Category Archives: techniques

Oct28

Card Month Reminder

Posted on October 28, 2013 by Heather

Starting November first, we’ll be studying card technique and design every day. That’s a LOT of cards to make. Rather than letting those cards take up space, I’d love to send them out to YOU!

Make sure you’re on my mailing list by October 31. I’ll be emailing all my subscribers and asking for the snail mail addresses of anyone who wants to receive one of the cards made during November.

You can sign up by filling out the form at the top right of the blog, or by clicking here.

Have any topics you want me to cover in November? Tell me NOW so I can be sure to fit it in!

This is going to be fun!

What should I play with first?

Oct23

Cleaning Mojo Boost

Posted on October 23, 2013 by Heather

Cleaning Mojo Boost

One of the best reasons to clean up and organize your craft space is because it helps jump start your mojo, if its been lagging.

Case in point: last night’s inspired page:

What’s so inspired about this? Well, do you see the arrows on the tabs? That means you can TURN the circle to reveal:

Some days, pages are just so much fun to make, know what I mean?

If you want to make a motion inspired page, you should check out this old book from Memory Makers called Flip, Spin, & Play. (affiliate link) It’s full of great ideas for creating some fun interactive pages for your scrapbooks. I may need to make a magic window next.

What are you waiting for? Go clean your craft room so you can find your mojo!

Oct7

Try It, You’ll Like It!

Posted on October 7, 2013 by Heather

Try It, You’ll Like It!

One of the most fun events on the whole internet is happening this Friday and Saturday. Hyperbole? Probably. Unless you’re a scrapbooker.

What is it?

True Scrap 5. Haven’t heard of it? Where have you been hiding? All my scrappy internet friends love this event.

True Scrap is a live, web based scrapbooking event. Each day, you log into a single webspace where multiple classes are presented. There’s a live chat feed, where you can interact with fellow attendees, as well as the instructors for each class. There’s also a question and answer session after each class where you can go into further detail about the class topic with the instructor.

It’s hosted by Lain Ehmann, one of my favorite scrapbookers out there, and she’s brought together 15 (yes 15!) instructors to bring you the latest ideas and techniques in the industry.

These are fun and fabulous events, with tons of ideas and inspiration. I’ll be using ideas from some previous classes when putting together the daily cards for November. (Must come up with a catchy name for that. Any suggestions?)

There are classes on mixed media and distressing techniques and spray ink. There’s design and embellishments and stamping. That’s just some of the classes from ONE event! These events are so FULL of inspiration, and camaraderie that springs up between the attendees in the classroom! So much fun and silliness as the conversation winds from class topic to superheroes to nail polish, and back again.

If you’re not sure, try one of the classes from previous True Scrap events that are available for sale at individual rates. They are inexpensive, and worth every penny. If you have questions about any particular class, let me know. I’ve attended ALL the True Scrap events, and they’ve been well worth the time and money.

These were my favorites from each event:

Nic Howard: True Scrap (1)

Jennifer McGuire: True Scrap 2

Shimelle Laine: True Scrap 3

Julie Fei-Fan Balzer: True Scrap 4

Bev Grey: True Stamp

If you’re still unsure about joining True Scrap 5, Lain Ehmann is presenting a Spreecast this evening, where she’ll answer questions about True Scrap, and talk about her impressions on the state of scrapbooking, based on what she’s seen while prepping for Friday and Saturday’s event.

You can check out the Spreecast broadcast tonight: Is Scrapbooking Dead?

Don’t miss True Scrap 5 this week. It’s going to be FUN!

Oct5

A Month of Cards!

Posted on October 5, 2013 by Heather

A Month of Cards!

Today is National Cardmaking Day, in case you didn’t know.

It’s a totally made up holiday (created by Paper Crafts magazine if I remember correctly) but that doesn’t mean we can’t celebrate it!

The original plan was to host a card making party today, and make cards to donate to Operation Write Home. However, with a whole bunch of family obligations this week, I wasn’t able to do that. (If you’re local, I’m looking at weekends in November, if you would like to join me!)

Speaking of November…

Instead of spending all day today making cards, for the month of November we will be making cards EVERY DAY. If you have techniques you want demonstrated, or design questions you want answered, make sure to add a request in the comments below.

I am so excited to be doing this with you. So excited that I want to mail you the results! I’ll be sending an email out to my subscribers on November first, letting them opt into a snail mail list, so I can send each of them one of the cards I make. If you want to get something pretty in your mailbox, make sure you sign up for my list before the first of November!

You can sign up here, or use the sign up form on the top right of the page.

I can’t wait to start making cards with you! This is going to be fun!

Some card ideas to inspire you!

Sep2

Blast From the Past: Background Stamping

Posted on September 2, 2013 by Heather

Blast From the Past: Background Stamping

Way back in the dawn of time (or 2007 as the case may be) I had a little blog on blogger called The Dragon’s Den. On it I talked about whatever struck my fancy, whether it was stamping, or family life, or how much I loved LOAD. It now has its very own domain name, but it’s purely for personal thoughts now. Some of the old posts have some fun information though, and I thought I’d share one of the oldies with you now:

Today I’ve got a simple project you can do with stamps. This will work with any stamp. I’m using a very architectural stamp, but you could use an animal stamp if you’ve gone zoo crazy, or a Christmas stamp if you’re putting together holiday cards, or a ball stamp if you’ve got a kid whose second word was ball. You’ve got the idea.

A word about stamp pads

There are a lot of different inks. But when it comes to putting ink on your stamp there’s only one thing you need to know: is it a felt/cloth pad or a foam pad?

If it’s a felt pad like the one on the left, you bring the stamp to the pad and tap it gently on the pad, then give it a little twist before lifting it off the pad. If it’s a foam pad like the one on the right, you turn your stamp upside down, and gently tap your pad on the stamp. No twisting! You can rip or separate the pad from it’s case if you aren’t gentle. If you follow these instructions, you can have stamp pads for years! They will need re-inking eventually, but that’s another easy thing to do. How to tell if a stamp pad is felt or foam? Get your fingers dirty! A felt pad feels like a piece of canvas, and a foam pad feels like, well, foam.

The Technique

We are going to make a background. I used this technique to make a card and a scrapbook page, but there are lots of other things you can do with this idea–even use paint and you have a home decor treatment that looks like wallpaper, without the need to scrape and peel in ten years when you decide you must have been crazy to do that. First you need to choose a stamp. Base this on what your end project is going to be. I knew I was going to be doing something with my husband in it, so I chose a stamp that could be considered masculine. (Maybe.) This one is from a The Angel Company set. (I miss TAC! They are now out of business.) Then I chose three colors–2 colors close in hue, and then an accent color. I used Versamagic chalk inks in Niagara Mist, Hint of Pesto, and Night Sky.

Start with the lighter of the two colors close in hue, and stamp in a staggered pattern, leaving room between images for the image in the darker color. If you aren’t comfortable with eyeballing it, stamp the image on a post it note, with as much of the image on the side with the sticky strip as possible. Cut close to the image, and you’ve got a repositionable place holder that you can use to help space your images. In StamperSpeak, it’s called a mask, and it’s a very useful trick for layering images, and creating scenes.

After you’ve filled the page with the lighter color, choose where you want your accent spot to be, and stamp the image once with the accent color. Then fill in all the empty spots with the darker background color. Don’t forget to go off the edge of your page. This will ground your background, and it won’t look like it’s just floating there, waiting for you to finish it.