Day 7 Back-in-action

Okay. It is day seven. It was my goal to give you a straight week of projects to welcome myself back to my blog. I hope you are enjoying. My goal is to post things about once a week. But you all know how life gets in the way sometimes. I hope to not go for months without posting again though!

So my final post for this run… Cutting a mask with the Cricut! For those of you who don’t know, a mask in an object that you lay over your project in order to prevent that portion of your project from being inked.

Sorry the picture is bad. Just trying to get photos fast to share with you. This is supposed to be a photo of a 6×6 page protector. I used a scrapbooking page protector as opposed to a regular office 8.5×11 page protector because it is slightly thicker. The page protectors are inexpensive and readily available. To create a mask, trim off the three sealed edges. This will leave you with two sheets of plastic. Place one on your Cricut mat and choose a shape to cut. I set my blade to 6, pressure 3 and speed 3. You may need to experiment with your settings. Here is what my mask looked like after I cut it (it is inked already for greater visibility).

This material is thinner than a commercial mask but it much cheaper, just the image you want and easy to make. Use it like you would any mask. However, if you find it is curling a bit, then add some re-positionable adhesive to the back. I laid mine on the corner of my project and sprayed with Glimmer Mist. This left the tan, uninked shadow of my image behind. I then spayed my mask a little more, turned it over and stamped the image over my misted section. This gives two distinct versions of the same image.

After allowing it to dry I finished my layout. Enjoy!

RECIPE
cardstock, flower punch, ink: Stampin’ Up

pattern paper: Scenic Route
spray ink: Tattered Angels
die cuts: Cricut (Storybook cart.)
marker: marvy
from stash: stamps, silk flower, crystals

Day 6 Back-In-Action

Whew. I almost didn’t get a post in today. But I am squeaking it in here. I had planned on submitting the following layout to Creating Keepsakes Magazine as a “scrap lift” from a previous issue. But I can’t seem to remember what issue and who the original layout was by. So I will just share it here with you! The original layout featured a large focal on top and lots of detail photos on the bottom of a vacation layout. I seperated out my detail photos based on categories such as people and nature. It was a fun layout to do and goes to show that sometimes scrap lifting can be very inspirational and prevent brain-freeze when dealing with so many photos! I’ll have one more day of back-in-action posts for you tomorrow!

RECIPE (sorry I don’t have everything)

cardstock, tab punch: Stampin’ Up
large alpha: American Crafts
small alpha: Cosmo Cricket
bracket punch: McGill
pattern paper, camping stickers: ?

Day 5 of back-in-action

Okay, day five of my planned week-long back-in-action eye candy. This treat bag was created for another magazine call. I really had fun with this one. I don’t tend to use a bunch of flashy embellishments but the Valentine’s day them of the call got my bling flowing. To creat the heart I simply hand drew a heart shape and covered the drawing over with gems. And I enjoyed the color scheme. One of my favorite color palettes is rich brown with pops of vibrant color. I reversed this one a bit and went with vibrant pink with a pop of brown. In the past I hated pink, but in the past few years I have come to really like it! It is funny how tastes and styles can change. So pretty, but one of the things I realized is that I don’t really like working projects out of season. I admire the magazine industry for preparing all the holiday goodies 6 months in advance! I used to want to work in magazines, but doing these winter season calls in the summer left me feeling a bit out of sorts.

RECIPE

envelope: Office Depot
cardstock: Stampin’ Up
alpha stickers: Cosmo Cricket
spray ink: Tattered Angels
gems: Want 2 Scrap
hemp twine: (can’t remember!)
punch: Ek Success
adhesive: Terrifically Tacky Tape (Provo Craft), Tombo liquid glue (for gems)

HOW TO…

To create the pouch, seal a regular A2 size envelope along one short side and the two long sides at about 1/2 inch. Trim off the remaining short side to create  the top of your bag. Use the score lines to fold the envelope into a bag shape. This will leave two little triangles at the bottom of the bag that must be adhered down. I used a very sticky adhesive to keep it in place.

Day 4 of back-in-action

I love my crafting time. And this Love card is one of those things that came out of that time. I had made this card for a magazine call but did not get a response. So it gets shared with you! The call was a sketch based on a pennant design. I had turned the design on its side and added extra touches such as the circles over the pennants and the stitching which extends the pennants. It was a fun and relatively simple card. Enjoy!

RECIPE

cardstock, circle punch: Stampin’ Up
pattern papers, alpha stickers: Piggy Tales

Day 3 of back-in-action

Here is another layout from my calendar layouts. I had been wanting to do a layout split down the middle and this subject fit perfectly. It shows two opposing emotions. Flowing the title down the middle both separates the two emotions AND brings the two images together. I also had an ulterior motive for placing the tile as I did. The pattern paper under the word “courage” is actually hiding some distracting elements in the photo to the left. It is a good way to use an photo with problems.

Day 2 of my back-in-action posts

Here are some more older projects that I have worked on. These are from my kids’ calendar scrapbooks. I wrote about this style of scrapping in an earlier post. You can see here how I incorporate my calendar record keeping into a companion page to go with the main layout. In my current calendars the right hand page is always my calendar (blanked out here for privacy).

I have found some things I didn’t like about this approach to my calendars. First, I used too small of a format of calendar for my older kids. I thought I would need less room to record their lives since they aren’t growing and changing as rapidly as the little one. But I ended up really cramming journaling onto a small page. Apparently, I have just as much to say about them! I used a larger calendar for my youngest and now I know I would like this larger size for the older kids as well. Secondly I felt like making an entire companion page for the calendar became boring. I felt like I was wasting supplies just to glue a calendar down to a pretty page. Finally, I did not keep a general family calendar, which I have done in the past and I missed it very much. I missed recording tidbits of life for my husband and I as well as larger family events.

My approach for the coming year is going to be different. I am going to make the larger size calendar for everyone, including a family calendar. I am not going to make companion pages. Instead I am going to build pockets in behind the main layout with a tab at the top to pull out the calendar. This will save materials and space in my albums, but still preserve all the information. I will report back in the new year to see how I like the changes to my system!

I’m Back!

So you may have noticed that I took a hiatus for several months. Life and health have been crazy which had kept me out of my scrap space. But I have been doing projects again and feeling motivated again! I am glad to be back. I will be posting several items over the next few days, beginning with a few things I worked on before my break.

Let us start off with this older item. I made this for a magazine call and never got a response. So I am sharing it with you! Since the weather has cooled off here I thought it would be a fun one to share. I used yarn to braid a scarf-like heart and used a few other sewing notions to complete the look. Hope you enjoy!

RECIPE

cardstock, inks: Stampin’ Up
stamp: Technique Tuesday
yarn, safety pins: stash

More stitching

Okay, so yesterday I talked about stitching and alphabets. Today it will be stitching, color and style combos. When I made this layout I had only planned on cutting the large circle background, flipping the circle to use the back of the pattern paper and then stitching around it. I was inspired to try this from similar techniques I saw in magazines. I did my circle and then just kept going.

What ended up happening with this page was trying a bunch of things I don’t usually do. I have got bright colors going on which is not typical. I pulled out some really old stash (alpha stickers) and used those up. I’ve got those rubber sticker accents that I would never have bought had they not come in a kit subscription. And I’ve got those glitter accents (from the same kit). I wouldn’t have bought those accents, let alone paired them with bright colors and rubber accents. But I think it works. Yesterday I gave you the cliche “never say never.” Today I think I’ll use “beauty is in the eye of the beholder.” I think the elegant silver swirls are working with the funky pink rubber letters. Does your eye behold beauty or chaos?

Recipe

CS: Bazzil
PP, rubber stickers, alpha stickers: KI Memories
glitter swirls: Jolees
felt accent: Quick Quotes
die cut: Cricut (to cut circle)
marker: Marvy

Stitching!

So I managed to sit down and create this weekend! It did feel good to get some things done. I haven’t really worked on much in a couple of weeks. I have some things to share with you over the next few days (and some things I won’t be sharing since I plan on submitting them!). What I found myself working on yesterday was LOTS of stitching. I had the sewing machine going for almost every project I made. The funniest thing about that is years ago I swore I’d never sew on a layout. I guess the old saying “never say never” is a good one!

So I have got the happy sewing going on here. But you know what else makes me happy with this page? Those alphabets! I am so in love with the tiny type alphabet from Cosmo Cricket and the smokey gray alphabet from American Crafts. The Cosmo Cricket letters come with a full row of each letter. Yes that means you will have a million z’s left over but it also means you’ll have plenty of e’s and t’s to spell out whole messages. I can’t get enough of them. I think I am going to have to restock soon because I am using them up too fast.

Speaking of using things up to fast, want to know another secret about me? I used to buy product and then not be able to use it because then it would be ALL GONE. So it would just sit in my stash and I would admire it. You know, I think I like admiring it much better when it is ON projects! So I don’t feel bad about using it all up. Besides I know where to buy more 🙂

Recipe:

CS, PP: Stampin’ Up
punches: EK Success
marker: Marvy
alpha: Cosmo Cricket (tiny type), American Crafts

More stitching layouts to come…

Submissions

So I haven’t been working much on projects. All the things I have made lately have been for magazine submissions. I’m new to this and still trying to figure it all out. I know at this point that I can’t share ’em with you! So, sorry I have no eye candy this time.

I’ve submitted one scrapbook layout to Creating Keepsakes magazine. I’ve also submitted 3 card/paper craft projects to Paper Crafts magazine. They are currently having submission calls for their February issue. So in the midst of summer I am working on Valentine’s Day. It is a small, small taste of the magazine world.

Now I don’t know very well how these submissions work. I doubt they take the time to send rejection letters to those they don’t want. And as far as I know they may save projects to use at some point in the future. So I will either get an acceptance correspondence or none at all. Tomorrow is the deadline for the Paper Crafts magazine submissions so I have my fingers crossed for some news. Wish me luck!