Flower Soft Part 4 - Leaves

As the final installment of the mini-series on using Flower Soft, here's an example of using it on leaves. This is a stamp from "Sweet Tweets" by Hot Off the Press. The Flower Soft really dresses it up nicely!

Scrapbooking Challenges Part 9 - Lots of different sized little pictures

For this heritage scrapbook page, I had a lot of little pictures of my grandmother and her classmates.  Most of them were smaller than normal wallet size, and they were NOT uniform in size!  Since they were heritage photos, I didn't want to glue them into my book, but it took me awhile to figure out how to use photo corners and have it look decent. 

As you can see, I started with a mat in which I had cut 8 circles.  I then used photo corners backwards on the BACK of the mat to add the pictures behind the circles.  The forms a large frame for the pictures that helps them all look uniform and helps them make a statement rather than getting lost on the page. 

At the bottom of the page I wanted to use my corner adorner punch to create frames for the photos, but the original photos had been cut to slightly different sizes, and the corner adorner is designed to mat with a set size frame around the photo.  So . . . after matting each one, I layered them on top of a strip of the same color paper (on which I wrote the names) with the tops of the pictures aligned.  This helps to camouflage the slight differences in size.

Purchased Focals

This card used a focal from a book by Hot Off the Press - don't remember its name.  I had intended to chalk it to add a bit more realism, but forgot and mailed it without!  Here's the inside:

It was made for someone who likes bees.  The honey pot has a tag insert with a special message for her - both pot and tag were cut out of the same book, but I added the message myself.  The smaller bees were cut from a piece of vellum that had bees printed on it. They were attached with foam dots for additional dimension.

Christmas in May!

Well, it's the last Thursday of the month, so I'll share another Christmas card.  Here the traditional green and red are "blued" a bit to give us the aqua and purple of this card. 

• The gingerbread man focal was made using a "Snag'em" stamp from imaginisce. It was stamped onto tan paper and then accented with a marker.  
• The papers are from Hot Off the Press.  
• The borders are all from the peel-off border sticker sheet.  The border itself lines the largest mat.  The purple one is bordered with the "innies" from that border (the little tear-drop shapes from the inside of the border - left behind when it was removed).  Then the border right around the gingerbread man is from in-between the border strips. 
• The greeting is another outline sticker.

More with Scratch Magic

Today's cards don't yet have a greeting on them as I decided to add that when I knew to whom they were going.  However they are more examples of card making with Scratch Magic.  In this case, the color that showed up, when the black was scratched off, was a glittery/shimmery green. I thought this green - almost holographic wrapping paper - was a great choice to pair with it.  It is a gate-fold card with the focal attached to the left panel. A gold mat (cut with a spellbinders die) frames the Scratch Magic focal, and a bit of gold peel-off border stickers finishes the card off nicely.

My last example is using something from the transparent sheet and the glittery sheet together:

In this case, there is an oval cut in the front of the card which looks through to the glittery Scratch Magic focal on the inside.  A cutout of the central rose is made from the transparent material and attached to the front of the card, covering the shimmery rose until you open the card.  When open, you see this:

Fun Scraps for Cardmaking

Here's a card that makes good use of littlie pieces.  The focal was made using Scratch Magic paper.  I used scraps of the same stuff to make the smaller butterflies.  Scraps of black cardstock and peel-off border stickers finish off this quick card.

Flower Soft Part 3 - Animals

Here are a couple of examples using Flower Soft with animals.  The pictures are digi-stamps - not sure where I got them, but I suspect at least one of them was from Angelique's blog (I love her stuff!). I love the panda bear!  It looks really nice in real life.  Unfortunately, I think the cat looks a bit "mangy" but that is not Flower Soft's fault.  I simply didn't have the color I wanted and tried to sort a few colors out of their mixes (now there's a chore & a half!).  I gave it up when I didn't have as much as I should have had, but used what I had.  As soon as possible, I will be purchasing some colors that are better for animals like dogs, cats, and teddy bears.  Then I will probably add to this one to finish it off nicely. :D

Scrapbooking Challenges Part 8 - Skewed Picture.

When I started working with this particular scrapbook page, I wanted to include this photo. But the horizon line slanted so badly in the photo that it looked pretty ridiculous to put it in as it was.  If I cropped the picture so the horizon was straight and the photo was still rectangular, I lost too much of the view.  Then I realized I could crop it so it looked diamond shaped with the top & bottom of the "diamond" cut off.  This would retain the bulk of what I wanted to see in the photo and allow me to make the horizon look straight!  Here's what I ended up with:

I think it makes it look like I took an imaginative photo at an angle rather than that I fixed a mess I had made!

Scratch Magic Inspiration

Inspiration can come from unexpected places.  This card came out of an activity packet received at Christmas time called "Scratch Magic".  It contained several sheets of special media covered in either black or white "stuff" that is scratched away to reveal colors below.  At first I just play with the plain stencils that come in the packet.  Then I realize that using my more detailed stencils might create something interesting.  I give it a try, and this focal was born, making for a quick card.

The packet also contains a similar piece of material that is translucent.  From that, I get THIS card.

It looks a bit dark when the card is closed, but when it is opened, the light shines through and it looks a bit like a stained glass window.  So, this little packet that I thought was just an "activity" kit, turns into something fun for making cards.

Print Your Own Focal

With Mother's Day past, Father's Day will be here before you know it.  I thought I'd share this card I made for my husband.  He's a sport's fan, and the team he roots for has a beaver mascot and black and orange for their colors.  I found this beaver on-line and printed him up for a focal. I'm not certain, but I expect he came from my favorite site for this type of thing - Scrapbook Flair.  The card is pretty simple. Here's how I made it:

• Background paper from Indian Summer Fall Matstack (DCWV) - glue it to blank card front and then trim to fit.
• Two strips of black cardstock - a thinner one and a wider one, attached as shown with a gluestick.
• Print and cut out the beaver and glue him to the card as shown.
• Stamp the greeting with black ink (I used black StazOn as some of my other inks washed out a bit on this paper.  The stamp was a clear acrylic stamp from a little Father's Day set from studio g.

Anniversary Card

Lots of weddings (and thus, anniversaries) occur in late May or early June after high school or college graduation, so it seems appropriate to share an Anniversary themed card.  I like the simple lines of this quick and easy card.  A silver paper was run through my Big Shot machine in an embossing folder to get the swirled pattern that the cake is matted on.  This is edged with some outline stickers (peel offs).  The cake itself is a Dazzle Sticker from Hot Off the Press.  It was backed with a white glimmer paper and then felt-tipped pens were used to color in the flowers & leaves.  A silver ribbon and bow and an out-line sticker greeting completes the card.

Flower Soft Part 2 - Grass

 

As I mentioned, for a few weeks on Mondays we are looking at examples of using Flower Soft.  Today's image is a digi-stamp - probably from Angelique's blog, though I'm not certain.  Here we have an example of using Flower Soft (Meadow) to make grass.  Compare it to the simple colored grass below and see what a difference it makes.  All it took was a few dabs of Flower Soft glue and a sprinkling of Flower Soft!

Scrapbooking Challenges Part 7 - Too Little!

Here's a page where I had only 1 wallet-sized picture - awfully small for a page by itself.  As you can see, I started out by creating several mats to visually decrease the size of the page. I also created an oval frame in bright yellow to help draw the eye to the photo.  Both of these, help the size of the photo fit the page better.

However, I didn't do all that I could have on this page.  I suspect that if the journaling had been on white (or cream - whatever the main color of the patterned paper is) rather than yellow, more attention would have gone to the photo. Also, if I had made the oval frame bigger, it would probably have made the picture feel larger.  So, I guess you can say this page demonstrates "progress, not perfection."

Picture Perfect Focal

Today's card demonstrates another possibility for card focals. Use pictures you have taken!  This can make for a quick and easy card.  Here's how I did it:

• Started with a blank purple swirl card from Hot Off the Press
• I cut a couple of purple strips for borders, one thin, one wider - each cut to the width of the card. I cut another out of lighter purple a bit thinner than the wide one and using a deckle-edge cutter. I glued this to the center of the wider border.
• I then wrapped 1/8" purple satin ribbon around the wide border - at both top and bottom as shown, fixing it with tape in the back.  I added the purple ribbon in the center of the narrow border in the same way.
• I cut the picture so there was a thin white border around it, then mounted it on a white cardstock rectangle, which was then mounted on a purple one.  I added a purple ribbon near the bottom of this, adhering in the back with tape as before.
• Now all I had to do was glue the pieces to the card as shown in the picture, and then write my greetings with a purple pen (I used a Sakura glaze pen).

Birthday Card

Here's another papier tole card (papier tole from Hot Off the Press) - this one a birthday card.  Here's the inside:

This card is a little more complicated than it looks.  The bottom layer of the papier tole is on the inside. I wanted the rest to stick out through the window, but they were too large.  However, they were also too small to attach to the front of the card in a stable way. So, I used a piece of clear plastic (cut from packaging material) to cover the hole and taped it on the inside.  The purple flowered paper covers where the acetate was taped to the inside of the card.  The rest of the papier tole was attached to the acetate.  The next to bottom layer was attached to the clear plastic with vellum adhesive to keep it from being too ugly from the inside.  The remaining layers were attached with foam tape for added dimension.

I also need to confess that the original papier tole came with a picture of a bee on it.  A bee for me can have connotations of stinging people and I didn't want that message as a part of my card, so I cut the bee out! The inside picture is the only one where it really made much of a difference, so I took the cut piece with the bee and moved it under the rest so that the bee was hidden, but a portion of the leaf still showed in part of the space where the bee had been, helping the design look better.

The thin border on the front of the card (bottom & around the window) was cut from the scraps of the papier tole sheet.   The sentiment was a silver outline sticker which I colored with alcohol ink to match the borders.

Flower Soft - Part 1

For the next few weeks, I'm going to post some note pad covers that use Flower Soft which I got from Paper Wishes.  To see the basics of making a note-pad cover, check here.  You can see that I embossed them with some Cuttlebug embossing folders that I have. This example is a vase of flowers - based on a digi-stamp. Unfortunately, I can't remember where I got it.  (If it is yours, please let me know so I can give you the credit!)  Here are the steps I took:

• Assemble basic notepad cover.
• Print digi-stamp and trim it to a rectangle.
• Color in the digi-stamp with markers (I used Marvy Markers).
• Add dots of flower soft glue and add flower soft - let dry.
• Ink the edges of the rectangle.
• Using one of the nestabilities dies and the Big Shot (or similar machine), cut and emboss the small scalloped oval to frame the greeting.
• Stamp the greeting with a clear stamp from a Christmas set of stamps from Paper Wishes.
• Draw around embossing with a pen to add to the frame.
• Glue it all in place & you're done!

Here's another one done in a similar way with different colors. This pad opens the other way. I used a peel-off border to edge the rectangle, and stamped the greeting directly onto the notepad cover.

Scrapbooking Challenges Part 6 - Too BUSY!

For these penguin pictures, I wanted to use this lovely hand-made pink and black chevron paper that I had. I thought it would set the pictures off well and pull in a little bit of color.  However, the chevron pattern was overwhelming! It was way too busy a pattern - one could go blind looking at a whole page of it!  So, I went with a plain gray background for most of the page, using the chevron pattern for mats and borders as shown.  A very thin plain border around the pictures, mats and borders also helped tone things down and make a nice look.

Words as Focal

This is a really quick card showing words as the focal.  The base card is from a set I got at the dollar store - don't remember the name of it.  The flowers are punch-outs - probably from Hot Off the Press, but I'm not sure. The stamp is from the Fiskars "Laugh With Me Quotes" set of acrylic stamps, and the stamping itself used Brillance "Dew Drop" ink from Tsukineko.  A five minute card!

Mother's Day

Mother's Day is just around the corner.  This one is made with Papier Tole from Hot Off the Press, for a stunning focal with a metallic shine.  The different pieces are given added dimension with the use of foam tape. The sentiment is an outline sticker, and the silver outlining is all done with thin outline border stickers.

Scrapbooking Challenges Part 5 - Too Yellow!

This was a pretty simple fix, but took me awhile to figure it out!  For this page, I wanted to use pink to emphasize the "little girl" aspect of the pictures.  However, the pictures had yellowed so much that I didn't think the pink looked very good with them.  Then I remembered this yellow and pink gingham-like paper I had - problem solved.  I DID find that the addition of black (a color I wouldn't ordinarily use on a little girl's page) helped both to set the title apart from the background, and to tie in the color of the black and white (yellow?) photos.