Getting festive!

Hello ladies, Tracie here!

With Christmas getting closer by the day I've come over all festive!
These lovely wood veneer journal cards from studio calico really caught my eye, although I had something other than journalling in mind for them!

I started off by painting them white with acrylic paint

I then glued them together along the edges, and added a bit more glue and lots of lovely microbeads -

by popping it over a candle (to be on the safe side I used one of the battery operated ones that are widely available now)  I had myself a cheap and easy Christmas decoration.

As is usually the case, when my daughter saw it she wanted one too, so I set about making a gift box to put it in!
This is where the pizza boxes that my yummy stash arrives in comes in handy!!

This was a very basic box, as I was going to be covering it with paper anyway I didn't worry too much about the sides being perfect and literally just stuck it together with some tape

the photo isn't brilliant but this was my basic shape

the lid was made in the same way
 *note, I made the lid larger than it needed to be because I wanted to add some lace under it, if you aren't using lace trim you'd need to adjust the size accordingly*

I chose the lovely Amy Tan papers to cover the box, along with some trim, MME enamel dots and decorative buttons

 and topped it off with one of these adorable cotton reels from Maya road threaded onto some wire.


and of course every gift box needs a tag!

So that's all from me for now, but I would love to see all your Crafty Christmas makes, so please feel free to leave a link to your work in the comments box so we can all have a look!

Quick Make!!

Hello strangers!

Nat here just popping by to share a quick and handy make with you!

I needed some pencil pots for school and had found some empty jelly pots in our art room which I decided to repurpose for the job. I'd intended to cover them with some beautiful owl sticky back plastic I'd been harbouring for ages, except when I opened it, it turned out to be wrapping paper. Gutted. Gorgeous, but not durable!

I then thought about my ever-growing Washi collection and could suddenly smell potential!

Five minutes later, I had cute pencil pots ready for action! The Days of the week MME tape on the top serves as a visual aid for my pupils too. I'm hoping I can bag a few more of these jelly pots to make some more, they are a lovely shape and quite strong and durable....perfect pretty pencil pots!

Cutting it

Hello ladies, Tracie here,

With so many of us enjoying summer holidays at the moment, stash shopping probably isn't a priority, but with so many gorgeous patterned papers out there how can we resist?

As most of the papers these days are double-sided and have such wonderful designs on them why not use them to the max! (great if you're on a budget and with all that money you save you can afford more patterned papers!!)

For my first layout I dived into the gorgeous My Minds Eye, Find your wings and fly range

I cut out all the gorgeous little hot air balloons from the balloon parade paper.

By folding them in half and gluing three of them together I was able to give them a 3D effect

For my second layout I took my inspiration from the brickwork in the photos, I took the bits I'd cut out from the background paper, reversed them and arranged them around the cut out to extend the pattern.

I cut out the cute roses from the My Minds Eye Floral paper and added a few dots of liquid pearls to add interest

My final layout shows my beautiful granddaughter who turned fourteen this year. 

I found the layered ephemera paper was a perfect starting block to build upon and by cutting the repeat 

images from the labelled paper and adding them using foam pads I could add some depth to it, a little bit of washi tape and some chipboard from the same range and I was practically there with minimum effort! 

So that's all from me for now;  for those of you off enjoying sunnier climes, have a wonderful holiday!

 For those of you, like me, staying home and putting up with the rain after all that lovely weather, make your own sunshine and go and do some scrapping! 

Buttons

At the last retreat, I assisted Ifa with her lovely class which incorporated clear buttons. Some were idly sat on my desk space, when a bit of paper shuffling resulted in one becoming stuck on a torn scrap of washi tape, which inspired me to use it to deliberately create custom patterened buttons for my pages this month.

I'll make no apologies for bringing you pages made with snowy photos that I took back in January, in April - as I'm sat here with the rain lashing at the window and the wind howling around the walls, I could easily be forgiven for thinking we were in the deep depths of Winter anyway!

My papers this month are from the Amy Tan "Yes, Please" range.

Here's my first page:

You can just see a couple of my washi-covered buttons in the bottom right hand corner.  Here's how I easily created them in moments:

1. Pop a strip of washi tape, sticky side up, on to your work area, and pop a button on top. Easy! As you can see on the right, you don't have to stick to just one design of tape on your button. Mix it up! Go wild! Dig in to that washi!

For larger buttons where your chosen tape isn't wide enough to cover it in one go, pop one small piece of tape over half of the button, then simply tear another small strip and marry up the pattern on the other half, as below (you can just see the button in the picture underneath the tape; I joined the tapes along the button holes):

2. Burnish the tape on to the button firmly with your thumb and finger, and then trim away the excess tape from around the edge. Using a pokey tool or a pin, push through the button holes and remove the tiny scraps of washi tape from inside. I preferred to push through from the back as it ensured that the rest of the tape wasn't accidentally lifted from the button in the process.

3. And ta'daaaa! You have your own custom buttons using the pretty washi tape that we all love and hoard!!

The semi-transparent nature of washi lends itself very well to the buttons and create a lovely effect when popped over layers of paper or photos as you can see a portion through the design; I popped some onto a photo here to illustrate this:

The particular tapes I have used here are the gorgeous ones from MME's My Girl, Notable and Unforgettable triple packs.

Here's a close up of them on my page:

For their mat I used a slice from the chevron arrow sheet in the Dear Lizzy die cut sheet pack, and utilised the bits I popped out else where on my page - you can see some below the title (above) and some at the top of the page:

The "Phrases" veneer from Studio Calico's Sundrifter range are lovely for adding that extra bit of detail to your pages - I love the wood-burnished look of the fonts on them and the pack contains a huge array of phrases and symbols.

Here's the second frosty page that I used my washi buttons on:

This time I used some of the Phrases veneer to make a little weather-forcast style snow symbol:

 I used some of the gorgeous little Amy Tan puffy stickers as sub-headings for my journalling and others such as the hearts, flowers and arrows to add interest around both of my pages:

I didn't opt for a title per se on this layout, but instead grouped a strip of one of the Amy Tan papers that had a definition printed across it along with some pretty die cuts from the Dear Lizzy Lucky Charm die cut pack to convey the message:

So that's me for April - I am sat with my fingers crossed that we will have defrosted and I will be able bring you some warm, sun-shine filled pages for May! .......Well, a girl can dream ;)

Studio Calico Ephemera

I often surf my way though products in the shop, and hover over an interesting-looking embellishment product but decide not to add it to my virtual basket as it's hard to be exactly sure what is included in the packet from the little thumbnail released by the manufacturers. This month though, such curiosity got the better of me, and I ordered myself a pack of the Ephemera from Studio Calico's Heyday range. I wasn't sure what to expect, but was really pleased when the packet arrived, and excitedly set to playing with my new goodies, so thought I'd share with you what I created.

I was pleased that, at £3.99, the pack was excellent value for money. It was teaming with lots of really usable die cuts that could work with lots of recent ranges from a variety of manufacturers. I coupled my pack with the gorgeous new Soleil release from Basic Grey, and some new Everyday Eclectic and For The Record Documented from Echo Park, all of which were perfect for recording some summer evening memories; but I can see that the oranges, pinks and turquoises working equally well with any of the pastel/brights releases we have seen over the past few seasons. This makes the pack a perfect, purse-friendly answer for a spot of stash busting - something new to add a twist to your existing papers.

Being the good Samaritan that I am, here's a scanned close up of the Heyday Ephemera packaging to give you a good idea of what is included, a whopping 71 pieces in all:

It was a pleasing surprise to find that you actually get two of each of the resin flower brads, and five of each of the pearlescent butterfly sequins.

Here's my first page:

 

I used one of the journalling tags as a mat for my title, but to ensure that the MLS newsprint alpha stickers showed clearly I added a trip of grey MME washi tape and some of the pretty new teal striped tap from Bella Blvd:

I completed my title with some mini alphas, and the little "photo" tag from the Ephemera. Another tag from the pack nestled above it to add another layer of texture and interest.

I find it hard to create a page that doesn't have a cluster of embellishments of some sort, and here some different washi tapes from MME, Bella Blvd and Queen and Co and a scalloped circle and strip tag (that I added some journalling to with a Slick Writer pen), make the base for some pins, two of the flower brads and some wood veneer shapes.

Returning to the pack of ephemera, I added a couple of the cloud shapes to the top of my photos, anchoring them with a spot of faux stitching, and layered one of the butterfly sequins on top of a diecut one before slipping it under a corner.

My second page contains some snaps from the fun fair:

 

With my pictures/theme in mind, I was instantly drawn to this off-kilter pink diecut, and decided to utilise it as a mat for my title; using the diagonal pattern as a guide for placing the Newsprint alphas. 

I always find it hard to break against some deep, inexplicable need to create straight-lined designs when I scrap, but was able to convince myself that as it fitted the topsy-turvy funfair ride theme, I could do it.......(maybe just this once though *twitch twitch*) 

To make the whole thing stand out further, I nestled on top of three of the banner tags, strung together with some grey twine:

I found the perfect journalling spot in the pack - the red and yellow circle design seen here reminded me of the flashing bulb lights on the mechanical arms of the ride, as did the star and arrow die cuts that I added next to it..........

For the final touch, I added the girls' initials to two of the balloon diecuts, and popped them in the top left hand corner of the page, and an image of two little children holding hands in the bottom right.

I really dug into the pack and added them quite liberally to my two pages here, but still have a whole load of embellishments left to use again. The pack really is versatile and excellent value for money - and I have a feeling that my days of deliberating are over and I may find myself going with that urge to "click" rather than "hover" again in the future - try it, you may be pleasantly surprised!

My supplies included:

Studio Calico Heyday Ephemera	Basic Grey Soleil	Basic Grey Soleil	Basic Grey Soleil
Echo Park Everyday Eclectic	EP For the Record 2 Documented	Echo Park Everyday Eclectic	Bella Blvd Designer Tape
Bella blvd Designer Tape	MME Sweetest Thing Decorative Tape	Queen & Co Pink Polka Dot Tape	American Crafts - Amy Tangerine - Mixtape 2
Studio Calico - Abroad - Wood Veneer Shapes - Cameras	Studio Calico Wood Veneer Stars	Studio Calico - Wood Veneer Shapes - People	MLS Vintage Shop
Pink Paislee Bitty Block Alphas	American Crafts Slick Writers

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