If at first you don't succeed, just keep adding stuff!

 One of the problems I run into most often while teaching others is when folks make what they view as 'mistakes'. I am a big believer that all mistakes really just add to art. 'There are no mistakes, just opportunities for creativity.' is a phrase I use at least once during every workshop I teach. So today, I thought I'd show everybody just what happens when I make a mistake.

I started this tag by inking the entire thing with spiced marmalade using the foam blending tool.

I have this new stamp set that I've been itching to use called 'Word Pops' by Hero Arts. I put Ranger's embossing ink all over the stamp and stamped the image onto my tag.

 

I added white detail embossing powder to the tag.

 

I heat embossed the powder, and started to realize my mistake...

Distress ink tends to take longer to dry than other inks (this way you can blend it, or even emboss with it better than you can other inks), so when I added the embossing powder, it stuck to a few places other than the stamped images where I intended it.

I inked blue over the entire tag, and the embossed areas resisted the ink. As you can see, the images of the dots aren't as crisp as I envisioned them.  So I decided to keep plugging away and to find another way to use the tag.

I took an actual sheet of dictionary paper ripped out of Patrice's dictionary (my own dictionary is holding up my husband's bookshelf in his office - it's a long story).

 I tore a small piece off of the paper.

I used some glue and seal by Ranger on the back of my dictionary paper and adhered it to the tag. Glue and Seal is like a Mod Podge, but we at Cropsy Turvy like it a whole lot better (it goes on a lot less clumpy in my opinion).

Once, the dictionary paper was adhered to my tags, I got out another of my favorite Ranger items...

Love the gesso! I'm using it in white here for a white washed look to my project, but it also comes in black. It can be used as a primer as well.

So with a little piece of cut n dry foam, I applied a very light coat of the gesso over the edges of my dictionary paper, and blended it into the rest of the tag.

Next, I took some vintage photo distress ink, and blended it all over the dictionary paper.

I found a piece of ribbon that I wanted to put along the bottom of the tag, so I applied a thin line of glossy accents to the bottom.

And put the ribbon down.  I wanted to grunge it up just a tad (and I wanted to be sure it wasn't going anywhere when I trimmed the edges off).

So I used my tiny attacher, and put some little staples onto the edges of the ribbon, and trimmed off the excess.

I took a few of Tim Holtz's sprockets and added them with glossy accents to the tag. For ribbons, I went ahead and created my own using seam binding and tattered angels again (because as we all know, I am too lazy to look for matching ribbons).

Here is the finished project. I ended up liking it a lot, even though it wasn't remotely what I was thinking of when I started. Sometimes that is the best part of this craft though! I'm sure I will go back and try to perfect the emboss resist that I wanted to do in the first place, but for now I have an another project to add to my growing stash.

Do you have a project that didn't end up the way you envisioned it? We'd love to see your happy accidents! Share them with us and we'll post them on the blog to inspire others!

Thanks for looking everybody!

Keathe

Matchbook Mini Album Written Tutorial

Hey Scrap Fans! I promise you I would post a written tutorial for the match book mini album we did as a make and take at St. Andrew's this weekend. Thanks to all of you who took the class, I hope you enjoyed it and I hope you find many uses for this fun little album!

This was the album I used as an example. I left it unfinished, but there are sooooo many ways you could embellish this cover.

Ok....let's get started......

Starting with a sheet of 12x12 card stock, score at 4" and 8".

Rotate card stock 90 degrees and make the following sets of score lines:
2- 3/8" and 2-5/8"
5-5/8" and 5-7/8"
8-7/8" and 9"
These score marks are creating the spines of the mini album that give the papers room to fold up and lay flat. The first two sets of scores create 1/4" spines and the third a 1/8" spine.

The blocks at the top of the page are going to be smaller than the others. (2-5/8" tall as opposed to 3") This is where you will create the flap closure of your album by removing the left and right blocks and leaving the center.

Cut on the second score lines (where you scored at 2-5/8" on both sides stopping at the 4" and 8" score marks. This leaves only the center block, which will be your flap.

Using a craft knife and a ruler, cut on all of the score lines, stopping at the 4" and 8" score marks on either side. (you could use scissors, but I find a craft knife to be much easier to make these cuts) Remove the cut pieces to create the flaps of the album.

When you are all through cutting, your page should look like this.

Next you are going to create the pockets on your album but cutting three of the flaps in half on alternating sides. The flaps are 4", so you will want to remove 2" with scissors or a paper trimmer.

Put aside the remaining paper you trimmed off, as you will use this later to create your hinges.

In order to make it easier to embellish your pockets, you should place your patterned paper before adhering your pockets. Cut your pattern paper to 2x3" and adhere to all three pockets.

Use a 1" circle punch to punch about half way down on each pocket, creating an indent to make removal of the items placed in the pockets easier.

Next, take two of the three leftover pieces you removed from your pockets and cut them in thirds creating three pieces approximately 2"x1". They don't need to be exactly 1", they only have to be the same height of your pockets. Fold them in half, creating hinges for your pockets.

Place double-sided tape on both sides of the hinges and adhere the hinges along both edges of the pocket alining the fold of the hinge with the edge of the pocket.

Remove the double sided tape.

Fold over pocket and stick down.

Place pattern paper mat inside the pocket, making sure to place it over the hinges on the inside. This will ensure anything you place in the pocket will not encounter any obstructions.

Continue to embellish your album by placing mats on all parts of the album.

Use a border punch to punch a decorative edge on the flap closure if desired.

And of course, ink the edges of your project with Tim Holtz Distress Ink in whatever color matches your project.

I hope this written tutorial helps you to recreate this album. For those of you who attended the St. Andrew's Crop this weekend, I'm working on the pdf file I promise you, so keep an eye on your inbox, as I will try to have it done by the end of the week. I'm also working on the website to allow registration of the upcoming class online, so keep an eye on that too. Thanks for all of your support, and until next time, Happy Scrappin'!!

~Patrice

Make a Flower Friday (except on a Monday)

Hey Everybody!

Today is make a flower Friday, except that it is Monday. I could say that I'm posting the flower tutorial today because I am a rebel that way, or because I like to go against the grain, or something equally clever. Truth is that Patrice and I were really busy this weekend, and I slacked off on the blog post on Friday. Please don't hold it against me though!

To make up for my slackerness, I am posting what is quite possibly one of my favorite flowers. It is super easy to make and you can make lots of slight changes to get a big change in the look of your flower. You'll need a strip of felt, a pair of scissors and you'll need a liquid adhesive (I used beacon's 3 in 1) or a hot glue gun.

Here is my felt strip:

Before anybody says anything, let me tell you that yes, this strip is orange and it is a much brighter color than I am accustomed to. The only other color of felt I have lying around is pink though, and we all know how I feel about that. ;)  Next we need to add glue all along one edge of the felt and fold it in half.  I used Beacon's here but could have used my glossy accents if I could have found it in my scrap room.

Press that down really well and allow it do dry a bit.

Here comes the fun part, take your scissors and cut into the folded end. Cut a straight line into the felt about a third of the way in. Here is where you can get crazy with it. Your flower will look slightly different depending on how close together your cuts are, how you cut into the felt (for example if you cut slightly diagonal lines rather than straight ones). For our example, I just did it the regular way. I cut about every quarter inch.

Now start rolling up your strip of felt, gluing down every few rolls.

When you are done, all your little cuts will make a puffy looking felt flower like so:

Cute huh? (And I don't usually do cute, but this flower I love in spite of myself)

Let me know if you try it out, and especially let me know if you discover any really neat variations, since I haven't tried any myself yet.

Thanks for stopping by everybody!

Crazy Busy Weekend Ahead!!

(A Sampling of what we will have this weekend)

Well Scrap Fans, the time has finally come for the St. Andrew's Scrap the Day Away Crop. Keathe and I have been busy trying to get everything together, unpacking boxes, pricing products and the car is finally packed. I do have a few things left on my To Do list, but they'll have to wait until tomorrow, as I've used every last ounce of energy today.

Remember, even if you can't make the crop this weekend, you can still stop by to shop. We'll be there Friday from 4:30PM-12:00 and Saturday from 9:00AM-12:00 along with Art Tech, Creative Memories and Stampin' Up! If you can't make it Friday or Saturday, we'll be at Richland Senior High School from 1:00-4:00. We also have a great class in the works, so be on the look out for details early next week. Until then, Happy Scrappin!!

~Patrice

Perfect Pearls are perfectly awesome!

I will admit to having many loves when it comes to crafting.  I want to roll around in piles of just about anything that Ranger sells, the grungy happy look of 7 gypsies makes me go weak in the knees, and I could go on and on. 

Today I made a tag with another of my loves: Perfect Pearls by Ranger.  For whatever reason, Perfect Pearls don't seem to get the love that the other Ranger products do.  I'm going to choose to believe that it is because not everybody knows about the many uses of them.  I mean, let's face it: they are a very fine powder in a small jar.  I know that once upon a time, I just assumed they were embossing powders, and was pretty unhappy when they didn't act the way that embossing powders do.  So let's see just how beautifully they lend themselves to a project!

First thing I did was ink the entire manilla tag in broken china distress ink (I have a thing with blues, I'm not sure if you've noticed yet). 

Then it's time to get out the Perfect Pearls.  I used Blue Patina (because as I've said - the thing with blues).  I took a perfect pearls brush and applied a thin coat of the pearls all over the tag.  The Perfect Pearls come separately (in little jars like this) or you can get them in kits with four coordinating colors, two brushes, and the perfect medium ink pad that you use with them.  I used the larger brush that comes with the kit since detail wasn't an issue and I had a lot of ground to cover.  This is what it looked like when I was finished:

Next, I took the perfect medium ink and applied it all over this background stamp by Hero Arts.  Perfect Medium is a clear ink with a bit of stickiness to it.

I then stamped the image onto the tag with the perfect pearls on it.  The perfect medium picks up the perfect pearls and sticks to the background stamp so that the color underneath shows through.  On this tag, there was a very subtle difference because I used two similar shades of blue.  If I had used two contrasting colors the difference would have been much more striking. (I'm also into subtle though).

I went ahead and stamped some brushed corduroy distress ink onto a french script stamp (this one is from Stampin' Up!) very haphazardly.  I wanted a very distressed look on the tag, so I wasn't carefully about making sure that every piece of the tag was covered with the image.

 When I want to get a distressed look, I often will put my project directly onto the stamp and just kind of  'finger walk' over a few parts of the tag. 

This is the result.  Just a very light stamped image that breaks up in spots.

I'm starting to sound a little like a broken record now, but I also really like the tissue tape that Tim and Ranger make (and if you've been reading the blog you already know my feelings about the distress stains).  So, here I took a length of the tissue tape and unrolled it onto my craft mat (I didn't tear it off the roll though). I colored it with broken china distress stain, and because I am impatient, heat it until dried.

I carefully rolled the tape back onto the roll (really not as difficult as it sounds, and I do this anytime I color my tissue tape) and I applied it to the bottom of my tag.  I made little pleats with the tape as I went.

This butterfly stamp comes from a set by Prima. I inked it with dried marigold.  Those are Tim's stamp blocks that I'm using with the stamp.  They are simply brilliant!

I dabbed a tiny bit of the broken china stain over the outside edges of the butterfly stamp.

I stamped the image onto white scrap paper.  I then went ahead and applied brushed corduroy all over the butterfly with the foam blending tool.  (I made two butterflies).  I cut out the butterfly image and got this look:

 I am way too lazy to look in my crazy huge ribbon stash to look for something that will match my tag perfectly, so I made my own with seam binding and glimmer mists. 

I popped my butterflies up with some pop dots, tied my ribbons onto the tag, and stamped on the tag using vintage photo distress ink and a stamp that a local woman made for me a while back.

 And the finished result is here:

In real life, you can see the details much better (I swear!).  So I hope that you enjoyed this blog post, and I'll be doing more with perfect pearls again soon.

Thanks for visiting, everybody!