Holiday weekend greetings!

Hello from Jackson Wyoming where I am taking a short holiday vacation with my family. When I began to think about the craft for this week, I thought how can I continue while on vacation? Then I thought, why can’t I continue while on vacation, just incorporating things from the environment here! We are surrounded by gorgeous views, woods, animals, and lots of crafting materials.

I decided to do an oldie but goodie. Bailey and I headed out for a little hike into the woods to collect pinecones. We had our eyes out for a nice big one, but could only round up little ones. So we changed courses some. Instead of one large pinecone made into a birdfeeder, why not a stick with several little pinecones still attached?

We found what we were looking for and came back. Arming ourselves with creamy peanut butter, we slathered our pinecones making sure to get into the nooks and crannies as best as we could.

Next we dipped our covered cones into a birdseed covered plate. Roll it around and press firmly to make sure you have plenty of seeds attached.

Your bird feeder is ready to hang!

Enjoy your summer vacations, where ever they may take you and remember to keep craftin’!

Tara

Card Ideas

Happy 4th of July! Hope everyone had a wonderful day and didn’t get burnt up like I did. I don’t have any techniques for you today but I have some card ideas for you to enjoy.

I used the birthday line from Imaginisce on this card. There is still a little bit left in store. The cake is part of the chipboard pack and the wording is a rub-on. This card is super easy and fun!

This card I created for my friend who is pregnant but it could be used for any special moment. The love grows is a Quickutz font “paige” and the tree is from Maya Road. The package of raw chipboard trees is great because you get a variety of styles and sizes. I covered the tree with paper from Scenic Route and inked the trunk in brown. Houston also created a beautiful frame using the trees. (See her earlier post to view it if you haven’t already!)

With the Quickutz Social coming up on Thursday, July 10, 6:30-8:30 I wanted to show you a card using all Quickutz. The Social will be a fun time and a great way to get ideas! So don’t miss it.

The Perfect Little Black Dress in Alpha Form

Six words: American Crafts MOMA Remarks Letter Stickers.

They’re basic, yet stylish. You can dress them up or down. Best of all, they come in multiple sizes, assuring a perfect fit.

The package contains eight hundred stickers. That’s right, eight hundred. It might take a while before you run out of Es!

Here they are, in all their glory:

And here’s the whole line that comes in the package:

Break out that iron!

Why YES, you CAN iron your paper - ha!  I’m finally going to show you how to use iron-on vinyl, yet another lovely product from Therm O Web:  Heat n Bond Iron On Vinyl - it comes in matte or gloss finish .  The possibilities are endless with this product.  Can you imagine a handbag made out of your favorite scrapbook paper?  That’s next on my list once I get to use our sewing machine at home - hee, hee.

Supplies needed:

Paper

Scissors

Iron

Iron on vinyl

*Directions are very clear on the packing of the product but I will show you here too.

**Pre-heat iron to wool (medium heat) setting without steam.

Cut vinyl sheet just a tiny bit larger than the sheet of paper you are working on.  Here I simply cut a sheet of 12×12 paper in half.

Peel vinyl off of protective paper. 

Place vinyl sticky side down directly on paper.  Use your hand to smooth down or other tool like a brayer to get the bubbles out, etc.

Place protective covering (that you just removed) behind paper, on top of vinyl as well as a light cloth for additional protection while ironing.

Iron on cloth for 8 seconds making sure to go over the entire sheet of paper below.  You can easily lift the cloth/protective covering if you don’t feel that you have covered all of it with the iron.  *Make sure that you do not iron any of the protective covering or the vinyl– hence the cloth on top so the vinyl does not get on your iron.

Pull cloth off and let cool for a few seconds.

Snip off edges of any leftover vinyl if needed.

Ta-da, you’re done!  The glare on the photo here is intentional to show you the iron-on vinyl on the paper.

Creative cheers,

Rachel

Do you *love* your QuicKutz?

We do, too, and we know that many of you would enjoy getting together and sharing ideas, making fun projects, and getting a great discount on dies! 

To that end, we’ve started our all-new QuicKutz Club. The membership benefits include: Free dies monthly; these dies are exclusive to Club members. You also get 30% off QuicKutz every day, a free QK Make-n-Take every month at a QK social, and a free idea sheet at each meeting. You’ll also get early notification of new releases & sales!

We’ll have an introductory QuicKutz Social, open to the “public,” on July 10. 6:00-8:00. Come check out the club and its benefits, and try out a free QK make-n-take. Starting in August, the Club will be available to members only!
 
Membership is only $50 for six months. Join at the store or by phone now. Get a free Single-Kutz die from our in-stock selection when you sign up; new releases excluded for 30 days after release.

Sunday Sketch

How did the week go by so fast?  I hope you all got a chance to participate in the Shop Hop and visit some of the other local stores.  I  snuck away for an afternoon and got to pick up a few goodies.

I had traveling on my mind when developing this week’s sketch.  I don’t know about you, but I always take so many photos (some might say too many, but is there really such a thing?) when I travel and then struggle to get them all in my book or have a perfect photo except for a tiny detail, like another tourist in the frame.

This sketch is perfect for cropping those less than perfect photos and getting several on a page.

Speaking of traveling, have you seen the new travel line from Making Memories?  The colors are so fun and the patterns perfect for any destination.  Don’t miss the great embellishments, perfectly packaged in a suitcase.

The secret to the sketch is dimension, use foam squares to highlight your favorite photos and journaling. For the title I used the ‘Signed, Sealed, Delivered’ stamp set from Technique Tuesday.  It’s perfect for all your travel pages and special cards.

Hope you have a great week!

Happy Fourth of July fun!!!

Today you are going to get two for the price of one! That’s right… two fun and easy projects to complete with your child to celebrate the upcoming Fourth holiday.

The ages will be preschool- 3rd grades. Although older children can add to these crafts to add levels of difficulty. We are going to be making a wreath and a Statue of Liberty crown.

Let’s start with the wreath… You will need…

• A white paper plate or a white sheet of paper cut into a 9″ circle
• red, white and blue paper
• sticker stars or star brads
• white craft glue, paper cutter, scissors
• large paper clip

Start with cutting out 3 4-inch squares from each of the three colors of paper. Then fold the squares in half to make triangles.

Cut the center out of the paper plate or your white paper circle being careful not to cut the edges.

Next you will be adding the triangles around the wreath. I found that it was easiest to place the center point on the inside edge of the plate with the long edge heading right. The left point of the triangle will be hanging off the outside edge of the plate. The next triangle will be layered by matching the center point to the inside of the plate again, and now the right point will be lined up with the edge of the first triangle with the left point hanging off the outside edge again. Continue to layer the triangles all the way around the plate.

We layered first to make sure it would work before we started over, this time gluing them down.

When all the triangles are in place, you can add the sticker stars to all the middle points where the papers meet. I choose to use star brads instead.

Add the paper clip to one of the outside edges and hang from your door…. or use as a face adornment as Bailey has here. =)

 

 

For the Statue of Liberty Crown you will need…

• 2 paper plates or 2- 9″ circles of paper
• scissors
• stapler
• Ruler and pencil
• gold paint and a paint brush if the paper plates are white

We used gold paper so that we did not have to mess with the paints. I started by cutting out two 9″ circles. Then we cut out the center of one leaving about 1 1/2″ rim and without cutting through the rim.

On the second circle you are going to mark where the center circle is on the first. Place the cut circle on top of the whole circle and make a few marks showing where the rim is. Place the circle with the inside cut out to the side.

On the complete circle use your ruler to draw a line through the middle of the circle up to the rim markings. You are going to continue to draw lines creating 8 equal pie sections.

Cutting through the outside rim, cut out one of the wedge pieces.

You will now cut along the other lines, but stopping where you have marked the rim.

Fold the points outward and place the first circle on top of the folds. Staple around the edge and place on your head. =)

Happy Fourth of July!

Tara

 

 

More Black Market Paper Society

A few weeks back, Vivian showed you her projects she created with the new papers from Black Market Paper Society. I want to show you mine now. I got to play with the Ebony & Alabaster, their all black and white line. Mary Kay handed me the pack of papers and said, “Please try and use the A side.” See, typically I prefer the B sides of paper, the backside of a two-sided piece of paper, the side that doesn’t have the bar code on it, it’s more often a quieter print. That side usually speaks to me, but with this line, I had a hard time choosing between the two sides. Both were very usable for this B sider.

I looked through the pack and happily concluded that this line would work well for a number of different types of designs. The first thing that came to mind was weddings, but add a few splashes of color and you’d have the perfect backdrop for a funky layout as well. I love finding a line that can be dressed up so many ways. My first project was the funky one. My new favorite thing to do is to hand cut scallops, they really add a fun touch to a page, without taking away from the pictures. I used a couple of the tags from the die cut page, and some jeweled brads to make this page about the 10K Heather and I participated in. See how the bright colors really pop against the black and white?

My next page I went a little more formal, hand cutting the picture’s frame out of a sheet. This paper is the easiest stuff to hand cut intricate designs from, it’s got an interesting texture, it’s thinner than cardstock, but the texture makes it so easy to cut and not rip small pieces off while cutting. I could get as intricate as I wanted on this frame. I added a strip of paper and “hung” the picture like it was in a gallery. It was fun to do.

My final project with this line did involve a wedding theme. It’s such an elegant line, you could use it for a wedding album. I added some glitter to another hand cut element just to give it some more texture. I used the die cut sheet again for the words “Always and Forever.”

I was pleasantly surprised with this new company’s product, I’ll definitely be looking forward to their next release.

It’s clear to me…

that an adhesive for acrylic, transparencies, vellum or the like is very important.  Acrylic has made it into the world of scrapbooking as transparencies have to, I love me some Hambly.  My personal choice for an adhesive that works best on these types of mediums is Therm O Web Vellum Runner.  No surprise there as I am also very lucky to design for this company!

It’s the best on the market in my mind and I have been using it in my acrylic album classes.  The photo above uses it on a Hambly transparency.

-A few tips on using the vellum runner:

-Point runner at a vertical angle and use quick, solid strokes to apply

-When you come to the end, flick your wrist to disconnect the vellum adhesive from the runner

-Vellum runner is best used directly on paper first as it will not stick to acrylic, transparency or other and it might scratch the surface of these types of mediums.

Creative “clear” cheers,

Rachel

Basic Grey Makes CARD KITS???

Why, yes, they do! And they are adorable. There’s an all-occasion kit (pictured here), using the new Sultry line, and a baby card kit (great for much more than babies), with a mixture of lines. Each of them makes eight cards, complete with envelopes, and in a variety of sizes.

 

Both kits come with chipboard and rub-ons made especially for the kits– not just recycled from existing lines. The paper is pre-cut and -scored– it really couldn’t be easier.  These are similar to the Figgy Pudding card kits, which we could NOT keep in the store. Get yours before they’re all gone!