A Snowy Day

With all the pine trees in Heidelberg, the Winter Woods (front side) paper made the perfect background.  An inner background of Snowy Window added the snow theme.  I made large photo mat the goes across both pages out of Winter Blue (back).  The left side is 7 ¾” x 9 1/8”  & and the right is  7 ¾” x 10 5/8.

 I picked out a variety of pictures that demonstrated the major activities/attractions.  I used  four  3 ½ x 5 (one vertical and the others horizontal), a  3 ½” square and a 2 x 3 ½” and arranged them in a grid on the photo mat..  I filled the space in between the pictures with pieces of Winter Woods paper.  

Since the paper had pieces of lace printed in a variety of places, I affixed lace on top of them to add dimension.  I added one long strip of turquoise ribbon near the bottom of the page from the right edge.  (The Winter Woods paper had lace here so I started here and went across the paper.)  Then I added lace on top of the ribbon.

I made a title using the Little Yellow Bicycle Chipboard Alphas.  I found them to be a little too bright for my layout so I randomly rubbed some claudine helumuth blank canvas acrylic paint across them.  After this dried, I painted them with Chandalier Glimmer Glam.  (If you don’t have this, you really should get it.  It is perfect for adding a little shimmer to anything.)  I used the “Magic” and “Winter Memories” from the Chipboard Words.  I used the same technique as on the title on these words.  I used two Cardstock Stickers to add sayings to pages. I painted these with the Chandalier Glimmer Glam as well.

Because I had so much I wanted to say, I decided to print my journaling on the Little Yellow Bicycling Journaling Cards.  To do this, using Microsoft Word, I created a text box that was the size of the journaling card with a line around the outside of the text box.  I typed my journaling and printed it on regular typing  paper.  I checked out how it fit on journaling card.  When it didn’t line up exactly as I wanted, I simply adjusted the printing.  Once I had the journaling exactly right, I affixed the journaling card to the typing paper using permanent adhesive lining it up with the lines around the text box.  On the computer, I removed the text box lines, but left everything else exactly the same and printed.  It printed exactly where the journaling card was.  It sounds complicated but really just takes a little playing with the printing to get it right.  I didn’t mess up a single journaling card!

The final embellishments were three of the Snowflake Button Dots.

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. 

Dreaming of a White Christmas

Okay, I admit that the child in the picture is too little to be dreaming of a white Christmas, but the colors were perfect for this picture.  With a few simple techniques this picture shimmers like Christmas. 

I started with the Silver Valley paper for background and for the main decorations for the pictures.

I triple matted the 5” x 7” picture using two Snowed In and one Silver Valley (plaid side).  I rounded the corners of all three mats.

Using the technique we all learned in kindergarten, I cut out all  the snowflakes & the small tree from another piece of  Silver Valley. After decorating the tree, I affixed the snowflakes and the tree to the background with pop dots so they standout. 

I make a scallop tag out of white chipboard.  I put the name and year on the tag with silver ink and then used a narrower blue pen to reflect the blues and greys in the paper.  It still looked a little plain, so  I decided to add a little glimmer so  I tried a new technique.  I “inked” the edges of the tag with VersaMark and then embossed it using Zing Silver.  It gave it a little silver without overdoing it.  I affixed it to the page with a snowflake brad.

In addition to the embellishments created from the Silver Valley paper, I used two chipboard snowflakes.  I painted them with white paint and then added a coat of Chandelier Glimmer Glam to make them shimmer.  Another snowflake brad and two stickers saying Winter Wonderland” and “Dreaming of a White Christmas” completed the page. 

Making Holiday Tags with Oxford Paper

I know it is only September but if we are going to hand make things for the holidays now is the time to do it so we have time to enjoy the holidays.   I liked the Oxford paper, but didn’t have any  school related pictures to scrap.  The burgundy and green colors made me think of Christmas so I made extra large tags.  These could be used in several ways --  for those really big boxes that a small tag just doesn’t do the trick, on cards or as decorations.  Another thing I love about making your own tags is that you can mix and match what you have and they all coordinate.

Reindeer

I cut the tag and a cooridinating shadow tag with the Cricut using Oxford paper.   Christmas needs a little shine in my view so I spritzed both the tag and shadow tag with Sun Sisters Glimmer Mist.  I cut a tree and painted it with Dirty Martini Glimmer Glam.   Using plain cardstock I cut out a reindeer and a star for the top of the tree..  I embossed it three times with gold embossing powder.  I added BoBunny Zoology Jewels for eye and collar.  You could also use jewels or buttons to decorate the tree. Tie with a ribbon and you are done.  You could make several of these in no time at all.

Snowman

The approach was similar to the reindeer tag except I used Silver Glimmer Mist on the tag, shadow and the snowman.  I  left the tree plain.  I embossed the snowman’s hat.  The eyes and buttons same from the Bo Bunny Jewel set.  The Bo Bunny Father Christmas buttons would also be great.  There are hearts in the set that would be adorable on a snowman.  Again, add a ribbon and you are done.  Scrapbooks Plus has a great supply of ribbon. 

Since I’m in France now, I may decide to carry the French theme all the way to Christmas and make some holiday tags with the Eiffel Tower!  Another idea is to add a picture of that special person.  That’s the advantage of making your own tags – they can be uniquely yours.

Adding Pizzazz to Your Titles

Titles set the stage for your page. People often ask how to title pages and what can be done to make titles more interesting than just using letters. Here are two examples of how I used the subject of the page and used techniques to add pizzazz to the titles.

My first example is a page with pictures of my nephew eating ice cream. I wanted to showcase his charming face. I chose “SWEET” as the title to reflect on the ice cream he was eating and also the look on his face. I created the title using three of my favorite tools – my Cricut, grungepaper and Glimmer Glam. Here’s how I did it.

The shape of the title came from the Cricut A Word Party™ cartridge. This is a great cartridge for titles and decoration for pages featuring children. It has ice cream cones, trains, puzzles, flowers and balloons. I originally intended to do individual cones with each letter, but this would have taken too much space. Instead I used the welding feature on my Gypsy to make all the scoops of ice cream one piece by overlapping them slightly so I have one ice cream cone with five scoops of ice cream. (If you don’t have a Gypsy, you can simply layer each scoop slightly over the preceding one and glue.) I did not weld the cone to the ice cream scoops as I planned a different surface treatment and having the cone a separate piece made this easier.

I cut the ice cream scoops and cone out of grungepaper to give them more depth. I wanted the ice cream to be white, but didn’t want to paint the grungepaper as the letter cutouts were fairly small and I was concerned that the paint might make the letters less sharp. So I cut a second set of the ice cream scoops (identical to those cut out of grungepaper) out of white paper. I glued white paper ice cream scoops to the grungepaper ones. For the glistening look of real ice cream, I painted them with Chandelier Glimmer Glam.

I creating an extra scoop in the same way to add “Payton” on the page. I embossed the name with ZING embossing powder in Chesnut. This embossing powder is available in lots of colors and creates a nice raised surface.

To make the cone look more like an ice cream cone, I ran the rough side of the cone over a Tea Dye Distress Ink pad until it achieved the right color and texture.

In my second example, I had a two-page layout with many pictures of a trip to an icebar. I wanted a simple title because the page had so many pictures so I went with the straightforward title “ Icebar.” (One of the pictures on the page includes the bar’s name so I didn’t need any details in the page’s title. I used Tim Holtz Fragments from idea-ology to make it look like the title was encased in ice, much like the Bose speaker and the fire alarm were at the bar. It didn’t pop enough with just letters so I cut the letters out of the brown and turquoise, the darkest paper used on the page. I then glued them to the green paper, which made them stand out even more. The green paper had music on it, which helped to convey the music in the bar. Then I simply applied Glossy Accents to each letter (one at a time) and pushed the Fragment on top of it until the Glossy Accents covered the entire bottom of the Fragment. When dry, I cut around the Fragment. Because they are a little heavy, I also affixed them to the page using Glossy Accents (just a little so it doesn’t come out from under the block.)

These provide a couple of examples of how when you sit down with your tools and think about what you want your title to convey you can came up with new ways of making a title special. Of course, it is hard to see the full details from the pictures. To get a better look, visit Scrapbooks-Plus. Both of these pages will be displayed on the Design Team wall until April 1, 2011 as are the many other pages created by the Design Team with the TWIG line of papers. If these pages motivate you the TWIG line of paper is available by the wall so you can pick out just what you need for your pages.