It's PARTY Time!!!

Welcome to The Outlawz Blog Hop!

This is a special blog hop to kick off our 1000 member party!!

We have a LOT of prizes so read these directions carefully! I don't want you to miss out on a chance to win a prize!

To be eligible for the prize here on my blog and the other blogs in the hop, you must be a member of The Outlawz. When you leave a comment on the blogs, please include your Outlawz user name. And, if you become a follower of my blog, your name will be entered twice in the drawing for the prize!

Each blog has different prizes, so be sure to visit all of them!

Along with a prize on each blog, there is a grand prize for one person who visits and leaves a comment on all 8 blogs! And if you become a follower on all 8 blogs, you have 16 chances to win the grand blog hop prize! How awesome is that! Those that do comment on all the blogs in the hop be sure to enter your name in the Inlinkz in the blog hop discussion here. You have until October 9th at 11:59 p.m. to leave comments on the blog hop. Winners will be announced on October 12th after 12:00 p.m. on The Outlawz main page.
If you came from the very talented Sandi's blog, you are right on track. If not, you can go to The Outlawz to start at the beginning here.
I included all of the blogs in the hop at the end of my post in case you get lost along the way or if you are just visiting and would like to join in the party fun!

I have a tutorial to share with you. I will show you how to make a gift bag. The gift bag is about the same size as a paper lunch bag only not quite as tall.

Let's get started –

Supplies:
2 sheets of 12x12 cardstock
Pattern paper
Scor Tape or other two sided tape
Adhesive
Scor Pal
2 - 13 inches of ribbon or rope twine
4 eyelets
Embellishments as needed

Directions:
Cut both pieces of the 12x12 cardstock at 10-1/4" x 9-1/4".

With your Scor Pal, score along the 10-1/4 side of the cardstock at 1" and 4-1/4".



Turn the cardstock and score along the 9-1/4 side of the cardstock at 3". Crease all of your score lines.

On both 10-1/4 x 9-1/4 pieces of paper, you will cut in the 3" score line to the 1" score line and up the 1" score line to the 3" score line remove the 1" the corner piece. Also cut up the 4-1/4" line to the 3" line.

I cut off the corners of the 1" score line at an angle. I find this helps create a clean line along the top and make the bottom easier to fold together.

 

Apply Scor tape to the larger bottom tabs.

Flip the paper over and apply Scor tape to the 1" tabs, both the smaller bottom tabs.
I just realized I did not take a picture showing how I applied the Scor tape to the other side! Sorry about that!

Fold your score lines as shown in the picture above.

Attach one side of the bag to the other as shown in the picture above.

Attach the pattern paper, if desired, to the bag panels. The dimensions for the front/back pattern paper pieces are 5-7/8 x 6-1/8. The side pieces are 3-1/8 x 6-1/8.

I also added a border around the bag.

Now we will finish assembling the box. Tape the last sides together.

Fold in the side tabs.

Fold down the front and back tabs.

Punch two holes on the front and back of the bag for the eyelets. I punched the holes 1/2" down and 1-1/4" from the sides.

Thread the ribbon through the eyelets and tie a knot at the end of the ribbons pieces. I used rope twine in place of ribbon.

I finished off my gift bag with a flower treatment and leafy flourishes.

Are you ready to see what prize I am giving away?
I have filled the gift bag that I made for the tutorial with crafting goodies!
- 6x6 7 Gypsies paper pack
- PTI Sweet Pea stamp set
- Close To My Heart Stamp set
- Memento Dew Drops
- Stickles
- Ribbons
- Jumbo Eyelets

Blog Hop Order



The Outlawz Host: Colleen Holmes
CAS Host: Maureen Merritt
Greetings Host: anaRy Baumgarth
Color Host: Brenda Ogle
Sketch Host: Sandi Huggett
Twisted Thursdays Host: Sharri Seffens (That's me!)
Copic/Promarkers Host: Jo Ham
Paper Ala Mode: Rona Mallard


Let's go see what project Jo has for us!

Enjoy the rest of the hop and be sure to join us back at The Outlawz all this week for more party games and challenges!

Card template

Happy Thursday!

Are you ready to party tonight?
The release party starts in about 3 hours SCS in GinaK's Forum .
I hope you will join in the fun! You will not want to miss all of the preview samples the design team has to share!

Today I do not have a card to share. I was asked where I got the template to make my Viola Birthday card. Well I did not have a template to go off of. I just saw a picture of a card similar to it and went from memory.
I did take pictures of how I made the card to show you.
I started out with a 8 1/2 x 7 piece of cs.

Score it down the middle at 4 1/4 inches and again 2 inches from the bottom. Fold ad the scored lines.

Cut off the 2 inch section on the left hand side.

Score a diagonal line on the left hand section from the top middle score line to the bottom point and fold at the scored line.

Cut off the top triangle and that it.

Here is what it looks like all folded up. I have adjust this to make a bigger card. The viola birthday card is 6x6 inches so I started with a 8x12 piece of cs.

If you make any cards like this, let me know. I would love to see them.

Have a wonderful rest of your evening and I hope to see you at the party later on!! If you can not make it, I will be sharing all of my previews over the next several day.

hugs,

Brayered background tutorial

Good Morning!
Are you ready for the weekend? It is suppose to be gorgeous weather this weekend and there are lot of fun activities in the area for the Labor Day weekend. I am not sure how I should spend my weekend.

Today I have a tutorial for you. It is how I create a brayered background. I'll warn you up front that this is a pretty long post with a lot of pictures. I wanted to make sure to have a picture for each step I do. Are you ready?
I start out with a smooth piece of cardstock, either SU's Whisper White or Gina K's Pure Luxury. The piece above is 5x5. For this card, I am using 3 shades of blue ink. Bashful Blue, Buckaroo Blue and Not Quite Navy. Notice how I have my brayer sitting. Setting with the roller side down or storing it with the roller side down will eventually leave a flat spot on the rubber.

When brayering, you do not want to use any pressure. I always thought I needed to really push down when I brayered. Not True so I found if i hold the brayer as you see above I have better control on how much pressure I use.

Holding the brayer like you see in this picture, will add pressure to the brayer. It's that pointer finger that is the culprit. This is one of the tricks I learned when I took Michelle Zindorf's brayer workshops. You can tell if you are adding too much pressure if the paper starts to curl, wrinkle or even fold at the corners.

Now when you ink up the brayer you want to add pressure to cover the roller with ink. Another trick I learn is that you do not need to have ink on the whole length of the roller, just ink the roller as long as the ink pad is. Any ink past that length is just being wasted.

Now we are ready to brayer. Always start off the paper. I will roll the brayer up along side of the paper to begin and bring it on to the paper as I roll down. Continue rolling the brayer back and forth along the cardstock. Do not lift up the brayer until you have rolled it down the cardstock as far as you want the ink to go.

This is what my first 'coat' of ink looks like. You will want to repeat this color until you get the length and the amount of ink you are looking for on the paper.

In this picture I have 4 'coats' of Bashful Blue on the paper.

Now I added the next shade, Buckaroo Blue. I inked the brayer the same and started off the cardstock just like I did for the Basheful Blue. I did not bring the Buckaroo Blue down the paper as far as I did the Bashful Blue. You want to be able to see the shading between the colors. Notice how I have the horizontal lines. This is normal. Michelle called them Atmospheric lines. As you are rolling the brayer back and forth, when it goes off the edge of the paper it will remove more ink at the edge so those lines are where there is less ink on the brayer. Does that make sense?

Okay, now we are going to add the darkest color, Not Quite Navy. Because this is pretty dark ink and you do not want to ink up the entire roller of the brayer. I inked up about and inch of the brayer. Remember less is more and you can always add more ink but can not remove it once it is on the paper.

When I go to brayer on the darker color I will roll off once and also start off the paper like we did with the other two colors. The above picture has all three colors brayered on the paper. This is going to be my sky.

Now I am going to add my water. I do not want to add anymore ink to the sky so I covered it with a post-it note. You will always get a straight horizon if you line the edge of your post-it note up to the edge of your paper.

I brayered on the Bashful Blue.

Brayered on the Buckaroo Blue.

And the Not Quite Navy.

And here is what I have after I remove the post-it note. At this point I will replace my scratch paper because it has alot of ink on it and and wash my hands because I tend to get ink smudges on my projects if I do not.

I stamped the a few trees from Gina K's Tree Silhouette stamp set in Tuxedo Black ink. I tried to have the ends of the tree stumps sit on the horizon.

And because I love the reflection look, I stamped the trees again, lining up the trunks and making sure the ends of the trunks sit on the horizon.

Now I am going to create an island for the trees to sit on. I took my post-it note and stuck about a quarter of an inch below the horizon. You want to make sure that the ends of the 'upside down' trees are showing.

Using Always Artichoke, I sponged ink along the edge of the post-it note and bringing it up to where the branches start. When sponging, I rub in a circular motion and really add pressure.

To give the island a more realistic look, I sponged the Artichoke just under the tree branches along the top of the island. I did not rub the ink into the paper but dabbed it with the sponge. This gives it a shrubbery like look don't you think? Do you still see the tree stumps? We want to cover those.

To cover the stumps and add shadow and depth to the island, I sponged tuxedo black (yup black) ink over the Artichoke but not completely covering it.

and here is what it looks like after removing the post-it note.

I did not like the look of the trees so I sponged a bit of Artichoke ink over them. Now I am happy with them.

I sponged Not Quite Navy around the edges of the paper.

I stamped the pine branch from SU's Peaceful Wishes in the upper corner with Artichoke ink and added lines to the water and I guess flowers to the island with my Signo white gel pen.

And here is the finished card. I added a pine cone to the pine branches in the corner. The papers for the card are Always Artichoke and Not Quite Navy.

Thank you for sticking with me to the end of the tutorial. I hope it was easy to follow. Let me know if you have any questions on the tutorial, I would happy to answer them!
If you give brayering a try, I would love to see what you do!

Have a great day!
Hugs,