowers with Weathered Wood Distress Ink very lightly. I tied twine in the center of buttons for the center.

I love this page and even more love that our 4th of July barbeques will not be forgotten.

Easy Sports Pages using Page Map

Using the page map for this month (available at the store), I made a baseball-themed page to showcase pictures of my 8-year-old nephew throwing out the first pitch at an Arizona Diamondbacks game. I followed the page map reasonably closely except since all my pictures were vertical I replaced the four horizontal photos with three vertical ones.

The background is I Love America #IA404 paper. The flags for the banner were cut using the Cricut Celebrations cartridge and strung on Lime Twist Fly a Kite Soar Twine. I cut the letters using Sizzlits die and affixed them to the banner flags with Glossy Accents. I used two brads from the Bo Bunny Liberty Brads set to anchor the banner to the background. (I wrapped the twine around the brad a couple of times and then stuck the brad in the paper.)

The white pleated banner that divides the page horizonatally is a pre-pleated Bazzill paper strip. Called Perfectly Pleated, it reminded me of the bunting often used at ball parks for special games, especially when I added a scalloped piece of Bazzill Red Glitter paper.


For my journaling, I cut out a strip of tickets with Tim Holtz Sizzlits Ticket Strip die. I stamped them using blue ink and stamps from the Stampers Anonymous Tim Holtz Collection (Odds & Ends). Journaling in red continued the red, white and blue theme. I used glittered stars from the Bo Bunny Liberty Brads collections. Other were cut from Bazzill Glitter paper using Sixxiz dies and affixed with Glossy Accents. Although I used “I” throughout this blog, I must confess I had some help. I had some ten-year-old visitors over the holiday, who helped me. They loved using the Vagabond to cut out shapes. It is so simple to use that I just described it to them once and they cut out shapes while I did other things. Kale Barnett not only helped me finish this page, but he and his twin sister, Saige, made a page for their sports photos. As a result, I can share three variations of this month’s page map – a baseball one, a basketball one and a football one. These pages show how easy it is to use the page map as a guide and vary the page with your interests.

Scrapbooks Plus has lots of items (like the basketball brads Saige used) to make your sports page, no matter what your sport. If you don’t have a cutter or sports dies, there are plenty of items such as bats, helmets and balls that can replace those in these pages. There is also a wide variety of twine. I used the Lime Twist, which comes in a variety of colors, but Kale used the Sew Easy fancy floss (baker’s twine primary) which comes in 3-color packages.

Have fun making a page for the special athlete in your family!

Happy Valentine’s Day! This blog is about a 2-page layout that showcases some pictures from a trip to Copenhagen. This is a good example of the benefits of really looking at papers rather than just rejecting them because they don’t immediately spark an interest. I’m not big on roses or pink and might have ignored the English Rose Collection if I didn’t have to use it for the Design Team Challenge. When finished I like the English Rose Collection so much that I want to get more paper.

As I thought about it, the maroon and green mosaic pattern seemed perfect for pictures from a trip to Copenhagen. I had gone some time ago and had not had a chance to scrap the pictures so decided to try and capture the essence of Copenhagen on two pages in case this was the only page I ever completed. For me this meant spirals, water, interesting architecture and food.

To provide some focus on the five pictures, I made a large photo-mat for the four smaller pictures. This drew attention but since I had four pictures with different colors, I made a Sizzix frame for each of the four pictures. This highlighted each picture and provided some consistency to the diverse pictures.

But the paper seemed a little flat with the colors of the pictures. I addressed this by spraying a little Walnut Gold Glimmer Mist on papers. This gave the maroon paper a shimmer and made the color go a little better with my pictures.

Many of our blogs have mentioned using Glimmer Mist and I must say, if you’re not using it you are missing out on a really easy way to jazz up your pages. It is one of those things that can seem intimidating but once you start using it you’ll want to use it more and more. An easy way to start is just spraying some on a scrap of the paper you are using. If you like the look, spray it on. I first tried a green on the maroon paper but it made it to dark but the Walnut Gold gave the page a little sparkle. I liked the effect so I used it on the picture frames and the hearts.

For the larger picture on the left page, I didn’t want to reduce its size to fit in the frame used for the other pictures. Instead, I made a photo-mat the same height as the photo-mat used for the other pictures. Adding a strip of scallops at the bottom of the left page added some consistency with the right page. I also rounded the upper left corner of the picture.

The page clearly needed a few embellishments. I used a chipboard heart (made with chipboard pressed onto the Peeled Paint Distress Ink pad to make it green and applied Walnut Gold Glimmer Mist) to substitute for the word “love” in my title. A second heart was used as an exclamation point. Using a clear button, I made a period for the “heart” exclamation point. I simply put Glossy Accents on the bottom of the clear button and affixed it to the mosaic paper. Once it is dry, you simply cut around the button. Using a Danish coin was a fun way to add a little gold and accent the spiral picture. For balance, I used two more buttons on each side of the coin.

Since my pages were so different, I used a strip of ribbon completely across bottom to bring two pages together.

Finally, I filled in with some tags of various papers used in the page.

Even though when I first looked at the papers, I wasn’t thrilled. I really like this page and believe the papers reflect the “old country” well.

The moral of this blog is:
• really think before you reject papers
• use Glimmer Mist
• make embellishments using glossy accents and clear buttons to accent your pages

Kathy Bryant

"Make A Wish!"

I couldn't believe it when I saw the papers Leah chose this month. My daughter celebrated her 11th birthday in November with a cupcake themed party and I had not gotten around to scrapping it yet. The cupcake themed papers from Doodlebug gave me the perfect opportunity!

Like Erin, I also decided to include an accordian album on my page this month. I absolutely love the Jenni Bowlin birthday mini-bingo card (mine said "Wish") so I ended up incorporating it into the title of the layout (loved the girly design of the pink canvas thickers!) and used it as the front of the accordian album.

You can see here that Erin and I were on the same wavelength again, because I also used velcro to attach it - That will make it easier for my daughter to take it out in the future and be able to access journaling on the back.

Here's a look at the book when it is open...

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the sheer dot ribbon is used to hold it closed and is sandwiched between the back cover and the last panel of the inner accordian fold. I used red-line tape to attach the front and back covers - I have found that anything that is going to be manipulated needs to have very strong adhesive.

Some other details...I started out intending to machine stitch on this layout, but I think my machine needs a trip to the doctor, because it kept skipping stitches! No worries though as I decided I liked the look - so I pulled out the thread and just ran the entire edge of the brown paper through the machine.

Another fun detail is the journaling, which I created with my Dymo labelmaker. It came with pink and blue tape, and my new favorite - CLEAR tape - which I was able to put on a piece of coordinating green cardstock and trim out.

I also cut out some of the cute presents from the KI paper to use as an embellishment on the lower right corner of the picture. One of them was already glittered. I fancied up the other two by adding some Glossy Accents to give them dimensional polka dots. I think they may be a little too subtle so the next time I will make the polka dots with markers and then add the Glossy Accents.

Finally, never underestimate the value of a simple swirl!

The page just didn't seem balanced - color or weight - so I used a bit of the BoBunny coordinating Double Dot paper in blue and a quick trip to the Accu-Cut machine in the crop room and voila - when placed in the bottom left - perfect!