Sunbursts

It's a fact - we love the sun.  We love spending time outside on a sunny day.  We love to take pictures when the sun's lighting is just right.  And, now, we love to add sunshine to our cards and scrapbook layouts!  Put on your sunglasses and come see how our On Trend Team has interpreted the popular trend of adding sunbursts to a project.

Practical Scrapper Wendi Robinson created a sunburst out of pattern paper and added stitching across the rays for texture

Practical Scrapper Mary Pat created a sunburst using the Silhouette and backed the negative space with pattern paper.

Practical Scrapper Cathy created a layered sunburst with the Bazzill Sweetwater Lucy's Crab Shack line!

Practical Scrapper Malika made a summery card with a Silhouette cut sunburst and an Epiphany Crafts epoxy.

Practical Scrapper Lanette covered her whole layout with a burst pattern.

Practical Scrapper Danielle de Konink made a sunburst pattern for the background and handstitched all the pieces together. She chose her photo for the dreamy effect created by the shining sun.  

Practical Scrapper Nicole Laha cut sun rays freehand from patterned paper and adhered them behind her summer photos.

Practical Scrapper Lisa Peeples used fun sunbursts to make a cover for her journal she created to record her crafty ideas and sketches.

Practical Scrapper Kerri created her sunburst with Crate Paper's Emma's Shoppe Collection.   She inked the edges of the pink/red sunbursts to highlight them.

Practical Scrapper Marcia Dehn-Nix used a Sunburst only on the top half of her layout and used stitching and sequins to accent it.

 Practical Scrapper Krissy Clark McKee used patterened paper from Pretty Little Studio's Nature Walk Collection to create her fall-themed sunburst that she accented with stitching, paper feathers, hearts, buttons, and sequins.

Shaping: Creating A Shaped Mini Album

Practical Scrapper Kerri here with you today to share with you a shaped mini album all by hand.  How many of you are sitting there saying-"Really, no die cutting machine or pre-fabricated album from manufacturer?"  With a little bit of creativity, determination, and math you can create ANY--that's right ANY-- shape album for whatever the occasion.

Today, I'd like to share with you my owl-shaped baby milestone album that I create back in April for my cousin who just had baby July 1st. My favorite type of album to create are baby milestone albums.  I've done about 7 of them now, this one being the first shaped album.  Here's where I drew my inspiration from, this is what the baby's room was done in (owls) and it set the tone for everything.  I actually shared this photo with the practical scrappers design team, for some information on the perfect papers (and I know these ladies know their papers). 

 Fellow design team member, Audrey, recommended Little Yellow Bicycle's line "Hello Fall" and it took me a whole 3 minutes and 38 seconds to order it from the time I saw her post. The color were a perfect match for where I was heading with my design.

So, I had the perfect papers on their way, I knew the shaped of the album, now the fabrication part became interesting. I started with googling owl patterns/coloring pages and found the shape of the owl I wanted here. I traced him on some poster board, then came the fun part, figuring out how to make it open, and my other goal--to STAND on it's own.

This was the first take of cutting and tracing onto the poster board.  It met the goals of how I wanted it to open plus it would stand on it's own, but I forgot a very important  part--how in the world was I going to bind my pages?

I again resorted to my team, this time fellow administrators Christine and Erin.  Erin suggested maybe doing an accordion binding.  As soon as she mentioned it, I couldn't believe I forgot about it.  Back to the drawing board I went, this time starting with doing my binding.  I knew I needed 14 pages to create what I wanted so I went with a two inch binding seam.  Here's the sample one I played with:

This is a 3 1/4" x 12" piece of paper that I scored at 3/4" the entire length and punched holes in it with my crop-a-dile.

Here you can see me gathering every two folds and adding brads to create the slots that my pages would fit into.

Last, this is how my pages fit into the accordion  binding.  I ended up using 3 strips of 3 1/4" x 12" to create enough slots to hold 14 pages in my album.

Once I figured that out, I knew the original design was not going to allow my pages to fit into the slots and "match up" with cover.  I needed to add an extra 1" tab extended from the base of my owl to allow ample space so everything would line up.  Here's how he turned out:

This is the front cover.  You can see at the bottom of the body where I extended the 1" to account for the binding.

Here's the cover opened up.  I went with a Velcro tab to close/open the cover.

One thing I love to do with milestone albums is create space for pull out journaling/photos.  Every other month there is a little envelope like this on the back. In each envelope there are little pull out tabs that have lines to journal on one side and a space for a photo on the other with different baby milestones that happen around that time...example first smile, my announcement, my prints, rolling over, first foods, I can stand, I can walk.

What the pull out tabs look like.

On the months that I don't have a envelope with the milestone tabs I added a journaling card like this one here:

Supply List:

Chipboard and recycled cereal boxes

Pattern Papers: Little Yellow Bicycle "Hello Fall" Collection

*Note: There are some scraps from a DCWV stack as well.

Cardstock: Core'dinations

Inks: Tsukineko VersaMagic Chalk Ink, Gingerbread, Momento Rich Cocoa

Other Mediums: Copic Markers

Embriodery Floss

Twine

Ribbon

Stamps: Hampton Arts

Punches: Martha Stewart, Creative Memories, Stampin' Up, and Fiskars

To see more of my album pages you can check out them out here at my blog.  Hope you enjoyed my little mini album process, and hopefully it inspires you not to shy away from shaping your own personal creation!

Happy Scrapping!

**Designer projects are not always linked in our posts, but you can always find their blogs in our sidebar or in the staff tab**

Frugal Finds: Toothpicks

We are back this month with another fun frugal finds feature.  Today we are going to get picky...toothpicky that is!  This month we challenged a few of our design team members to get creative with toothpicks.  For me personally, I had a lot of fun with this one.  I stepped away from my normal style and took a chance which is always a good for a creative mind.  I will admit, I ripped apart (for the the first time ever :O) a layout.  Yet, I was please with the end result.
After I had my ripping apart meltdown, I sat down and wrote a list of some other ways I could use toothpicks.  Here are some of those ideas I came up with ...

                             *make a fence -how cute would that be with some twine wrapped around it

                             *make a campfire/tee-pee embellishment

                             *use them as a tool to apply those detailed rub-ons

                             *make some Valentine's day cupid arrows 

                             *frame a photo

                             * use them for snowman arms

I'm sure I could go on , but let's take a look at what our designers did!

Practical Scrapper Brenda painted some toothpicks white, trimmed one end on each one, and then used them to outline a diecut star for this 4th of July page.  She used micro glue dots to adhere the toothpicks.

On this layout, Practical Scrapper Kerri, placed two round toothpicks together and wrapped a double layer of Martha Stewart twine around them to create her flagpole.

 

Practical Scrapper Liz Chidester used toothpicks and a doily die cut to make this cute umbrella.

Not only can you use them to embellish, but you can use them as a tool! Practical Scrapper Kerri took a stab at quilling on this card.  She used her toothpicks to roll her pattern paper to create her flower petals and leaves.  Not only did they do the rolling, but she used them to apply her glue to her rolled petals and leaves.

Hope you enjoyed our newest edition of Frugal Finds!  What frugal item would you like to see us use in an upcoming feature?  Leave us a comment below to let us know!



**Designer projects are not always linked in our posts, but you can always find their blogs in our sidebar or in the staff tab**

A New Wallet For Dad!!

Practical Scrapper Kerri here with you this Saturday, bringing you a completely practical and functional gift for dad for Father's day.  How many of you have run out of time or ideas for dad?  My husband seems to go through wallets quickly.  Between that and my kids running around making those silly duct tape wallets, it got me thinking there must be some kind of origami paper wallet out there.  After doing some searching, I found this tutorial from Instructables website that you find the tutorial for this here.    Note: I did divert from the original  template, to make it more of a memory gift than just a functional use.  Here are some photos...

Front of the wallet all closed up.

The wallet opened up. Here you can see I created a little license for dad doing some photoshoping of printable kid's license that I found ( sorry, I can't remember where but will add the link if I find it).  You also see the start of my photo holder that I created.  To do that all I did was start with a 5" x 4" piece of cardstock.  With the 4" side going across your score board score at 3 1/2".  This is going to give you a 1/2" tab to tuck into the wallet.  Next turn your paper so the 5" length is going across your score board and score at 2 1/2" (dividing it exactly in half). With your 1/2" tab at the top, cut along the 2 1/2 inch score line from the bottom stopping when you get to the first score line.  Fold in half and use bone folder to crease along the 1/2" tab for clean lines. 

Shown here is the the end of the photo holder and the credit card (or gift card holder which I will be using this for).

A close up-up of the gift card area.  I used my Cricut with the Plantin Schoolbook cartridge to create this ribbon.  The stamp is from Studio g (rubber cling mount stamps)

Here's a view looking down onto the wallet -and look there is money in there!

This was the other fun part and the kids really got a kick out of putting dad's photo on the money.  If you go to the website Money Festisite you can upload any photo you want (note you will want to crop your image first if there are any other people in the photo).  You have the choice of any currency you want to place it on.  The kids picked the $1,000,000 dollar bill, of course.

With them picking the $1,000,000 I couldn't resist but cut out some letters and write out on the back, "You're 1 in a 1,000,000!"

 

There you have it! A fun gift you can get everyone into that is a memory in itself, plus completely functional. This little thing will hold I 4 credit cards, money, and you could even add a pocket where I put the fake license to hold a real one.  The possibilities are there!

 

**Designer projects are not always linked in our posts, but you can always find their blogs in our sidebar or in the staff tab**

**Designer projects are not always linked in our posts, but you can always find their blogs in our sidebar or in the staff tab**

1O Things You Can Do With: Eyelets

Last week we tackled the dreaded loose glitter and this week we are back with another supply that many of us struggle to use: eyelets!  Our designers have got some fabulous ideas today on how to use some of those eyelets up, imagine how surprised everyone will be when they see you using this oft neglected supply!

1. Create bubbles for a fish.

Practical Scrapper Kerri used her eyelets to create the bubbles leading to her sentiment on her fishbowl card.  Don't just think fish though...you could do bath bubbles, outside bubbles...think of the fun!

2. Use them to bind and create handles on your mini albums.

You cannot see them, but Practical Scrapper Kerri used eyelets and wire to create the handle on this mini album.  She then dressed up the handle with some tulle and ribbon to disguise the wire.

3. Use them to anchor embellishments.

Practical Scrapper Mary Pat uses them to randomly place embellishments on a page.

4. Make wheel rims and wheels for your vehicles.
Practical Scrapper Erin dresses up the trucks on this card using products from Momenta with eyelets and brads.

5.  Use eyelets to make a corset or other item to lace
Practical Scrapper Jayma uses them to tie a corset on a Bridal Shower card.

6. Use them to decorate the center of circles or flowers.
Practical Scrapper Audrey added dimension to her layout using brads and eyelets on flat circles..


7. Arrange them in a pattern to create a small grid, thread some twine and use them as a photo corner or accent.
We can't show you the whole layout here because it's being used by a manufacturer later but Practical Scrapper Audrey. gave us a sneak preview of another neat way she used eyelets!

8. Add eyelets to the top of tags
Practical Scrapper Christine created her own tags and then added eyelets to them before tying bows around them and using the tags as an anchor for her title.

9.  Use eyelets in the corners of a rectangle to create a frame.
Practical Scrapper Christine used green eyelets in the corners of her brown rectangle.  She then threaded white embroidery floss thru those to create a unique border.

 1O.  Use them to create a swirl or trail
Practical Scrapper Alumni Jenny Titus created her ladybug trail with black eyelets, especially standing out on the green paper.

**Designer projects are not always linked in our posts, but you can always find their blogs in our sidebar or in the staff tab**

10 Things You Can Do with Letter Stickers

Welcome to our second installment of 10 Things! This week we are giving you ten ideas of things to try with your letter stickers. They are so hard to use up, but an absolute must have item in papercrafting.  Here's some inspiration on how to use some up or use what you've got in unique ways! Ready, set, go!

1.  Embellish your letters with thread or bakers twine to add color and interest to plain letters.

Practical Scrapper Christine used purple thread that matched her patterned paper and wrapped it around her "c" and "o" several times to completely change up the look of her Thickers.

2.  Use O's in fun ways to add character to your project
Practical Scrapper Kerri used her O's to make cute eyes for a Halloween card.

3.  Use letter stickers to create a critter and/or form an interesting border.
Alumni Practical Scrapper Jamie Cripps used O's to make her critter and then used W's to create an interesting edge on her card.

4.  Use Z's to mimic sleeping
Practical Scrapper Kerri used Z's in all different fonts to show off a cute sleeping baby.  What a great way to use up some of those Z's that are hard to use!

5.  Use lined up B's to make a funky butterfly
Alumni Practical Scrapper Jamie used to B's lined up back to back and mounted on black paper to form her own one of a kind embellishment.



6.  Use stickers as a stencil to trace your letters (works great if you don't have the color you need!)
Practical Scrapper Christine stuck her letter stickers that she wanted to trace onto her shirt first.  This helped remove the stickyness enough so that she would be able to pull them up after tracing them.

 

7. Use letter stickers to frame a school picture...using up lots of the alphabet!

Alumni Practical Scrapper Kim used hers coordinating the color but really making them stand out by using quadrilateral shapes to frame a circle

8. Intermix fonts and colors to create added interest

Practical Scrapper Christine used a variety of fonts to create her title and journaling on this page.  They also served to spell out words that she couldn't find a word sticker for.

9.  Mount letter stickers on a different color to create a mat that matches other elements on your layout

Practical Scrapper Erin utilizes this technique regularly.  Here she mounted her white letters onto black and cut around them making white letters work perfectly on this layout.

 

10. Use a variety of fonts to create a list

Practical Scrapper Erin used a variety of fonts to tell the story of choosing a name for their new puppy.