It's a Creative World

Recycled Swap Storage

Hello again :)

At the moment there are a great many swap sites around, and - thanks to Sir Tim of Holtz - current swap trends have moved from ATCs to Tags.

Now, for those of us who like a change, this is great.  Quote swaps, technique swaps, all good inspiration for our crafting.  But many people hit on the problem of where to store them.  ATCs fit in their own little storage albums, clip cases, and even trading card albums - not so tags :(  Over the course of a year on UKS, for example, you could receive 120 tags or more - and your other half may not be happy to have them dangling from the rafters!

Of course, if they are, you're fine.  But if not, what do you do then? I envisaged a washing line with them pegged on, or a wire rail with IKEA curtain clips.  However, my darling husband wouldn't be completely thrilled, because my craft space is the dining table, and my storage is one wall of our kitchen diner.  I tried using book rings to hang them on hooks, but found I couldn't get to my shelves. Rifling through boxes was annoying and time-consuming.

Now, I'm not saying these ideas are bad, just that in my limited space (and decor of duck-egg blue) this wasn't going to work for me.  Then I stumbled across a blog (and cannot find the link!) where the crafter had revamped heavy-duty cardboard washing tablet boxes, and they'd made very good lidded crafty storage for inkpads, misters, punches, and other tools.  Brilliant!

I found, for the tags, that washing tablet boxes were the wrong size, but cat food ones were perfect - sized for pouches, they are pretty much tag-sized!  I pulled it all apart (carefully) and flattened it out, before decorating with a patchwork of old papers and stamped images.  Then I hot glued it back together, and stood the tags up like library cards, which is so much better than having them in a box, having to pull them out and trawl through.  Now I can flick through my tags for technique inspiration without damaging them, or pulling them all out and having them clutter up the dining room. 

It still needs a coat of gel medium to seal it all down, because the paper shifts when you reassemble the box.  But you don't have to disassemble it if you'd rather not - you could give it a wash of paint first and th cover with paper, and the paint would hide joins, or awkward shapes you couldn't cut :)  Next I think I'll make one for my SU inkpads, as they don't stack well - and turn it on it's end the the front flap drops down for access... then another for the SU/EK Sucess punches so I can keep them neat... I'm hooked!

I'd love it if you would share your storage solutions with us- Pop a link in your comments, and help spread the inspiration!

Thanks for popping over!

Leanne x

www.craftaholicleanie.co.uk  *  www.beautfulimpressions.co.uk

carving out your own crafty niche...

Hi there everyone, its alix here again :0)

Today I thought i'd share some of the online class by Julie Fei~Fan Balzer that i've been taking this month.  I am a big fan of online classes as you can take them as and when suits you, you don't have to travel or sit too long anywhere uncomfortable...and you can even do them in your p~j's...no~one need ever know!  Actually though, the best thing for me about an online course is generally the prompting to get out of a rut and try something with a bit less thinking and a bit more doing.  I'm terrible for spending hours contemplating what to create or make...and then running out of time or energy to do it...so sometimes a bit of organisation is what i need to get me going again.  And this course has kick started me again big time!

The course I'm taking is called Stamp Carving 101 and if you've been to my personal blog lately you'll have seen lots of evidence of it!

I'm not giving away any of Julie's secrets or hard work...but showing you an example of one of the lessons i followed pretty much to the letter.  This was the carving out a bracket frame lesson.  I drew mine freehand and transferred it to the rubber with the pencil transfer method.  Its an easy shape to carve out so a good one to get started on...and a very versatile stamp to have in your stash as its ideal to frame a small image or hold journalling, as well as to make swirly borders with.  Hence why i didn't chage the design! ;0)

 

When i had carved my stamp and printed it out with a Big and Juicy pad you can see how cute it it...but i wanted to play with my new stamp...and i wasn't in a *cute* mood today...i was feeling distinctly grungey and inspired by dirty walls and graffitti...so here is my stamp used in that way!!

Its not the prettiest journal page you'll ever see...not even the prettiest one by me...but i had 10 minutes and i was feeling direct and raw and this is what I came up with!

Sometimes you just have to carve out your own niche for the day, right? :0)

As always thanks for stopping by and I hope I've given you pause for thought...if nothing else do stop by Julie's blog and see what she's up to from time to time...she is awesome!

 

 

Thank you...

Hello and Happy New Year! It's my turn today and much of my thoughts since the festive period have been taken up with remembering to say thank you for the lovely gifts we recieved. I always think it's really important to say thank you and so this year I have made lots of tags. Tags are so quick and easy and, much like ATCs, are an easy base to start any project. 

 

 

I started by die cutting the tags and then covering half in Shabby Shutters Distress Ink. The second half I covered in Seedless Preserves Distress Ink, blending the join in well. 

 

 

 

Then I used a mask (if you have been to craft show lately these are one of the current trends!) and spritzed Perfect Pearls Mist over the top and dried each tag with my heat gun. I then edged each one with Peeled Paint Distress Ink and added two stamped images and my sentiment.

 

 

The sentiment could be a stamped image, one you have printed from your computer or perhaps from a Dymo machine or similar (I love my Dymo!) A little coordinating ribbon finishes it off! I thought you might like to see them all together - the stamped image looks like it is behind the Perfect Pearls - but I did the stamping afterwards - it's clever isn't it?! 

My wonderful mum has kept lots of things I have made over the years and here's a couple of recent thank yous I've made - see, I told you I liked making them!!!

Thank you for popping by today! I hope you have a great day and will pop back tomorrow to see the next creative inspiration from my fabulously talented DT colleagues!

Gabrielle x

Framed Advent Calendar

Hello! It's my turn today and our house is gearing up for Christmas in a big way! I have a small obsession with Advent Calendars - I love how they count down to the big day and often have chocolate in them too! So for this year's calendar I wanted to make one that was quick, easy and that could be made very cheaply by the whole family.

I bought a picture frame from a pound shop and removed the glass and mount board. The frame was covered in tissue tape (you may need to glue the edges down as by its very nature the tape won't stick to itself) and then I rubbed some Vintage Photo Distress Ink on the edges and then sprayed it with Heirloom Gold Perfect Pearls Mist. The back of the frame (which normally hangs on the wall) was covered with paper (I used some Tim Holtz Seasonal Stash) and then I covered a small configurations box with paper and tissue tape and glued it to the back of the frame. on top of this box I added a pine tree (with paint as snow). 

I cut 13 tags in coordinating papers and decorated them with stamps, paint and punched birds. You will need 0 to 9 and 0 to 2 - for the 0 for the first days of December I used a picture of Santa with a little ribbon at the bottom. I made my tags pretty flat so that I could stack them all on two hitch fastners but you could make them as fancy as you like and store them in the little box where I popped some chocolate! 

I used some offcuts of paper for the word 'Advent' and a canvas snowman with a hand dyed ribbon (for instructions on hand dying ribbon - see my previous post!) This is such an esy and enjoyable project that it's something that was great fun to make with my children! Thank you for stopping by!

Gabrielle x

Paper Piecing Tag!

I LOVE this ship stamp from Bombshell Stamps. I 've stamped and coloured it before with copic pens:

But I kept looking at those little sails and wanted them to be all stripey and multicolored somehow, it was paper piecing time!!

I have the 6x6" Cosmo Cricket paper pad of the Wanted papers- which are lovely warm teals, oranges and browns! I chose three different papers and stamped the ship onto each of the three.

I chose the Orange paper as the background from the image as it reminded me of a sky at sunset-the whole ship image was stamped and cut out from this paper.

Next I used a wood effect paper to create the ...well wooden parts of the ship!

Then the fun and fiddly bit I started cutting out the sails and sticking them in place. It was fiddly but I like cutting out and I found it quite relaxing, maybe that's weird LOL!

I created my tag with teal Cosmo Cricket paper and stamped some maritme images onto it to create a background for the ship.

I added the ship and some sentiments and coloured a piece of seam binding ribbon with Aged Mahogany and Walnut Ink Distress Inks and hey presto the tag was finished!

Here's a close-up of those sails with a little extra shading (copic pens) and highlights (white ink pen) for extra emphasis :

Hope you like it!

Happy Crafting!
Love,

GlitteryKatie xxXxx

TAG TIME

I've been stitching again, this time with my machine and all sorts of scraps of fabric and ribbon.

I've made a whole set of tags for my sister and her family.

She can use them, re-use them, give them away, or put them away, it's up to her.

She might use them on gifts, or as meal table place markers, or hang them on door handles.

She could label shoe bags, luggage, tools, gadgets or lunches.

They could be bookmarks or coatpeg labels.

Each one is 3in by 4in, and has a basic layer of cream damask, onto one side of which I stitched fragments of fabrics such as chunky corduroy, or printed cotton, and then to the other side I added ribbons or lace, using those short pieces left over from other projects. Somewhere on each tag is a piece of twill with a name stamped on.

Finally I threaded a large eyed needle with a length of narrow ribbon,  pushed it through from front to back, and knotted the ends.

There are frayed edges and visible stitching, all intentional, and lending a certain rustic charm, l reckon.

Bye for now

Eleanor

xx

Twelve Tags of Christmas

I know, it seems like this is a little bit on the late side, but bear with me here. What I have done is made a super early head start on my tags for Christmas 2011 ... yes, you read that right!

Before you go any further, rescue those Christmas cards you have put in the bin (or ready for recyling).

I have an aversion to throwing things away. Really I do (if you could see my house you would have more cause to believe me). Christmas cards are no exception. In recent years it hasn't been so bad because I have sent them to recyling (which seems a little less wasteful than putting them in the bag of rubbish for burning). However, I was reading through the posts over at Two Peas when I came across this one about what people do with their Christmas cards after the event. A lot of the responses (those that didn't just say bin them) relate to photo cards (which I don't get any of so bypassed those ideas) but I loved quite a few of the other ones, particularly those about making decorations (love the idea of the wreath especially), but for this post, I thought it would be fun to look at creating some tags.

I gathered ours up in a pile. I set aside those handmade ones and any particularly special ones (my best friend sent me one that you press a pad and the scene lights up with little white twinkling lights, it's so pretty and I love it!). Then I chose a selection which I thought would work well cut down for tags. I'm pretty lazy so I didn't want to have to do much handcutting and my Big Shot and Nestabilities dies were my special friends for this project.

With just some card and ribbon scraps and a selection of gems, I made twelve tags. Some are very small and simple and others larger and more detailed, but none took very long to create at all.

Here's the low down on my creations:

 
This is the most detailed tag. I've used the large Sizzix snowflake die and cut it out of glitter card, created an accordian circle and layered a small punched out snowflake on contrasting cardstock. The card that 
this tiny snowflake was from has a design that will yield at least six other small images, maybe more depending how carefully I punch them out.

The next four tags contain images all cut out from one card - it was such a cute card that, very handily, had well spaced out images so I could make the most of it.

The dies on this are Nestabilities (bracket shaped) and Sizzix (crescent tag) and the embossing folder is from Cuttlebug. I swiped some silver Brilliance ink over the embossed cardstock and around the edges of the other shapes for definition.

 
I used a Tim Holtz/Sizzix snowflake embossing folder on here and a scrap of old Basic Grey patterned paper plus a little gem on the bobble cap.

 
 
Mega simple this one, just a couple of layers cut with the Nestabilities die and some gems for extra sparkle.

This is an opening style tag, again using Nestabilities dies. It's not obvious from the photos, but all the images on these four tags were all pre-glittered (even better!).

 

I thought this image was totally cute (we have rabbits like this) but I wasn't sure I would be able to make a tag from it as it had a huge greeting all around it. However, it was just the perfect size for this Nestabilities ornate label die. I just had to round the corners of the cut out rabbit and add ribbon and it was done.

 

Another cute image that I wasn't sure I would be able to use because it was 'cut off' at the folded edge of the card. I just cut around the shape (including the back layer, handily the printed or written greeting didn't go into the space I needed) then layered that onto some red card to create a little opening style tag. A few strokes of Stickles and it was done.

 

An adorable image, plenty of glitter and straight edges to trim down, the perfect card for a tag! Just layered on a die cut with ribbon tied through. Simple but sweet!

 

Sometimes I wonder just how small Christmas cards can get! This is the whole of the front of card. An adorable image and just shouting out to be recycled as a tag. I made sure to cut around the image from white cardstock too, to layer on the back of the tag for the greeting, before matting onto the red.

 

A traditional tree with a beautiful shaded background (no inking required). A few red gems added to the red printed baubles and layered to create a larger opening style tag. Again, not obvious from the photo, but there are lots of gold embossed details on here too.

 

The star was a layered element on one card and the sentiment was taken from another. I added the gems to fill up the empty space and cut and layered into a simple tag shape.

 

Finally, as a house of cat lovers, it was impossible not to use this totally adorable image of the kitten in the stocking. I swiped a silver brilliance inkpad over and wiped off with some kitchen roll to add some shimmer to the whole of the image.

The offcuts and unwanted cards can now go to recycling without any hesitation!

All best wishes for 2011

xxx's

Suzanne

 

 

 

Project 30 update

 
Hiya Claireliz here

It seems like only last week I started this project, I can't really believe it was back in February, well the chest is filling nicely (it has also been altered but I'm saving that for the last project 30 post). So the grungeboard mini book is now finished...

 
although the grungeboard fastener (you know, stuff that is flexible & doesn't break) broke,so I need a new way to fasten it.

You've seen these first 3 pages previously but I wanted to show you the book as a whole,

 

 each page was covered in book pages from an old sewing book
 

and the backgrounds are all painted, inked with Distress Ink or sprayed with Dylusions Spray Inks
 

Then each page has been doodled to within an inch of its life

 

I've used either stamped my titles or used Thickers

 

these next to pages were also stamped with paint from a paint dabber (just the bottle bit after you've unscrewed the foam cap) & my Dymo labeller came in handy again
 

The journaling on this last page reads, always remember, never give up, do not quit, always be yourself, live life, love & be happy
 

All of the photos have been attached with 3d foam pads to make them jump out from the page, I'm just deciding wether or not to add a few charms to the tabs.

I also found some Maya Road chipboard tags, so I inked each one with Distress Ink, & used a Tim Holtz stamp & heat embossed them gold. the small flowere are grungepaper, sprayed with Cosmic Shimmer mists.
 

The tags say, Imagine, Sketch, Create, Share (which I think of as my creative process, I imagine it, sketch it out, create it then share it on my blog or on here) and on the back of each is a little bit of journaling about what that word means to me & my creativity.

I still have a few more things to finish before Project 30 is complete, its really given me some insight into ... well... me :D but I've really enjoyed it & have lined up 3 new all year projects for next year, so keep watching to see what happens.

Thanks for stopping by & being part of the Project 30 journey, hope to see you soon

C

xx

FLAG TAG BOOK

Last month, Kelly showed us her journal cards  which I loved the idea of, so I set out to make some in tag form.

First of all I painted the manila base tags with different acrylic paints, some matt, some glossy, and a few pearly iridescent, then stapled on some calico strips, before stamping some favourite images.

Whilst they were drying, ready for the next stage, I pondered how I would eventually display them, whether on a book ring, in a box, or maybe a tagbook. I recalled once making a flag book and that was what I settled on.

I used chipboard for the covers, painted with matt white gesso, and stamped various images in brown.

The inside covers have co-ordinating paper on them, and ribbon is trapped on the flat end of each piece, to wrap around and tie at the shaped end.

The tags are held inside a concertina piece of manila card, (made from value file folders from Staples) but are removable for completion and later reading, and as soon as I have printed some weeny photos, I will finish them off and journal on the reverse.

So many projects these days seem to start in one direction and continue in another.

I will finish the tags, though, and might even try making some of those little inchies I've been seeing around and about to embellish them.

Bye for now,

Eleanor

x