The one stop spot for crafting and genealogical inspiration

Today we have another layout to use up those scraps of patterned paper you have left over.

You will need:-

1 pc 12" x 12" card stock
1 pc scrap card stock
Left over scraps from patterned paper
Stamps & ink pad or pen to doodle
Photo 51/2" x 51/2"

1) Take piece of scrap card and using a compass draw a circle 10" in diameter. Draw a line vertically, slightly to the right of centre. Measure101/2" along this line from the top of the circle and mark the this spot. Now extend the curve at the bottom left of the circle to meet this point so that the bottom looks like the bottom of a heart. (See example layout) Cut this shape out discarding anything to the right of the vertical line.

2) Using strips of scrap patterned paper cover this shape (See example layout) I found it easiest to overhang the edge with the patterned paper and trim round when finished.

3) Adhere this to the 12" x 12" card stock 1" from the left hand edge and 3/4" down from the top (Again see example layout)

4) Adhere photograph 23/4" down from the top and 43/4" from the left hand edge.

5) Using stamps, stamp around the outside edge of the shape covered in patterned paper. You could doodle instead or journal around here.

6) Journal on the plain card stock beneath the photo.

7) Place a title on the plain card stock above the photo.

8) Doodle, stamp or journal on the plain card stock at the bottom right hand corner of the photo.

Download the word document of this class:-
IAclasseverythinggrowswithlove.doc

Today's class is about including frames and borders on your layout to create definition and interest. When designing a layout or following a sketch our first area of focus is the positioning of the papers, photos and embellishments. This is what creates the balance of the layout and makes it feel right. Sometimes this is sufficient to create an interesting layout, but there are times when the page just doesn't seem complete or your focus isn't on the photo or journaling. This is when it's useful to include some frames and/or borders.

In my layout I wanted to make the photo the centre of attention so the borders were designed to draw the eye into it. By placing a border around the photo itself, I created a strong visual line to draw the eye into the cats' faces. The circular paper in the top left hand corner with its strong border also pulls you into the image of the cats. Finally, the border around the card edge contains your attention within the page.

Experiment for yourself with frames and borders and see how you can change the feel of your layout.

Another very simple class today. As always, feel free to modify to suit yourself.

You will need:-

1 pc 12"x12" card stock
1 photo 101/2"x81/4" - Photo needs blank space to journal on one side - we used the right but, you could reverse the layout.
1 pc patterned paper cut into a triangle 51/4" vertically and 73/4" along the bottom. Cut the diagonal so that the vertical edge is at the left hand side
1 pc patterned paper cut into a triangle 53/4" vertically and 71/2" along the bottom. Cut the diagonal so that the vertical edge is on the right hand side.
1 pc patterned paper 101/2"x 11/4"
1 pc patterned paper 101/2" x 11/2"
1 pc ric-rac
1 pc braid ribbon
1 pc furniture fringing or similar
Sticker letters
Sticker embellishments
Gel pens

How to do it

1) Adhere the photo to the 12"x12" card stock - 11/4" from the left hand side and 3/4" from the bottom of the card stock.
2) Adhere the 2 triangular pieces of patterned paper to the bottom of the photograph - see example layout.
3) Adhere the smaller piece of remaining patterned paper above the top of the photograph.
4) Adhere the final piece of patterned paper above the last piece that you adhered at step 3.
5) Adhere the piece of braid ribbon along the diagonal edge of the left hand triangle.
6) Adhere the ric rac along the diagonal edge of the right hand triangle.
7) Adhere the furniture fringing to the upper edge of the top piece of patterned paper.
8) Take a black gel pen and scribble around the exposed edges of all the papers so it looks like machine stitching.
9) Scribble a couple of additional lines in the top right hand corner and the bottom left hand corner - see example layout.
10) Adhere a sticker embellishment or whatever you choose in the corner of the left hand triangle.
11) Use your letter stickers to journal down the right hand side of the photograph and in the right hand triangle - see example layout. Tip: Use a gel pen to highlight the edges of the stickers and to blend them into the papers and the photo.

That's it, one simple but, highly effective layout.

What you need

1 pc 12” x 12” card stock
1 pc 10” x 10” patterned paper
1 pc 9” x 10” solid coloured paper
1 pc 9¹/₂” x 6¹/₂” white core patterned paper. Tear along one 9¹/₂” side to expose white core
1 black and white photo – mine was 7¹/₂” x 5¹/₂”
1 pizza box, although you could use chipboard, card, doodle or stamp
Flowers of some description – I stamped onto patterned paper and cut them out
Embellishments as desired

How to do it

1)      Cut a curve to the bottom edge of the solid coloured paper – this will be one of the 10” edges.

2)      Round the corners at the top of this paper.

3)      Round the edges of the 10” x 10” patterned paper.

4)      Adhere the solid colour paper to the 10” x 10” patterned paper matching the rounded corners at the top.

5)      Stick the photo to the paper with the exposed white core, positioning it towards the top left hand corner, but leaving a slight margin.

6)      Stick the matted photo to the top of the solid coloured paper, again leaving a slight margin.

7)      Adhere all the above to the 12” x 12” card stock positioning it ¾” from the left hand edge and 1¹/₂” from the top.

8)      Either use a ready made chip board shape or cut a swirl from a piece of cardboard and colour it to resemble a plant stem. It should be about 10¹/₂” in height. You could easily improvise here with stamps or doodling. Adhere to the layout at the right of the photo.

9)      Attach flowers.

10)  Journal around the edge of the solid coloured paper and the patterned paper beneath it.

11)  Add title to the left of the plant embellishment and under the photo.

12)  Add further embellishments as desired.

Altered mini DVD album

After scouring my local Poundland I stumbled across a set of 6 mini DVD’s that came in a little plastic case. Ideal for altering.  So I bought a load of them and actually held a class at my local craft shop, which was great.

Some people I think are put off altering things like CD’s or DVD’s because of the fact that they are round ! But honestly the possibilities are endless when it comes to their uses.

To make this little travel album I firstly covered each of the DVD’s in a plain blue paper, keeping the shiny reflective side in tact as I love the metallic colours of DVD’s (or CD’s) just for a bit of modernism on what is an altered album. In order to adhere paper to the DVD’s I would recommend using a wet glue, PVA, Very Tacky Glue or similar as this will ensure that the paper does stick everywhere – you can use double sided tape but as it is a circle, you don’t get the edges to bond very well.  (if you are the proud owner of a Crop-a-dile then you can punch holes in once the discs are altered, it not it’s worth doing that now before you start applying paper to them. Just warm up the disc with your heat gun (and only warm them, don’t cook them as they will stink and also buckle badly), as I say, warm the discs where you want the hole and use your manual hole punching device – its easier warm and you’re less likely to shatter the disc)

My overall theme was travel and in order to get the proportions right for the size of the discs (as they are only about 2 inches in diameter) I used the Travel set of ATC Collection pads (available from most good ATC suppliers and your local craft shops).  I then messed around with cutting out the little images from the pad and then created mini collages in each of the discs.

Now if you want, you can keep the whole disc covered and keep it as freestanding album (i.e. not contained within the original case) or you can choose to remove the wholes in the middle so that they sit back on their original case.

If you want to ink the edges of the discs, I would recommend using permanent ink such as Stazon otherwise it will take an eternity (it not never) to dry out.  Remember you can collage onto the discs, if you want to ink onto them direct and then emboss you can get some amazing effects using this technique (more on that another day)

Once all your discs are altered, you can then punch a hole through them in order to tie with ribbon/fibres and the like, add charms and voila! If you want to alter the case, then remove the original paper insert from the top of the case and keep it to use as a template for covering! Easy peasy.

Again, I would say that having a Crop-a-dile is a god send when altering DVD’s or CD’s but I’m not on a mission to plug these for sale, I managed to cope quite happily using my heat gun and a hole punch which I used to whack with a hammer – nothing wrong with that and much more satisfying.

You could cover them entirely and use them to make covers for a truly altered and original scrapbook album, just use the CD’s themselves as a template to cut cardstock for the pages (or a Craft Robo if you’re that way inclined)

Altered CD’s can be used to make the most amazing dream catchers – watch this space for another project on how to do that later!

Happy altering and remember, when you got those freebie CD’s through your door in the morning with your post, hang on to them….you never know what you’ll be inspired to make.

 

 

 

 

Embellishments

You will need:-

1 sheet card stock 111/4" x 12"
1 strip patterned paper 1" x 12"
1 sheet patterned paper 11" x 101/2"
1 sheet patterned paper 83/4" x 101/2"
1 strip patterned paper 9" x 11/2"
1 strip patterned paper 8" x 2"
1 strip patterned paper 73/4" x 2"
1 strip patterned paper 81/2" x 13/4"
Photo 61/2" x 6"
3 circles of vellum 21/2" in diameter
Ric-Rac
Buttons
Chipboard swirls
Butterfly embellishment
Pen

How to do it
1) Take the 1" x 12" strip of patterned paper, place the shorter side of the 111/4" x 12" card stock on top of it, overlapping by 1/2" and adhere to create one piece of card 12" x 12"
2) Take the 11" x 101/2" card stock and adhere it on top of the newly created 12" x 12" piece - 3/4" from left hand side and 1/8" from the bottom.
3) Take the 83/4" x 101/2" card stock and adhere it on top of the other pieces - 13/4" from the left hand edge and 1" from the bottom edge.
4) Take the 4 strips of remaining patterned paper and adhere them as shown in the example layout, so that their top edge is 2" from the top of the layout and the right hand edge of the far right piece is 13/4" from the right hand edge of the layout.
5) Adhere the photo 21/2" from the top of the layout and 11/4" from the right hand edge.
6) Doodle around the edges of all the pieces of card stock and patterned paper as shown in the example layout.
7) Adhere the Ric-Rac as per the example layout and add buttons as shown.
8) Take the 3 vellum circles and arrange in a triangle to the left of the photograph and adhere - see example layout.
9) Colour the chipboard swirls (I used metallic rub-ons, you could paint, use gel pens or similar) and adhere over the vellum circles as shown in example.
10) Attach butterfly.
11) Add journaling.

You can download the word document for this class from:-
IAwednesdayclasshappyspirit.doc

Supplies

12"x12" card stock
Patterned Paper A 103/4"x41/2"
Patterned Paper B 11£x13/4"
Patterned Paper C 61/2"x81/2"
Photo 53/4"x73/4"
1 piece ric-rac 81/4"
1piece ric-rac 101/4"
Brads
Stamps
Stamp pad
Pen

How to do it

1) Adhere patterned paper A horizontally 11/2" from the bottom of the card stock and 1/2" from the left hand edge of the cards tock.
2) Adhere patterned paper B vertically 1" from the left hand edge of the card stock and 1/2" from the bottom of the card stock.
3) Mat the photo on patterned paper C and adhere 21/2" from the left hand edge of the card stock and 3" from the bottom of the card stock.
4) Adhere the shorter piece of ric-rac along the bottom of the photo so that it goes from the left hand edge of the card stock to about 3/4 of the way across the photo.
5) Adhere the other piece of ric rac 1/4" below the first piece again starting at the left hand edge of the card stock.
6)Journal in the bttom left hand corner of the photo - see example layout.
7) Place your title across the top left hand edge of the photo - see example layout.
8) Stamp and embellish around the frame of the photo as desired - see example. Tip - Don't be afraid to stamp and embellish onto the photo and across the edge, it helps to make it merge in with the surrounding papers and softens the lines, making it more soothing on the eye and drawing it into the photo itself.
9) Scribble around the exposed edges of the patterned papers and photos to make it look as if you have sewn around them.
10) Voila - one layout. Feel free to alter and adapt however you wish.

Each Wednesday we will upload a step by step project. Today's project is designed to help you make use of those mistakes that you bought and the scraps of paper that you have left over. Here is the layout we are going to produce:-



You will need:-

1) 12" x 12" cardstock which you have now decided is a colour you will never use
2) 6" x 4" scrap of patterned paper
3) 51/2" x 4" scrap of patterned paper
4) White acrylic paint and two other colours
5) The ability to create a flower - so either bought flowers or paper to create your own
6) Stamps or rub-ons although you could doodle
7) Gel pens or colouring pencils
8) Two strips of torn material or ribbon
9) Photo 6" x 8"

1) The first step is to select a piece of cardstock which you think you'll never use. I chose a piece of fluorescent pink card which was far too bright for me to use under normal circumstances. Paint over it with a wash of white acrylic paint to tone down the colour.



2) Roughly paint 2 rectangles of different coloured washes across the card leaving a border of approximately 1" all the way around. When this is dry either dry brush a contrasting colour across to give depth or rub in some metallic rub or chalk.

3) Adhere the 51/2" x 4" patterned paper in the top left hand corner and the 6" x 4" patterned paper in the bottom right hand corner.

4) Adhere two pieces of torn material or ribbon about half way up on the right hand side (see picture below for placement).

5) Attach photograph and then attach your flower just below the material strips.. Your layout should now look something like this:-



6) Now for the fun part. You want to draw the eye into the photo. To do this, we are going to stamp around the photo angling the stamped images so that they pull the eye into the details in the photo that we want to highlight. The stamping should form a triangle. Instead of stamping, you could doodle or use rub-ons. Colour in parts of the stamping as desired.

7) Finally, add the journaling in the top right hand corner. I used a journaling stamp and hand wrote the words, but you could print something off the computer or just journal by hand, stamp or use rub ons.

Your final layout should look something like this:-



I created this layout as an example for the July challenge which you can find here:-

http://www.freewebs.com/inspirationalley/scrapthemonth.htm

I get my inspiration from all aspects of my life. It might be a poem I've read, a program I've watched or something that's happening to me or I feel strongly about. The Regression layout is the representation of a past life regression session that I had. Unfortunately, I didn't find any past lives, but, I did find a bit of me and a better understanding of myself. The session contained some strong symbolic images and some words that were repeated over and over; this layout records these things. To somebody else it's probably nonsense, to me it means a lot. I think when creating anything it's important to do it first and foremost for yourself, if you like it and it speaks to you, it doesn't have to be a masterpiece. If somebody else likes it that's a bonus.

How did I create the background for my layout?

It's really quite simple and the beauty is that you can't get it wrong.

I took a piece of white textured cardstock, but you could use a piece of canvas primed with gesso or white paint.

First step is to take a fairly large decorating paint brush and dab it in some yellow paint. Brush off the excess on some paper and then paint the your background roughly with broad easy strokes, leaving some of the background white. For this initial stage, I usually make sure all my brush strokes are in the same direction.

Second stage, whilst this paint is still wet, paint over it with some red paint, again dab the excess paint off your brush before painting. The idea is that they will merge slightly in places. Again leave some spaces white but, this time paint in different directions.

Thirdly,again whilst the other paint is still wet, take some white paint and dab almost all the paint off the brush. With a very light touch, go over the whole of the background merging the paints together.

Finally, you get to highlight certain areas, I used white and purple and randomly painted them side by side across the background. If you don't like the effect you've achieved blend with some more white paint. The last step is to take a plastic knife or credit card and scratch away some of the paint to reveal the paint underneath. This will provide texture and depth and add interest. You can't go wrong, if you don't like what you've done, just paint over it.

You don't have to use the colours I used, experiment with your own, experiment with the way you put paint on, try using inks for different effects. Just play, it's the only way to develop something that you're really going to like. Look at what others have done, take what you like but, add your own twist, don't be afraid to be different.

How did I put it all together?

Once I'd created the background, I was ready to start putting my ideas into practice. The first step was to create the journaling. My regression session is still very strong in my memory, and certain words were repeated over and over again and have a particular significance. I created a page in word with these words randomly repeated throughout and printed it out. Next I tore a strip from it and colour washed it with red, yellow and purple diluted acyrilic paints. Once this was dry, I adhered it to the page. I then stamped the number 17 in one corner and the number 32 in the corner diagonally opposite, these numbers represented the age I first found myself at within the regression and the age I'd reached by the end of it.

The second step was to think about all the images in my session. I entered the regression through a garden where I descended some steps and found a doorway. I googled for images that fitted my memory of how these appeared. I then had to find something to represent the places that I visited, a river scene, crossing a patch of tangled branches and thorns, a public building with a domed roof which unfurled to reveal the sky and a carnival. Again I googled for images but couldn't find everything I wanted. The barrier of branches and thorns was therefore created using a  mixture of stamping and a google image. The flower and butterfly were junk stall brooches and the flower stem an earring. All the elements were placed around the journalling on the layout. I highlighted the carnival mask with bedazzles to make it glint as it would in reality and to give a party atmosphere. To make the images blend in, I softened the edges with metallic rub ons.

Finally, I printed out my photogragh, cut around my image and adhered it to the layout.

I hope that I have given you some ideas for a project of your own and I'd love to see what you come up with and how you've adapted my ideas and made something that is uniquely you. All the ideas can be applied to other artistic mediums and I'd love to see examples of whatever you produce.

If you have been inspired to produce any work of art as a result of this project, please share it with us. The work can be anything, a piece of journaling, a card, a piece of altered art, anything that has been inspired in some way by this project. I also produced this layout of my husband's regression session.



My son knows that this project is about honesty and truth and doing the right thing so his interpretation is a poem.

Message to David

Yo, David yer got some beef wit me?
Yer’d better back down cos I ain’t gonna flee.
Yer think yer smooth like butter,
That only you matter. Well, I’ve got news for you,
You ain’t got no bean.

Now bust this coz I’ve got a tale to tell.
A tale of treachery, deceit, heartbreak and hell.
Sometimes people get me wrong,
Believe there’s something I’ve said or done,
Well, I’m not what those people think,
Oh brother, why does the world stink?

Yo, David yer got some beef wit me?
Yer’d better back down cos I ain’t gonna flee.
Yer think yer smooth like butter,
That only you matter. Well, I’ve got news for you,
You ain’t got no bean.

We used to be close, did everything together,
We’d play outside no matter the weather,
But then he told everyone who’d listen that I was scum,
A busta, a snitch, a tell-tale who lived in a slum.
Well, those brothers were suckas, they believed what he said,
But I’ve clocked him now and I know what he did.

Yo, David yer got some beef wit me?
Yer’d better back down cos I ain’t gonna flee.
Yer think yer smooth like butter,
That only you matter. Well, I’ve got news for you,
You ain’t got no bean.

Well, David I saw you with my own eyes spreading those lies,
And I know I’m not gonna get any apologies.
I don’t wanna live my life with sleepless nights,
And I’m sick and tired of all the fights,
So step out da way foo’, before I cap yo,
I realise now you’re still an embryo.

Yo, David yer got some beef wit me?
Yer’d better back down cos I ain’t gonna flee.
Yer think yer smooth like butter,
That only you matter. Well, I’ve got news for you,
You ain’t got no bean.