Notelets!

Hello friends!

     Today I am going to start by showing you a set of notelets I made using some leftover Sale-a-Bration Designer Series Paper (DSP), before moving on to something containing only current and new products (except one thing, I realised!). Try to keep in mind that by simply switching out the paper, ribbon, brads and stamps, you can easily create your own version of this first set of notelets. For those of you who are looking for things to do with your leftover SAB DSP, I hope this can inspire you!

     I started with a design I was shown at a Quarterly training, demonstrated by the lovely Michelle Last. She showed that we can easily create a set of notelets with a 12" x 12" sheet of paper, by cutting it to 25cm x 25cm and scoring it at the 7cm and 8.5cm mark on all sides. Then cut the corner squares out along the inner score lines, and you have created the basic pouch and can use the corner pieces (after trimming them slightly) as the fronts of your notelet cards! Notelet cards are typically 3" x 3", or 7.5cm square when folded. To get four notelet bases out of one sheet of a4 cardstock, cut the notelets to 7.4cm x 14.8cm and score in the middle at 7.4cm and you can cut down on waste without drastically changing the size of the notelets!

     The notelets fit nicely into the little pouch with their little envelopes. To hold my notelet pouch closed, I used the Postage Stamp punch (from the Spring Mini- may or may not make its way into the main catalogue in the fall) to punch out some Poppy Parade cardstock, and cut two diagonal slits where the corners of the postage stamp would go, so I could slide those corners in and hold the pouch shut.

     I used the Scallop Trim Corner punch on the corners of the front flap, and layered some Poppy Parade behind it to add some colour. I made four different notelets to go inside, and I think they are very classy! The bases of the notelets are Naturals Ivory cardstock.

     On this first one, I hand-stitched around the heart (punched out with the Full Heart punch), which I love! I wrapped the linen thread around the edges and secured the ends on the back with glue dots, and stamped the sentiment (from the Thank You Kindly set) with White Craft ink in the centre of the heart and set it with the heat tool. I used a brad to add just a little something else... The brad pictured is a product Stampin' Up! released in the US for the US Sale-a-Bration, which I purchased online from a US demonstrator. It came along with some pretty organza ribbon, which I have used on some of the notelets below. I don't normally buy things that I can't sell, but in this case I just couldn't resist!

 For this next notelet, I used the Sale-a-Bration stamp set Fresh Vintage and my Stamp-a-ma-jig to stamp (and sticky notes for a mask!) with Poppy Parade ink onto the Poppy Parade cardstock. I wrapped the ribbon around so it formed an elongated "x" with a line vertically through the centre. I stamped "A NOTE OF THANKS" from the Thank You Kindly set onto some Naturals Ivory cardstock, and punched out with the Decorative Label punch. To make this shape, punch just above the sentiment, attach to a sticky note, and put back in the punch to punch in the same fashion along the bottom of the sentiment. It does take some practice, but it gives a very unique shape that is just begging to be secured to the card with brads!

     Taking a break from the standard square, on this next notelet I made each square into a scalloped square, using the Scallop Edge Border punch. I'll have to make a whole tutorial to explain how to do this, as I can't seem to find the right words, but you can find a nice tutorial on Split Coast Stampers. I stamped "A NOTE OF THANKS" onto Naturals Ivory cardstock, cut it into a rectangle, and snipped the end by hand. I secured this onto the card with a large brad.

     The last notelet of this set is very simple and sweet. I stamped "Thank You" onto the DSP, layered it over the Poppy Parade, and made a little bow out of the ribbon. To make this bow, wrap the ribbon around two fingers until you have created two complete loops, then take the ends and tie them around the centre of the loops. By "tie" I mean just a half of a square knot, like the first thing you do with your laces when you tie your shoes.

     Over the centre of the bow, I attached the brad by wedging the bow in between the prongs of the brad, and inserting the brad through a hole I punched in the card front. I then opened the prongs to lay them flat against the back of the Poppy Parade, and that was it!

     Last but not least, I created some coordinating envelopes to go with the notelets. These are just the mini square envelopes from the main catalogue, which I stamped in Soft Suede with a stamp from the Fresh Vintage set. I stamped another image from the same set (the postage stamp looking one), in Poppy Parade onto Ivory Naturals cardstock. I punched them out with the Postage Stamp punch from the Spring Mini catalogue and attached them onto the corners! Ta Daaaa!!!

     Now that I have possibly bored you and/or frustrated you (hopefully not!) by my use of discontinued and/or unobtainable-until-further-notice products, I would like to share with you the second set of notelets I made, using only currently-available products (except for one punch, sorry!). The style of this next set is completely unlike the style of the first, as you will soon see. This is one reason Stampin' Up!'s products are so amazing; they are so versatile and you can make each card or project your way. Of course you can Copy and Share something someone else created, but one of my favourite things to do is make something using only the inpiration that pops into my head.

     This is one of those instances where I tried to make something I've never seen before. I think the colours and the style really are a reflection of some part of me. 

     I remember when I was nine years old, I wanted to bring Valentine's day treats for all the kids in my class. It's an American thing (so I understand, I may be wrong) for all the children in the class to bring one Valentine for every class member, and trade them on the day. Sometimes they come with sweets, sometimes not. So a lot like swaps at our demonstrator events, then! Anyway, when I was nine, my mom and I spent a lot of time making little origami boxes for everyone using wallpaper samples which we had picked up for free from a store that was closing down. I think we made 24 boxes with lids, and I loved it!

     So for this set of notelets, I wanted to make an origami box to hold them. Since cardstock is a bit thick, it helps if you score folding lines into it to help the process go nice and smoothly. This is where Simply Scored proves its worth, and the Diagonal Plate too! I'm not going to explain just yet the instructions on making the box, I'll save that for another tutorial. But I would love to show you how I decorated everything, and I will tell you that the base of the box was 25 cm square before it was folded. 

This is the top of the box, which coordinates with both sets of notelets contained within:

      Once the lid is removed, you can see that I've stamped the stars again onto the sides of the box with Melon Mambo ink:

      Inside the box are eight notelets. The first four have a Melon Mambo base, with Basic Black on the top. With the Basic Black squares, I have punched them into scalloped squares with the Scallop Edge Border punch. Onto this I have stamped the Stylish Star a la carte stamp with Versamark and embossed with Heat and Stick powder. This makes the image sticky, which is very useful when you want a solid glitter image. I applied the glitter after heating the first time, and heated it again after tapping off the excess glitter to permanently set the glitter into the image.

     After embossing, I put a glue dot behind one of the corners of the scalloped square to hold the Baker's Twine as I wrapped it around the edges. I wrapped up, then around the corner, to the left, around the corner, then down, around the corner, and to the right, and stuck this end onto the same glue dot as the first end. I punched tiny holes with the 1/16" Handheld Circle punch, and attached brads by strattling them over the intersection of the strings. To add a little detail, I used Simply Scored to add a raised frame just inside the border created by the twine.

     The second group of notelets has a Whisper White base, two strips of Basic Black cut out with the Dotted Scallop Ribbon Border punch, a large scallop circle (from the Spring Mini... sorry again!) in Melon Mambo and a 1-3/4" circle of Whisper White. I have left the base and the black strips plain, but to the edges of the Melon Mambo scalloped circle I have brushed my 2-Way Glue Pen around the edges, and dipped them in glitter. To the Whisper White circles I have stamped the Sylish Star in Melon Mambo ink, and brushed the edges of the circles onto the Melon Mambo ink pad.

      Finally, I have stamped the Stylish Star onto the upper right hand corner of the envelopes in Melon Mambo ink, which completes my little box set! These are the mini envelopes from the main catalogue again, just like the first set of notelets.

     There we have it, two completely different sets of notelets, ready to be grabbed off the shelf to write a quick note to say "Thanks" or "Congratulations," etc. I really like the idea of leaving them blank so they can be used for anything at the drop of a hat, but you can never have too many Thank You notes! In fact, just having them around may encourage you to give thanks more! And that can't be anything but good!

     Speaking of thanks, Thank You so much for stopping by to let me share with you, and please do share my blog with anybody and everybody. It would be much appreciated! And if you haven't already, please click the link at the top of the page and "like" my facebook page if you can. If you have already done so, Thank You!!!

Until next time, friends, Happy Crafting! And I do hope you get a chance to enjoy some of this sunshine!

Thanks again,

Party Time!

     On Saturday, I had the privilege of providing the entertainment for fourteen ten-year-old girls. It was a blast! Everyone had so much fun (at least that's how it seemed) and did such a great job at covering a notebook with a matching pen and bookmark!

     The idea was that the girls would stamp onto the First Edition Specialty DSP (Designer Series Paper) and then stamp the Medallion with Versamark over the top, emboss in clear, and rub ink over that to create an emboss-resist effect.

     I didn't get to take any pictures at the party, as I was far too busy helping the girls to be messing with a camera! I have no pictures of the pens or bookmarks, but here is a photo of the notebook I did as an example. DEFINITELY not my best work, I am merely showing the photo to give you an idea of using the Medallion for the emboss-resist effect.

     Just a helpful hint: If you're thinking about stamping words onto this DSP, make sure the words you are using are quite large or you may want to reconsider. Small words on top of other small words just doesn't look very good, and trying to cover them up may ruin your project entirely!! (Depending on your definition of "ruin," of course.)

     I was so impressed with some of the things the girls came up with. Some of them rubbed Rich Razzleberry or Marina Mist ink over the top instead of Early Espresso like I have done, and the result was stunning! It was so interesting to see how creative they could be with the stamps and inks in front of them.

     For the pens, I searched all over and FINALLY found one (by Uni-ball) with a clear barrel and easily removable ends (i.e. not involving pliers or broken nails) so we could put a piece of stamped paper on the inside to personalise them. I was very pleased to have found the pen, but soon discovered that most DSP wouldn't work because it was too thick. The First Edition Specialty DSP is a little thinner, so just BARELY fit into the pens! It was really tricky, one wrinkle and you had to start all over with a new piece of paper! I found a trick to it, though, if I ever want to use that idea again. Roll the paper into a cylinder,  put it in halfway up the barrel starting from the bottom (the end where the tip usually goes), carefully insert the ink tube in the centre of your paper cylinder and as you do so, feed both the paper and the ink tube into the barrel all at once. Then simply replace the tip cover and you're done!

     The bookmarks were just flowers punched out using the Fancy Flower and 5-Petal Flower punches, with another little flower from the Itty Bitty Shapes Punch Pack, secured to the top of a large paperclip. To secure them, I punched out strips of paper using the Word Window punch and applied Sticky Strip to them, so that the girls could just peel off the plastic of the Sticky Strip and stick it right onto their paperclip and flowers. Doing it this way made the bookmark assembly very easy and straight-forward for the girls, especially as I had pre-punched and distributed all the shapes and pieces into little kits for the girls to have at their seats. Definitely the easiest project of the afternoon!

     Part of my services for birthday parties is that I provide a little Thank You gift or card for each girl to take home, as well as the handmade invitations for the party, at no extra charge. Included with the card or favour is my business card because the girls have so much fun, I hear a lot of "I want to do this at my birthday party!" By doing this, they all have a way of contacting me if they need to.

This is an example of a birthday party invitation that I made for a birthday in April.

     It was created by rubbing the ink pad (Bashful Blue, same colour as the cardstock I used) onto the flatter side of the embossing folder before putting the cardstock through the Big Shot, thereby inking the background of the card whilst allowing the embossed images to "pop." This was a tip I learned from a fellow domonstrator, Martin Stone. I have been using this technique every chance I've got ever since!

     The other supplies I used to make this invitation are: Outlined Occasions stamp set (from the last Sale-a-Bration, no longer available), Melon Mambo embossing powder, Melon Mambo marker, Dotted Scallop Ribbon Border punch, Patterns DSP, Whisper White cardstock, Beautiful Wings Embosslits die, Elegant Bouquet embossing folder, and Rhinestone jewels.

As all the girls went home, they each got to take with them one of the favours I made.

     These were so much fun to make! I used: Candy Wrapper Bigz L die, Cupcakes stamping wheel, Thank You Kindly stamp set, Cupcake Builder Punch (retired), 1-3/4" Circle punch, Cheerful Treat DSP, Whisper White cardstock, Wisteria Wonder cardstock, Perfect Polka Dots embossing folder, and Simply Scored.

     I cut out the candy wrappers with the die, and rolled down each panel with the Cupcakes wheel in Concord Crush ink. For the effect on the cupcake bottom, I used Simply Scored to score every 1/8" and then flipped them over and scored every 1/8" again, in the spaces that hadn't been scored the first time. This made it really look like a cupcake's paper bottom. I used a Sponge Dauber to lightly colour the edges and the raised lines with the Concord Crush ink. I sponged the shimmer paint onto the cupcake tops, embossed the circles behind the cupcakes with the embossing folder, and stamped the sentiments in Concord Crush onto Whisper White cardstock and cut them out by hand.

     I don't know about you, but I am really chuffed with them! I know you can only see one, but trust me they all looked great!

     Well that's all for today, folks! But stay tuned, there will be some really neat things coming up in the next few days!

Thanks for reading, and Happy Crafting!



A Sweet Suite- Featuring a Candy Wrapper Diagram

Hello friends, how sweet of you to stop by!

     Today I would like to share with you a number of things, not the least of which is a diagram for making your very own paper candy wrappers in any size you like! This means you can easily wrap up pens or pencils, long rolls of sweets, or just about anything you want! Stampin' Up! does sell a candy wrapper die, which I do love, and find extremely useful when making large quantities of candy wrappers because it cuts and scores all at once. But obviously you really only have one choice of size unless you fold the paper in half when you put it through the Big Shot and do funny things with it that way, but it will mean that you end up with creases in your paper. That's not a big deal if you're going to cover up the centre bit anyway, but for nice clean lines, less headache and the ability to choose my own width, I prefer to use my new best friend: Simply Scored.

     I LOVE this tool! Not only can I add dimension to my crafts by using it to create borders and other emphasising lines, but I love how I can easily make many kinds of packaging, including but not limited to, CANDY WRAPPERS! But first...

     On a post from a few days ago, I shared with you a candy wrapper that I had made using the simple formula. I had made an envelope using Simply Scored and because of the way I wanted the paper to look on the envelope, I ended up with oddly-shaped scrap pieces of the paper. I took the new Blossom punch to them, and punched out some blossoms. I layered these with other punched out bits of paper and then had several blossoms in Island Indigo, Whisper White, and Blushing Bride. After making the first candy wrapper with one of them, I decided to try to make a whole suite of items that coordinated with it.

The card:

     I loved making this card! I got to use a few punches that haven't seen any action in a while, and some new techniques and other products.  Also, I find Island Indigo a difficult colour to use, as I have trouble finding things with which it can coordinate, but in this instance I feel I've found a winning combination.

     I used: Mixed Bunch stamp set, Just Perfect Alphabet stamp set, Blossom punch, 1-3/4" Scallop Circle punch, Small Heart punch, Boho Blossoms punch, Itty Bitty Shapes (the scallop circle one) punch, 3/4" Circle punch, Scallop Trim Border punch, Scallop Trim Corner punch, 1/16" Handheld punch, Little Leaves Sizzlits Die, In-Color glimmer brads, In-Color designer printed brads, and Baker's Twine. The paper is Sweet Shop Designer Series Paper (DSP)- the Island Indigo one with the hearts-, Nursery Nest DSP- the Blushing Bride one with the lines and dots- Whisper White, Island Indigo, Blushing Bride, and Pear Pizazz. For ink I used Island Indigo and Blushing Bride.

     On the post before this one you may have already seen the first candy wrapper but here it is again:

     The recipe for this is essentially some combination of the supplies mentioned above, and the sentiment is from the new Sweet Cake stamp set. Also not mentioned above is the Scallop Oval Punch. I love how punching out the scallop oval in white and then daubing the edges with a different colour makes it look so different and so nice compared to leaving it just plain Whisper White!

     The next one I made is this:

     I used a masking technique to create the background for this. It was so easy because the stamp coordinates with the new Blossom punch! After stamping with Island Indigo a few times, I simply punched a few coordinating blossoms out of sticky notes so I could simply stick them onto the existing images, and then stamped in the gaps with Blushing Bride. That way the images don't overlap and it looks really cool! I also added a rhinestone in the centre of the flower here and coloured the petals and under the rhinestone with my Island Indigo marker.

     Although this candy wrapper is smaller than the first, the size difference is not dramatic enough to notice right offhand. To demonstrate that candy wrappers can truly be virtually any size, I made a little bitty one!

     The flower I created here was done using the Boho Blossoms punch and the Itty Bitty Shapes scallop circle punch. I added some Crystal Effects behind the rhinestone, and behind the flower is a strip of Whisper White punched out with the Dotted Scallop Ribbon Border punch.

     Now that I've shown you several examples of sizes, perhaps you would like to see the diagram?

          (Please pardon the writing, as writing with my finger on a touch-screen device does not usually work out as well as with a pen in my hand.)

     Just to explain a few things: "n" can be any dimension. To determine what you want "n" to be, think of what you want to wrap. Do you want to fill the thing with loads of sweets? Do you want it to be just big enough to put in a pen? Once you determine the width of the thing you want to wrap, you can then determine the size of paper you need to start. 

     I recommend using SU plain or textured coloured cardstock as Whisper White and Very Vanilla are a bit too thin for this type of packaging, as is DSP. Using anything besides the heavier card puts the paper at risk of breaking at the seams, simply because of the nature of this type of packaging.

     Okay, so you've found the width of the thing you want to wrap. You can make "n" slightly shorter than that, as the width of the item being wrapped is actually going to be the same length as one of the diagonal lines you see in the diagram, which is longer than "n". You could get all complicated with the Pythagorean Theorem and figure out an exact measurement, but that's just a bit too geeky so we'll just say that "n" can be slightly shorter than the width you require.

     Once you've decided what you want "n" to be, multiply that by 4 and add 1cm,and that will be the width of your paper (if positioned as shown). "n" + "n" + [however long you want the wrapper to be] = the length of the paper you need.

     When you have the paper cut to your required dimensions, and it is positioned as shown, score vertically at every "n", which should leave you with your 1cm at the end. Turn 90 degrees and score in from one side at "n" and rotate to the other end and score at "n" again.

     You can now score the diagonal lines. They should match up perfectly with the diagonal plate as they are all 45 degree angles, but since I don't have the diagonal plate as of yet I did it the more tedious but still effective way of placing a sticky note so it diagonally reaches the corners of each of the squares I've created, and lining that sticky note up with my scoreboard so that when I score vertically downward, I am putting in the diagonal lines I need. When I line the sticky note up the first time, I can score 4 diagonal lines at once, perhaps shifting the paper a little if need be.

     This is the part where the Simply Scored Diagonal Plate would really come in handy, because if I had to do any more than just a few of these wrappers, I would get very bored of having to mess with the sticky note each time. It is much faster and easier to line the paper itself up with the 90 degree angle on the scoreboard and have a perfect 45 degree angle to follow.

     Once all the lines are scored, I fold along the vertical lines and, while still folded, cut little notches out to form the little diamond and triangle shapes. Then simply fold along all the rest of the lines, adhere the seam edge to the beginning edge with some Sticky Strip or similarly strong adhesive, and fill and close!

     For detailed directions on how to close the candy wrapper, there is a wealth of information out there via a simple search on a search engine. Basically you gather the centres of all the end sides together, pinch and twist. I think it takes a bit of practice, the first time I used my Candy Wrapper Die I was stumped for a while when I tried to close it!

     So there we have it, a sweet suite using scraps (everything apart from the Island Indigo used to make the larger candy wrappers was from the scrap bin) ready to be given to someone who deserves a little gratitude in the form of chocolate and other goodies.

     Give it a try! If you've finally decided that Simply Scored is a must-have for you too, get in touch with me via any one of the ways listed under the "Contact Me" tab and I'll be happy to help!

Thanks very much for reading, please feel free to share this blog with your friends,

and Happy Crafting!

How Sweet

Greetings once again!

I have had a wonderful, productive crafting day, and I am very pleased with my accomplishments!

At the Quarterly Training a few weeks ago, I made 30-something swaps using the new Baby Prints set, and ended up with a few left over. They have been floating around here ever since, and I keep swearing to myself that I'm going to do something with them. After all, there's no point in letting them go to waste, and it's a good exercise for challenging creativity when you force yourself to use the same piece in several different ways.

The first card I made with that swap was the one I took with me to display at the quarterly, and I thought it was really classy. Now I look at it and wonder why I didn't do something fancier!

Using it as inspiration, I gave the boy's card a try. The only real difference is that the white frame is now speckled with Bashful Blue and I've spelled "congrats!" at the bottom using the Just Perfect alphabet stamps. I got the exclamation point by colouring in just the centre part of the "i" stamp. I was desperately trying to add another colour to this card, such as green, but for the life of me it just wasn't working out!

At this point, I wanted to veer away from the scored frame look, and try something new and different. From a recent promotion, I got a free pack of Designer Series Paper, called Nursery Nest. It is so cute, and one of the papers is in Blushing Bride, which is exactly what I needed! I wanted to make a different sized card this time with a matching envelope. I  chose a rectangular size that was long and skinny. I have kept myself from making cards this size before, as I didn't want to have to put them in regular security envelope, but since I have an amazing tool to help me make envelopes, I can now do this whenever I want!

I just loved adding the Baker's Twine here. It looks so cute, and really gives the card a whole new dimension.

I would have made another card with the last swap which was in Blushing Bride, only my baby boy suddenly thought it was his toy and completely dismantled it! Oh, well.

The leftover DSP from the envelope was now sitting around in odd triangle shapes, so I decided to put some through the blossom punch and make a few interesting blossoms. One thing led to another and....

I mady a candy wrapper with Simply Scored! Yesterday, I bought long rolls of candy such as chewy mints and chocolate caramel things, with the intention of wrapping them up all nice and pretty. Thinking about Simply Scored, I decided to try to make a long candy wrapper with it! I looked at the dimensions from the BigShot candy wrapper die, and simply reproduced them, while altering the length to fit a long roll of candy. I decorated it with all kinds of things from the Summer Mini: Sweet Cake stamp set, Sweet Shop DSP, Blossom punch and of course, Simply Scored!



There was so much room in it that I was able to stuff in some butter toffee sweets as well.

I think I shall go through the recieved swaps periodically and challenge myself to use them, today's results were very satisfying!

What do you want to see made with Simply Scored? What would you like to wrap up?

Thanks for reading, and Happy Crafting!





Tutorial: Mini Paper Bag featuring Simply Scored

Well it's about time, right?

     I know some of you have been waiting for a few days for me to post this, but I have been super busy preparing for and taking my Life in the UK test along with the other umpteen commitments I've had, so have only just had the time!

   If you were at Regional Training in Leamington Spa this past Saturday, hello again! Thank you so much for visiting my blog!

     For those of you who aren't demonstrators or weren't at the training, hello to you as well! And thank you for visiting my blog too!

     At the training, each demonstrator who chose to participate made some swaps, which as I've explained in an earlier post (What's New in May 2012) are things we make to trade with other demonstrators in exchange for something we've made, to collect ideas and the like. I made 42 of my swaps, hoping to get 42 ideas back, but by the time I got there, out of the 64 attendees most people had already swapped and so had run out of something to trade. No matter, I had made the things and I wasn't coming back home with them, so I just gave the remainders away.

     Because I wasn't able to comfortably figure out how to put the diagram onto the "recipe" sheet enclosed, I included my blog address so people can find it here. So, here we go...

I created this Little Bag of Thanks in the style of a mini paper bag, like a paper shopping bag or similar. I was able to use our new product Simply Scored to construct it, and because of this fabulous tool it was very easy to do so. The hardest part, believe it or not, was putting the string through it to tie it at the top! (Along with finding where all the chocolates had gone to, as I was sure I counted them before I started, but by the time I finished some were missing! Apparently Hubby couldn't help himself...)

     Here is the diagram, something I thought up as I was trying to get the most out of each sheet of paper. One sheet of Calypso Coral yielded FOUR bags. Score!  (See what I did there? I made a funny!)

     I created this diagram with an application on my tablet device, I apologise that all the dimensions don't use the same unit of measurement. I listed what was the most exact.

     I took the sheet of A4 Calypso Coral cardstock and trimmed an inch off one side, so the page was skinnier but still just as long as before. From the Everything Eleanor set, I used the large background stamp to stamp Soft Suede in a random pattern all over the sheet. I hate random stamping as I feel I'm no good at it, and kept trying to find a system to stamp it in a more organised way, but soon decided it really didn't matter. I was done stamping before I knew it!

 

I then placed the sheet vertically onto my new best friend (Simply Scored), and scored first at 2.5", 5" (like the second and third placemarkers show), and then at 1.5", 2", 5.5" and 6".

 

Next, I cut the page into four more pieces, each 7.4cm wide, perpendicular to the score lines.

     After cutting, I took each piece and scored perpendicular to the prevous score lines at the 3/4" mark. Notice the place markers make it easy to see where I need to score, thus saving me time! 



 

To fold into bags, trim along the score line from the bottom of the bag until the perpendicular score line, like the diagram at the top of this post shows. Holding it in front of you horizontally, fold along the first line and the fourth line and use a strong adhesive such as Sticky Strip to hold it together at the seam. Then just manipulate it to make the other corner folds, and fold the lines in between the corner folds to make a concertina effect. For the bottom, first fold in the two small flaps and then the long ones, and hold that together with sticky strip as well. You now have a little paper bag!

     For the decoration on the front of the bag, I used the leftover strips of Calypso Coral I cut off in the beginning, and coloured the word "THANKS" from this stamp, of the Thank You Kindly set and stamped it onto the paper. I then punched the words out with the small oval punch.

     To distress the ovals, I simply dragged them over my Soft Suede ink pad. This gives a harsh-looking effect, for a soft effect it is better to use a sponge dauber. I was trying to go for a very vintage feels, so skipped the dauber.







     With the new Blossom Punch from the Summer Mini Catalogue, I punched blossoms out of Crumb Cake cardstock. I cut off two of the petals, one at the top and one at the bottom, to make them look like butterflies. I also dragged these over the Soft Suede ink pad, to get some darkness around the edges of the wings.

     With all my pieces prepped and ready to go, I set to work on assembling everything.

     I used Snail adhesive to stick the oval onto the butterfly and stick the butterfly onto the front centre of the bag, and once the bag was in its baggy shape, I punched two holes through both the front and back panels at once, so I could thread the string through and tie the bag shut. And of course, I stuffed each bag with some chocolate!

     And there you have it! 42 Little Bags of Thanks.

     What I was hoping to show in my swap was mainly the use of the Blossom punch (transforming blossoms into butterflies), and that it is super easy to construct packaging using Simply Scored. Thanks to the launch of this new product, we can now make virtually anything with this one fantastic tool!

What have you made with Simply Scored? Please share!

Thanks for reading, and Happy Crafting!

    







All a Flutter

Welcome back!

     Today I was able to complete something that has been on my to-do list for quite some time. Here's the story, though I must warn you it is a tad emotional:

     Several years ago I made a quilt with my older sister, who sadly died in 2008. We had spent three days straight on this quilt top around Christmas time in 2005, when I was seventeen and she was nineteen. We picked the colours together, designed it together, did all the calculating together. She did the cutting, which was her specialty, and I did the sewing and the pressing, which was my specialty. But we were never able to get it finished, as we didn't really have any way of doing so.

     I have carried this quilt top around with me for years, and it is very important to me. It is a treasure to hold forever from a time that cannot be replaced. It has moved house with me not once, or twice, but about six times. When I moved to the U.K. with my new family, I could only take two suitcases, and a large chunk of one of those suitcases was dedicated to this quilt top, because I just couldn't leave it behind.

Quilt top before it was sent off, finished picture to come soon.



     Finally, after nearly two years of living in this country and going from homeless and broke to finally getting our lives on track to succeed, we were able to find the money to get it finished so it can get out of the attic and into some sort of living space. A bit stressful as I had to hand over this precious thing to a group of strangers to put needles all throughout, but at least it is finally on its way to being used. It's no good just leaving it in the attic to be ignored.

     When I sent the company the quilt in the post, I had packaged it in one of those space saving bags, the ones where you squeeze the air out to make fluffy things less bulky. Apparently they had accidentally included this bag in with someone else's finished quilt, because a woman sent it back to me in the post, along with a printed card that looked like watercoloured butterflies on a white background.

     Based on what was written in the card, at first I thought she had ended up with my quilt as well! So naturally, I started panicking! But I figured it out soon after, she was just returning the bag to me. How sweet! And to think I don't even know this woman or even her name...

     I kept looking at the card, because I thought it was pretty, and I kept wondering how I could make something like it. When my husband saw it, he mentioned to me that there is an a la carte stamp in the IB&C that is very similar (i.e. it's a butterfly that is more realistic than cartoonish). Wheels in my head started turning, but I wasn't ready to place an order for just this one thing.

     Soon after this, I did a favour for someone and ended up with this a la carte stamp, called All a Flutter. Since then I have been wanting to do my version of the card I recieved, but have never been in the right mood with the right wave of inspiration. I kept taking it out, only to go in a different creative direction and placing the stamp back on the shelf.

     Today, though, I was in the right mood, in the right place, at the right time, and finally created a card I can say I'm really proud to call my own. I haven't looked at the original card for weeks, so just went with the ideas in my head rather than staring at the original during the process. I didn't want to make something very similar, I just wanted to watercolour the butterflies in a beautiful way and capture the serenity I felt from the original.

     On a piece of Whisper White cardstock 9cm x 14cm, first I stamped the butterfly twice in Wisteria Wonder ink. I thought Basic Gray would be too dark, and anything else just wouldn't do for me. Looking for some flowers that would go nicely, I settled on a stamp from the Simply Soft set, a set which is only available with a qualifying workshop order (See IB&C for details). I stamped this in Old Olive ink, and used Stampin' Up! Watercoulour Pencils to partially colour in the butterflies and the flowers and stems.

     After pencilling, I used my Aqua Painter to blend the colours, to create the water-coloured effect. It was so therapeutic to do this, and it felt so wonderful, like I could do it all day. It reminded me of when I was a little girl, mixing the purple and blue watercolour paints to make a rich violet-blue, which was my favourite colour to make.

     Immediately everything started coming to life, and I was happy already. (You can see here the difference between the left wing, unpainted, and the right wing, which has been painted with the Aqua Painter.)

     I used a sponge dauber, with some Pool Party ink picked up onto it, to daub the edges of the Whisper White card. I left the bottom edge uncoloured as this is where the flowers originate. I layered behind this a strip of Sweet Shop Designer Series Paper (from the new Summer Mini), a scrap from the last card I made (see Sweet Cake), and behind that another piece of Whisper White sized 10.5cm x 14.8cm. On this backround piece of Whisper White, I used Simply Scored to score some lines to frame the top layer.

     Before attaching the top layer onto the background layer, I wrapped some white Baker's Twine (also from the Summer Mini) around the front piece. I punched out a scallop oval in Whisper White and daubed this also with Pool Party, and onto a scrap piece of Whisper White stamped the sentiment "THANK YOU" from Faith in Nature, which is another hostess stamp set. I punched out this sentiment with the medium oval punch and layered it over the scallop oval.

     Quite simple really, but so beautiful.

     It's unlike anything I've ever made before, and I am actually quite proud of myself! I think I will be sending it to the ladies at The Bramble Patch in Weedon who have been my saviours and finished this quilt for me, it's been long overdue and I am so grateful to have found someone to do it for me.

     If she were still here today, I think my sister would be proud.

Happy Crafting my friends, and hug your loved ones.

Sincerely,

Tutorial: Make a Custom Notebook

     With the recent release of the Summer Mini Catalogue, and all the excitement involved with it, I decided to take a small detour today and cover a notebook using only items from the main catalogue (IB&C). Not only did I have some Designer Series Paper in my drawer that needed to be used, I remembered that I have a birthday party coming up in a couple of weeks and need to do some practising!

     Sometimes I'm a wife and mother, other times I'm a crafter, and sometimes I am a saviour for mums who need something for their daughters to do during their birthday party; Things that don't involve supervising a whole group of kids in public. Crafty birthday parties are really gaining popularity, and as cinemas and bowling are so expensive these days, I offer my services for less than the cost of those options.

     For the party I'll be doing in mid-May, the mum has requested that the girls cover notebooks. The last notebook I covered was one that I bought from the pound store, and while it looked really pretty when I was done with it, I dropped it one time and it started falling apart. Now, if I were one of these girls, I wouldn't want to spend my time and effort making a really cool notebook only to have it falling to pieces the next day. Solution: I went to my favourite online everything-vendor and bought a few packages of A5 notebooks that were only slightly more expensive, and from a reputable company. They are of much better quality and I'm sure the girls will be pleased; I am!

     Covering a notebook is not very difficult and if done properly, it can look very sophisticated. My next attempt will probably look more sophisticated than this one, but for the purpose of this tutorial this is just fine.

Now on to the instructions...

     First, you need to get yourself a notebook. The more plain the better, because patterned notebooks tend to cost more, and there's really no point in paying extra for something you're going to cover up. I have chosen a hard-bound notebook to cover, size A5.

     Next, choose your paper. I am using some Paisley Petals DSP for the outside of the notebook, and some Naturals Ivory cardstock to cover the inside panel. Make sure the paper you use to cover the outside is longer than the cover flaps. I was able to use a single 12"x12" sheet of DSP for this one notebook, but to do that requires a seperate strip of paper about 3" wide for covering the spine and the edges of the other paper. If I'm not making much sense yet, just keep reading, it gets better.

     Here you can see I have the notebook (whose logo I have cropped out of the picture), two pieces of my DSP which I have cut 6" wide and 2" longer than the cover flaps, and two pieces of Naturals Ivory cardstock, each of which is size A5, or half a sheet of A4 paper.

     To cover the spine I have a 3" strip of more Paisley Petals DSP, which also measures a few inches longer than my notebook. I have a few more embellishments I'd like to add as well. They are two strips of Night of Navy card punched with the Eyelet Border punch (not pictured), some Rose Red Seam binding ribbon (in the end I also decided to use some Very Vanilla 1/8" taffeta ribbon which is not pictured), and some other pieces for the cover decoration.

     I punched the four sides from the Decorative Label punch from another pattern of Paisley Petals DSP, and used the Corner punch to trim the corners off a strip of Very Vanilla cardstock. I used an image from the Everything Eleanor set to stamp the large label in Night of Navy ink onto Very Vanilla cardstock, and cut it out with my paper snips.

     From Bravo Burgundy cardstock, I have die-cut the letters to spell "notes" and have sponge-painted them with Champagne shimmer paint, which I diluted with a bit of water. With all my embellishments as organised as can be, I can now get to work on actually covering the notebook!

     I like things to be straight, even, and perfect, so I always do a bit of aligning and forming before I apply any sort of glue. On both sides of the book, with both large pieces of DSP, I lay the paper over the book and rub around the edges to get some crease lines. This will help me know exactly how and where to place it once the glue is applied, but I also want to know exactly how big the little corner pieces are, because they need to be cut out.

     The little corner bits need to be cut out because the little flaps you see here are going to be folded over soon and I want everything to go smoothly.

     Now that I have fitted the panel, I can put Tombow glue all over it and stick it on, making sure to pay attention to the positioning. I want it exactly where it was before I put the glue on it.

     Because I am so particular about this sort of thing, I fold down the shorter flaps before I fold the longer flap down, all the while making sure everything is as perfect as can be. I do this to cover the outside of the front and the back of the book.

     Next I want to adhere the punched embellishment to both sides of the long strip of DSP, which must be done before I attach it. This is to ensure my notebook looks as professional as possible when it is finished.

     Now I want to line up the spine of the book with the binding strip, checking it's straight, and glue it on. A Bone Folder is handy for this step, as it helps glue the paper down flat, without bulges or bubbles. Make sure to use just the right amount of glue at all times, not too much and not too little. Don't put glue on the part past the end of the book just yet, that will happen later.

    Just another shot of how I applied the binding strip, make sure not to do this when the book is open as it won't fit well in the end, and make sure to make the paper follow the indents of the spine.

     With the book closed and the binding strip mostly attached, I need to cut little notches out of the paper that's hanging off. This is why it's important not to have put glue on this part in the previous step. I'm going to be tucking the strip on the end of the spine into the book, so I want to make sure it's narrow enough to fit between the covers when the book is closed. Also, I've left it long enough so it will stay put once it's tucked.

     To tuck in the piece of the binding strip, I open the book a little to create a bit of wiggle room behind the body of paper. Once I've tucked it in, I glue down the other pieces. Repeat this step for the top and bottom of the binding. 

-Now would be a good time to add a place-marking ribbon, simply put some glue where the little flap was tucked and insert a ribbon. This time, I didn't want one.

     Now I want to attach the ribbon. On the front cover, I use my Snail adhesive to run a long, continuous strip of adhesive starting right on the edge of the binding strip (not onto the punched strip of Night of Navy). I need to do this a second time as well, with the second length of adhesive partially overlapping the first, so that the adhesive is exactly as wide as the ribbon. That way my ribbon will always stay flat, and is less likely to get caught on anything at any point in time.

     I put a bit more Snail adhesive on the inside of the cover to hold the ends of the seam-binding ribbon, and at this point I also attached the same length of Very Vanilla taffeta ribbon, holding the ends down on the inside flap with a tiny bit of Sticky Strip.

     Now to put together the label for the front. I glue the four pieces of DSP, which I had punched out earlier with the Decorative Label punch , to the back of the label from the Everything Eleanor set.

     I glue on the strip of Very Vanilla which I have distressed with a file, and glue on the letters. I can now attach the label to the front of the notebook.

     Now that I've got all the pieces of the front covers attached, I can complete the final step, which is to adhere the panels onto the inside of the book to hide all my loose ends. In addition to all the glue in the centre of the panel, I make sure to run a thin strip of glue (not pictured, sticky strip would also work but might be a bit bulkier) around the perimeter of the panel so the edges won't peel up in the future.

     One way to attach the inner panels easily is to put all the glue on it and, while holding it in exactly the spot you want, just close the flap. This is the back flap of the notebook, clearly less embellished than the front.

     On the lower part of the inside back cover, I use the Handcrafted stamp which bears the copyright symbol of Stampin' Up!, so I'll be in accordance with the Angel Policy in case I choose to sell this notebook.

All done!

     This is only my second attempt at covering a notebook, but I can already tell you that I definitely prefer the feel of this one to the last one, at least as far as quality is concerned.

First attempt

     I'm not yet big on using DSP on cards (getting there slowly) and I haven't done much scrapbooking yet (getting there also) so I am thrilled to have a good use for the DSP at this time. The particular pack used today was free, by way of some promotion several months ago, and I haven't done anything with it until now. I'm still not sure it's really my style, but maybe someone else out there thinks it's just fantastic!

Even if that's not true, the principle is still the same and hopefully this tutorial has served its purpose, to spark some inspiration. ;) Why not have a go yourself?

Comments, shares, etc. are much appreciated!

Thanks for reading, and as always, Happy Crafting!

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