Great Big Power, Itty Bitty Living Space

You might remember that the mighty Genie in the movie Alladin lived in a teeny little space. This phrase seemed to fit the subject today. Mini Books. Have you noticed that people will pick these up and look at them more readily than they will pick up your larger photo album? I have also found it fun to have a small album of a specific event or trip even though I might have it recorded in a larger album too.

Some folks just whip out a mini book in no time. Others struggle with making one. Thought I'd share a couple of ideas we used in a book and maybe they will be of use for your next book!

This is the Maya Road album that is approximately 4 x 4 inches overall, the pages are about 3 x 3 in size. I think that a tendency in these smaller books is to only use small prints. There is certainly nothing wrong in that, but thought this might give you a variation. Here we have used the 4 x 6 and 3.5 x 5 inch size prints for the book.

As you can see in the photo above. the entire page is covered with a print. This focuses on the subject, who happens to be large and center in the photo. Since not all of your photos have the subject so perfectly placed, there are a couple of other ideas within the book.

The photo on the right sided page has been torn to give some interest to the page. The tearing worked well for the beach shot-fitting in with the waves and sandy look of the original photo. We could also add a stamp which could have been journaling just as easily.

Again, in this view, one page is the full photo. The other page (left side) is just paper. A stamp was used for the quote and the sea shells, picking up on the mood of the day and the photo used on the right sided page.


On this last example, neither of the photos are kept in their full size. Cropping the photos with your scissors allows you to get the larger photos in the book while keeping the focus of the picture. These two pages just give other examples of using the paper with the photos for interest.

Hope this sparked a new thought for you. Would love to see some of the books you do. If you are interested in more on this book, it is at the store on display. Thanks.

Rockin' the Baby.

To our new friends from GASC, sorry this took so long to get up here. We were hoping for Monday, but alas, it took until today.



For our regular followers, this is one of the items taken to GASC last week. There are so many awesome things to post here. Most of the customers were able to get pictures of the other items themselves, but we had a couple of ladies who asked if we would post this for them.

We will still be posting some of the other awesome projects, so stay tuned. For those of you wanting to mimic this book, here are the rest of the pages. Clicking on any picture will enlarge it. If you have questions, leave a comment and we'll get back to you.

A Quick and Easy Item

And it was inexpensive too!



Using a $3.99 frame from Walmart I took one piece of Flair paper and a clear sticker and framed it. While I cut the paper and put the birds in a specific order, the paper would actually do this without cutting it. I thought it could make a nice gift for someone or nice to hang in my house. The cost was under $5.00, it took very little skill and took less than 10 minutes to put it together. In real life the sticker is not visible like it is in this picture.

What kinds of things are you framing?

"Merry"

One of the items at the front of the store as an idea is this banner made from pages from the accordion acrylic house album by Maya Road. Maya Road has so many great chipboard, sheer and acrylic pieces. It is fun to pull the albums and sets apart and make them into something new.



Here are instructions to make one of these for yourself!

*Take the metal rings out of the book, leaving the acrylic shapes separate.
*Choose 5 shapes you want to work with.
*Cut out the shape in the desired paper. Cut it out so that the front of the paper is what will be against the acrylic shape. You may decide to use different papers for the house and the roof or for the chimney.
*Peel the protective covering off of the back of the house pieces.
*Glue the paper to the acrylic piece. You want the paper design to show through the acrylic. The paper is glued to the back of the piece. Several adhesives work for this. Diamond dust and glossy accents are two that work well.
*Once the glue & paper is dry, sand the edges lightly. This will blend the paper into the piece.

Take each house piece and decorate it as follows:
*Peel the protective cover off the front of the acrylic piece.
*Use a white paint dabber and dab the edges of the acrylic piece. Slide it a little here and there to give it a rough, random design. You are trying to simulate a snowy look.
*Once dry, take an appliqué pen. This one has the white/off white one. Place this along the roof line and chimney and any other place you want a thicker snow look.
*Use a heat gun and heat the paint used from the appliqué pen. Do not get it too close to the acrylic, but close enough to make the paint puff up.
*Place rub-ons or stamped images where desired on the acrylic pieces. Staz-on ink, Copic pens and any rub-on will be essentially permanent on the acrylic. (unless you scratch it off with your finger nail or use some sort of solvent)

Glue the houses together in a banner. The one here was done by gluing wide ribbon to a strip of wood (wood rulers work). The wood will help secure it in a hanging position. The ribbon shows through. If it was not covered with the ribbon, the wood would show through. Just to keep in mind as you decide how you want to do yours. The ribbon on this one is long enough to cover the ruler & to then be used as the hanger for the piece. (4 ft is a suggested length-it can be trimmed down as needed)

In the example, we used zip dry glue to attach the houses to the ribbon, but most glues will work for this.

Prepare other chipboard elements for decoration. (this can be done while other parts are drying)
*paint swirls with desired color (red in the example), stamp with white ink, or draw on it with white pen.
*paint snowflakes with white paint. While still wet, sprinkle white glitter over them. You can repeat once dry by using a glue such as diamond glaze.
*paint letters red (or desired color)

Use these elements to complete the decoration of the front of the houses. In the example, the swirls were placed to where they overlapped the houses. It actually provides a little bit of stability, but not enough to just use by themselves.

Put rhinestones in the center of the snowflakes and strips of them at the bottom of the houses. Add any other little words or decorations desired. Let the banner dry overnight before hanging it.

We'd love to see yours and how you made it unique. :)

Gifts for Some Special People

Over the weekend of the 10th to 12th, the store had Wendy Vecchi teaching several classes. The Maya Road Design Team also came in for the weekend. They shared some ideas and took some classes too. It was a busy, fun weekend. Knowing that they were coming, Carolyn thought it would be neat to make each of the group a box or something that could be filled with some candy and given to them as a welcome. Several of the design team worked on these. I think they turned out pretty neat and am sharing them here as ideas to springboard off of.

Carolyn made this vase for Caroline. It turned out really great and you don't ever get the full effect from a photo.



This one was done by Annette for Wendy Vecchi. She used one of the flower boxes by Maya Road for this and personalized it with her own items.


Heidi decorated this Provo Tin for Aubrey. She used a lot of ink techniques along with paper on this tin.




Sherri decorated an old cigar box for Lisa Pace. The majority of the items used are old ephemera from her stash.



This one was for Jessica. It is a box with smaller box trays inside. There are Sassafrass Lass papers on here as well as prima flowers and page bubbles.



Hope you find some inspiration here. Let us know what you have made.

Kits, Challenges and Other Winning News

Although I know more people bought the kit than sent in pictures of projects, I am excited that three people chose to submit their project for the challenge. I can see from the pictures sent and comments made with them, that you guys really did find this out of your norm and it did stimulate you to do something different. I find it thrilling to think that it did that.

The pictures of the challenge submissions have been posted in the gallery on the store's website. When you click the link, it will give you thumbnail pictures. Open the first one and then you can select 'next' and go through each page of the submissions.

I'm glad I was not the judge. I would have had a REALLY hard time deciding. I found it interesting that everyone did an album of some sort. I guess with that many papers in the kit, it lends itself to those. We asked someone who is not affiliated with the store, doesn't know any of the participants but is a scrapbooking person to judge.

The winner (you thought I'd never get to this didn't you) is KIMBERLY. She is participant 1 in the gallery. CONGRATULATIONS Kim! The gift certificate will be waiting at the store for you! Thanks to all who did the challenge!

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

The Kit for August has a theme of Celebrating Summer. The colors remind me of summer. They would work for any type of layout or project, but to me the colors look like summer times: back yard bar-b-ques, family get-togethers, a day at the lake, celebrating a special person or a birthday or an anniversary. I hope the kit inspires you to make something...maybe to even make something you haven't made before.


For August, we will do a give-a-way of a September Kit (approximate value $25.00) to the winner. I will draw a name from all of those who submit their project or layouts. I want to remove the excuse some people might use-thinking "oh it is not good enough & will never win". All submissions have an equal chance of winning.:) Stop by the store and pick up a kit or buy it on line here. Submit your pictures to us by midnight August 30, we will draw the name and announce the winner September first right here on this blog. (there are a couple of the July kits left too, if you wanted one) Here is a picture of the August Kit.


This time, we will post some ideas the design team came up with to use elements of the kit. I hope they will spark some ideas for you. Feel free to use any ideas from these in your projects if you want. Come up with something totally new if you want.
by Brook


by Joanna


by Sherri

For September, we will be putting together actual project kits as well as the paper kits, so stay tuned. Also, there are a BUNCH of classes and crops going on in August and September. Check them out here. Hope to see you soon! Hope to see a creation made by you soon as well! Email them to carolyn@thecraftyscrapper.com.

Thanks & Happy Scrappin'!

Team Challenge

Isn't it interesting how each person sees things so differently. For a fun challenge three of us took the same products to see what we would come up with. The direction we set was that we were to do a layout, we had to use all of these products and we could not add products to the layout. We would allow use of a pen or something like that to work on the layout.


The products chosen by one of us (ok, me) was a sheet of the Simply Luxe red polka dot paper--one side is red with white dots and the other side is white with red dots. There was a sheet of the Daisy D paper with the little monkey faces on one side and taller monkeys on the other side. There were Creative Imagination (Creative Cafe) sticker sheet with the alphabet and other stickers and two ribbons from American Craft. Also put in the mix was one chipboard tag from a Maya Road Album and 3 black buttons. These items were not patterns that are often put together and so it made them a little more difficult to use, or so the plan was.

A couple things happened that affected the results, one bag did not end up with the tag in it, so it didn't get used. one of the sticker sheets was short a 'y' and an 'o', which was corrected, but the picture I took didn't have those on it, you'll see where that was. Anyway, here are the three layouts.






Each is very unique in the styling. Not a surprise was that each of us used a picture of a child in the layout. I think the monkeys called for that. Anyway, we had fun doing it. Hope it inspires you to do new things---1) try some papers that don't fit your normal scheme for layouts 2) try something new with the style, 3) have fun. You can see there is no right or wrong, just our own style.

To try to help with motivation, we are going to do another design team challenge with specific products to be used-like we did here. There will be packets of the products at the store to allow anyone else to join in that wants to. At the end of the time allowed, we will post all of the different layouts and will vote on our favorite done by someone not on the design team. This person will win an awesome prize! All of the details will be announced next week (July 15), so Stay TUNED!

Trying New Things

 

I have been looking at this little Maya Road album and thinking it looked like the shape of a shell. It is actually a large flower with the center the large circle and the small portion the petals, but it kept catching my eye as a shell. So I finally gave in and made it into a little album with a shell on the cover. I used miscellaneous ribbons & fibers and a little K&Co charm as well to try to give it a beach feel. The word 'life' is a rub on.

 

I love this poem/prose piece and thought it fit the shell theme, then printed out a few pictures of my brother's family at the beach. The colors of them and the sillhouette picture were great.

 

I used pearl mixative from Ranger over the real shell to make it shiny. The small shell is actually an embelishment from K&Co, as is the one inside the book. I used the mixative on those as well as chalk inks to adjust the color and sheen.

 

Although I am like most of us and don't like to see my own handwriting & think that it always looks better typed or printed-I did write in the book. I am trying to push myself on this and just have to do it and move on. Its my writing, not artistic, but mine.

 

The papers are K & Co as well. I also used scalloped sheers and travel chipboard key ring pieces from Maya Road for decorating the pages as well as a few embelishments from the paper line and a few ribbon/fibers. A few ribbons and stamping and I decided it was done.

 

Overall, I'd say I was pleased with the results although parts of it 'annoy' me, I think it turned out ok.

 

I leave you three challenges from this experience: 1) try something you have been wanting to for a while &/or 2) make something into something it was not intended to be &/or 3) use your own handwriting on pages even if you don't like the looks of it.

Books & More Books

This is a great Melissa Frances Book that I made into a family favorite recipe book. I used a variety of papers--all in black and white, which I think is fun. I used a lot of the Crafty Secrets pages from their new books and the tomatoes are Martha Stewart's little fabric ones. I thought the red accents were fun. I used Maya Road letters for the front--chalked with red & covered with mod podge. I picked a lot of ribbons to tie onto the top--I love tying ribbons onto things. Sometimes it is my favorite part of a project. Be sure to take a look at the book next time you are at the store!

Playing With Pink Paislee

I wanted to put a layout together for this picture of my grandbaby. When I saw the Pink Paislee line, I knew it would be fun and work really well for this picture (to me). The line has a sheet of die cuts including the frame shapes. I punched them out and then had them laying on the paper while I punched out some of the smaller die cut shapes. A happy accident. I have a lot of those. As I looked at the paper frames laying there, I saw that it might be cute to overlap them and have them overlapping and angled on the page. So that is what I did.

I left this as a one picture layout, but it could hold several pictures 4x6 sizes. I made a little chipboard backing and painted it with the Tim Holtz blue (broken china) crackle paint. Along the left side I stamped with a Fancy Pants stamp, using Nick Bantock inks in green leaf, rose madden and a yellow. I tried to get the pink on the flower portions and the green on the stems, and then I put yellow over all of it, it almost looks like I did it on one of those rainbow/spectrum ink pads. I really like the brightness of the Bantock inks.

Anyway. Quick, easy and I used two sheets of paper and the sheet of die cuts. Show me something you made this week!

Challenge Yourself!

Do you find yourself comfortable with the style and themes of your work? So do I. I find though that I can get in a rut and my layouts or work starts to take on the same format or colors. Here are some things that can pop you out of your routine--in a good way. Take a challenge. Many magazines have guidelines for submissions listed and we here at the Crafty Scrapper have swaps listed on the forum here. Even if you do not submit your project, doing the technique or theme listed is good for your work. It makes you think of things differently. Often you find a new style you like, new colors or new ways to put things together just following the guidelines listed.

Now of course, we would love to have you participate in our swaps and turn in the work. It is great for everyone. You stretch your mind, bend the edges of your comfort zone and others get to see what you have done and learn from you! You will learn new things from the others as well. Currently, there is a monthly card challenge, a monthly recipe card challenge, a layout challenge and starting soon, a monthly ATC swap. Take a look at the forum and see what you can do to push yourself into a new zone!

Studio Space

One year ago this week, I converted a bedroom into my studio. These are pictures taken about that time. I have changed some of the layout over the year, but still find it a good place to hang out. I have a lot of vintage items in use and have lots of odds & ends on shelves to look at while I'm in there.



I really like these locker baskets on my shelves. They are a perfect size to hold my autumn leaves and crafty secret stamps standing up and to toss block stamps or ink pads into when I've used them. They are a great size for nearly anything and I like the fact that they are scuffed up and fit into my vintage style room.

As you see, I just have folding plastic tables set up to do work on. I have two areas where I have put glass down to make stamping better.



This is the closet now that the room is my studio. This is contstantly requiring reorganization as I accumulate more items. I have everything from fabric, lace, blank books to stickers and glue in here.



Does having the room make my creations better? Not really, but it definitely helps me with finding things to use on them and allows me to keep cats and kids out when I need to. My kitchen table still works pretty good for working at too, but is harder to 'secure'.

Scrapbooking Basics

Scrapbooking is a visual art. We all want our pages to look good. Granted there is more to scrapbooking than just the pictures, we still want our items to look their best. No matter what type of visual endeavor we try, there are basic principles that define it. In endeavors such as painting, photography, home design, home decor, graphic design, and other visual arts there are terms and concepts that apply to it. It is putting study to what makes things look good. What makes something visually pleasant when we look at it. Granted we all have some variance in what looks good. However, I think reviewing these principles will be a starting place. Each week, we plan to discuss some of the basic terms and concepts as they relate to the scrapbooking or other paper arts & crafts that we do.

I hope most of you will find useful information in the posts. I hope that it will be a learning experience, even for some of the more experienced people. I especially hope it will be helpful to those of you feeling scared or insecure about scrapbooking and increase your confidence as you look your work in this way. It is not specifically scrapbooking 101, but it is the basis of all artistic design and a methodology to learn how to put together even better work. Think of it as the structure of the project.

Starting next week, we will start the discussions on this subject. Be on the watch for posts about principles of design such as balance, harmony, contrast, dominance, movement and unity. Once we see how that goes, we will see about discussing visual design elements such as line, shape, form, value, color and texture. Be sure to give us your thoughts!

Transparencies aka Overlays

This month, when Carolyn said she wanted me to do a Valentine layout, I specifically wanted to do something with this overlay. I love the design of it and around the circle are the words 'it is the moments we will remember'. Of course, the granddaughter is a favorite subject for layouts and I loved this picture taken of her and my dad at Christmas time.

One of the best things about overlays/transparencies is how finished they make a page look without a lot of work. For this layout it took one piece of 12 x 12 paper and a piece of paper about 6 x 12 inches. I added a couple sparkles & flowers just for some interest and found this great rub on that said 'Because I never want to forget'. It seemed to say what I wanted and tied in well with the wording on the overlay. I think the circle might be a little intimidating but as you see one doesn't have to fill the cirle up, it is ok just to make the layout balanced within the circle.

You may or may not be able to tell by the picture that the paper and the color on the overlay do not match perfectly either, but I think they pull together well. (On the monitor it may look like they clash) I used a black and white print so that the color of the papers showed, rather than multiple colors in the picture. I think it makes the eye focus on the baby's face.

Next time I want to do a layout on top of a transparency. I think it would give a similar look to what I've seen on the acrylic albums. This layout is at the store if you want to take a closer look. There are also a couple other layouts with overlays there for your inspection.

Monthly Card Swap

One of the things the store tries to encourage is creativity (of course). One of the ways we have fun with our creativity is a card swap. Each month several people make 10 cards according to the sketch for that month. They are all brought to the store where they are sorted out and swapped back to those who participated. This is a part of what I do on the design team (coordinate this swap)

The sketch for February is taken from the Split Coast Stampers site. This should be a fun one to play with. If you have never participated---now is the time to start. If you have already participated--keep it up!

These cards can be paper, mixed media, digital, mixed paper & digital, etc, etc just as long as they are inspired by the sketch for the month. The size is not important, but we do ask that you include envelopes if possible. The 10 cards can be all the same, or all different--it just doesn't matter. Sign the back of the cards please-so we all can know who made which cards. PLEASE. do not be scared to participate-it is really just for fun, a way to meet others, a way to improve our skills & so should be done in that way! We have never been disappointed in the cards we have received.
We have experienced stampers, scrappers & artists and we have brand new folks. It is fun for all.

Due date is the last day of February. Turn them into the store and then about 5 days later you will have a little packet of cards to pick up in return. Let's GO!

Try It, You'll Like It!

Well, not real snow, but fun snow anyway! This is an acrylic book in the shape of a house. It is only four pages and as you can see each page is a layer in the roofing. Along with the acrylic book I played with Snowtex to make snow on my rooftops. Since I had never done an acrylic book before, I really just experimented with several things. I stamped on it-worked great! I used rub-ons. They also worked great! I put paper "behind" the acrylic and on the top of the page both were great. I tried diamond glaze and 2-in-1 glue--both worked ok, but there is still some evidence of the gluing if you look at the paper through the acrylic.

Things I would do now that I know what I know...use less glue on the paper; make little windows that you could see through to the next page; maybe use less paper; use more stamps; add papers in between the acrylic to make a bigger book; make one like a gingerbread house; and so on.

Anyway, it is down at the store if you want to see it in person. If not, hope you can tell from the pictures what it looks like. Carolyn made a different style of acrylic book that is adorable! Show us what you did with yours!

The Stockings Were Hung...

Lots of ideas for this one little book. Perhaps one of the ideas used in here will spur you on to create something of your own. This little book would be great as individual stocking ornaments, a great garland of stockings, or as a little book of memories.

I tried to use several types of papers and styles to give multiple ideas. Check it out at the store. Link your projects with this book to the post here.....or email them to the store.