Category Archives: techniques

Apr24

Made for Mom with Love Blog Hop!

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Made for Mom with Love Blog Hop!

madeformombadge-1Welcome to our  MADE FOR MOM WITH LOVE Blog Hop! Join the journey to find some great ideas for gifts to give the Moms on your list or create a wishlist for yourself! Oh, and don’t forget, there are some freebies to pick up along the way too! You should have arrived here from Rebecca Kettner’s Pictures to Scrapbook.  If you haven’t, you can start your whirlwind journey at Lain Ehmann’s Layout a Day. 

One of the best Mother’s Day presents I ever got was a bouquet of tissue paper flowers my then three-year-old son made with my mother after I gave birth to my second son. While I would love to show you how to make tissue paper flowers if you don’t know already, there are many, many videos up on youtube that more than adequately teach the technique.

However, I have a tutorial for you that will help you make tissue paper flowers that are unique and extra-gorgeous. Have you ever tried to tie-dye tissue paper? I have, and it’s fun and addicting. Want to learn how?

Watch:

Tie-dye tissue paper can be used for so many things. I used one piece to make a tissue paper flower for a vase, and another piece to make a flower to add to a barrette. I used the scraps from those two flowers to make a page. You could use it for gift wrapping, or modge podge it onto glassware. There are lots of creative options!

watermark tiedyeMy friend Gee Zee over at Messtaken Identity has a present for one of you lucky readers. Just sign up on my email list (top right of the page) by May 13th, and you’ll be entered for a free one-month membership to her Upcycling club. That includes any and all Chat and Learn Live! videos and tutorials for the month of June.  (If you decide you want a kit to play with at home during the chat, it’s just $6, and can be ordered at Messtaken Identity.) I’ll announce the winner on May 14th!

Add any questions you have down below! Thanks so much for visiting! The next stop on your hop is Dawn at Faithfully Yours.

To see the whole range of creative inspiration, please visit each site listed below. There’s sure to be lots of fun things suitable for Mother’s Day. Note: If you joined us somewhere along the way, please start at (Layout a Day) so you don’t miss a thing !

Lain at Layout a Day

Debbie at Scrap Me Quick Designs

Monica at Scrap Inspired

Melissa at Digital Scrapbooking HQ

Pam at Keeping Life Creative

Diane at Capadia Designs

Beth at Scrapping Wonders

Kelli at Use It Scrapbooking!

Jen at Jen Wright Designs

Suzy at Suzy Q Scraps

Alice at Scrapbook Wonderland

Gee Zee at Messtaken Identity

Cara at Let’s Learn with Cara Miller

Rebecca at Pictures to Scrapbook

Heather at NoExcuseScrapbooking <— You’re here!

Dawn at Faithfully Yours

Kristie at Artful Adventures

Vi at Creative Threadz

Affiliate links to supplies:

Tissue paper

Fireworks mists

Dylusions mists

Tattered Angels mists

Mr. Hueys by Studio Calico

Non-stick craft mat 

Apr12

Fun Little Kit Club

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Fun Little Kit Club

My friend Gina (or GZ as I like to call her) has a fun little kit club she’s started called Messtaken Identity. It’s based on the idea of reducing, re-using, and recycling, and how that can be applied to scrapbooking.

GZ’s business is taking over her crafting life, and her living room. She was on this week’s episode of PaperClipping Round Table, and brainstormed ideas that should help her business be a little more efficient and organized. Since organizing is one of my favorite things to do, I’ll share some of my organizational ideas with you next week. If you give a listen, you’ll also get a better idea of what the Messtaken Identity kit club is all about.

Each month GZ sends out a kit of papers and embellishments made with recycled products. She also holds an online class thru Spreecast where she gives you ideas and techniques that you can then use with your kit. GZ was kind enough to send me her current kit, and partials of two previous ones. Want to see what she sent me?

I’m not sure what I will do with them. I could use them as part of my Week in the Life project in May, I could use them on random layouts, I could use them to make a mini album. So many options! I’m going to let the ideas germinate for a bit, and then I’ll do a process video showing you what I do with the kits.

Interested in getting a kit of your own?

Check out GZ’s website, and sign up for a kit!

Mar21

Turning Techniques into Pages

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Turning Techniques into Pages

As I said on Monday, I love techniques. When my local stamp store was open, I took tons of classes, which gave me the confidence to experiment with all sorts of tools and techniques. Then the store closed, so no more classes. One of the things I’ve found important, something that really fuels my creativity, is that I’ve got to be bringing in new ideas and techniques on a regular basis. What was I going to do without my local stamp store?

Enter the True Scrap online classes that Lain Ehmann started. A dozen live, web-based classes over a two day period, filled with tons of inspiration and information. This was how I could bring new ideas into my technique repertoire!

Nic Howard’s Touch Me! All About Texture from the first True Scrap event, was a treasure trove of new ideas. Use gesso as a background. Roll the edges of your papers. Make your own flowers. Use ink and paint to create visual depth, and distressing and dimensional products to build a tactilely appealing page. This is one of the pages I created based on what I learned from Nic’s class. Love the combination of textures and layers!IMG_4597

Julie Fei-Fan Balzer had an amazing class called Dirty Fingers, Clean Design at True Scrap 4. She used stencils, mists, paints, hand carved stamps to create backgrounds and patterned papers for scrapbook pages. This was my first attempt with those techniques. While it’s not perfect, I really enjoy it, and it has pride of place on my vision board.
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Do techniques inspire you too? There’s a new, free technique class tonight, and it’s not too late to sign up. Lain Ehmann will show you how to get the most out of your stencils, templates, and masks in Template Tantrum. Sign up, and check it out! If you can’t make the class tonight, you can watch the replay for free for about a week after the event. You’re sure to be inspired! Join me. It will be fun!

Mar18

Technique Love

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Technique Love

When I started my craft journey, I began as a rubber art stamper. I love getting messy and trying new techniques. There’s something about trying to achieve a certain look visually that’s so rewarding. When I started scrapbooking, I brought that love with me. But at the time, techniques were not very popular in the scrapbooking world. Paper piecing, yes. Alcohol inks on embossing? Not so much.

Alcohol ink on clear embossing. Ahead of my time!

Alcohol ink on clear embossing. Ahead of my time!

Nowadays, scrapbooking trends have embraced the technique laden page. Misting? A must-have. Paint? Sure, why not? Stencils and masks? Yes, please! Turning scrapbooks into Art Journals? Simply inspiring.

Sometimes, these techniques can also be intimidating. Once again that fear of “ruining” a page rears its ugly head. The thing is, it’s only paper that gets ruined. The memory, the story? You still have that inside you, ready to be told.

There are some great classes out there to help you get over the fear, and help you embrace your creative side. I’ve taken some wonderful classes through Lain Ehmann’s True Scrap events, and they have definitely helped me broaden my horizons, technique wise.

nicstrip

Nic Howard’s Touch Me! All About Texture was so much fun! Nic is the master at layering, clustering, and adding interesting textures, both physically and visually. Her class gave me the confidence to create pages outside my comfort zone, with lots of embellishments and techniques.

ClassAd-670x670

Julie Fei-Fan Balzer’s Dirty Fingers, Clean Design class is a treasure trove of messy techniques. Paint, misting, stencils, and hand carved stamps all make their way into her class, and onto the pages she creates. I have had so much fun making pages using these techniques.

TS4-Erin-Bassett-Class-Graphic

Erin Basset’s Art Journaling 101 class is a visual treat, with a ramble through her art journals, and a demonstration of how she creates a page. I haven’t finished the art project she inspired, but as soon as I find a book or two that I won’t feel guilty about destroying, I’ll be playing with the techniques she demonstrates.

Still nervous about techniques? I’ll show you some of the pages I made based on these classes later this week.

These classes will help you find the confidence to play with art supplies. Want to check out the quality of the classes before buying any? There’s a new technique class coming up this week, and it’s free!

Template-Tantrum-

Lain Ehmann dug out her templates, masks and stencils, and made them work triple duty! I’ll be taking this class on Thursday, and adding the techniques Lain demonstrates to my repertoire. Join me? It’s free, and will be a great way for you to test drive the True Scrap class environment.