The Indecisive Artist

Masculine Card Swap

I have big plans to blog about the recent birthday party events at our house, but it’s taking me awhile to get the photos and such organized and ready, so in the meantime, I thought I’d share a recent card project!

I am fortunate enough to participate in a frequent card swap with a group of talented stamping friends at work. We’ve always done a ‘do your own thing’ approach to a theme for these swaps, but this last round, there was a request to focus on masculine birthday cards. I thought this idea was brilliant! I know I always struggle with not having enough masculine cards on hand, or not having the RIGHT masculine card on hand. With a swap, I get a set of cards made with stamps and accessories I don’t own, making it a great way to expand my masculine card supply!

After procrastinating until the last possible moment, I spent an hour in the stamp room whipping up my cards after all the others in the house had gone to bed for the night. (This really is the BEST time to stamp!) I had an idea and a layout in mind, but sometimes what I end up with doesn’t come out exactly like I envision it, but that’s OK with me.

I had originally planned to incorporate a bit of green onto this card to use a blue/green color scheme against the kraft. But once I had it all together, I didn’t like the green so much. I think maybe I just didn’t like the Wild Wasabi color; if I had tried a different shade, I may have been happier. But seeing the simple blues against the kraft was pleasing enough, and so I decided to keep it simple.

None of the stamps used are current. I like being able to use my retired stuff for these swaps. I gives me a chance to use products I’m no longer allowed to demonstrate. Also, having been a demonstrator for a number of years, I have built up quite the collection of retired stamps! (I think I own literally EVERY nautical/lighthouse/sailboat themed stamp set that Stampin Up has ever made!)

I added a loop of Artichoke denim jean ribbon just below the main image for just a tiny bit of accent. I personally think cards always need a little accent of some sort – my favorite is to use ribbon. But when making masculine cards, you have to play it safe! I think this ribbon loop is just the right amount of accent for this card!

Up next, I want to share with you 5 card designs I created for a class I hosted. They turned out great, and I can’t wait to get them ready to post!

Baby Cards

We had two very special babies join our extended family in February. Before they were born, I saw some totally adorable baby cards featured on etsy. As cute as they were, and as much as I love to support artists by buying their handcrafted work, I could not justify it in this case when I have a whole stamping/scrapping room full of supplies with which to make cards!

I couldn’t recreate it exactly – the original used some sort of die-cut shape to create the elephants. But I could improvise.

I used the elephant stamp from a retired Noah’s Ark set to create the line of elephants marching across the card. What is it about elephants that makes for such a cute baby card?? :)

I think the photo doesn’t do them justice – they seem a little plain. But I promise, in real life they were very cute… I considered putting a ribbon on each one and decided against it because I thought they were just right without a ribbon.

Year-in-Review Scrapbooks

One of the things I like to do each year for the grandparents is to create a year-in-review scrapbook, using my favorite scrapbook pages from the past year. Since I’ve already got the pages created and saved for myself, it really is just a matter of choosing my favorites and creating a book and sending it to print!

I frequently use MyPicTales to create my bound books. They are the most affordable out there, and they offer a variety of sizes and cover options. I like MyPicTales because I can upload my scrapbook layouts and have them printed with a full bleed rather than using photos and assembling them into a predefined layout. MyPicTales also offers the ability to create a custom cover for your books, which is a really nice option. (I’m not compensated by MPT in any way, shape, or form… I just like their product offerings!!)

When I create these year-in-review books, I make sure to include a layout from each month of the year, and I usually try to pick a layout that is one of my favorites – a layout with a bit of a wow factor to it – if at all possible. That way, the book is really highlighting the best images and layouts. Since photobooks are a minimum of 20 pages, some months will have more than one layout, and that’s perfectly fine with me. Some months like October lend themselves to more than one layout. (Pumpkin picking AND Halloween!) I also like to do a single year-in-review page… one that shows a photo from each month on a single page. Also, because these are gift book to grandparents, I have them done in 8x8 size instead of my traditional 12x12. And quite honestly, these layouts look better at 8x8 size. Because I’m printing them at a smaller size then what they are created at, I don’t have to do anything special to resize them. If I wanted to get super picky, I could resample them to the smaller size, and it’s easy enough to do… but for this purpose, there was no need to do that.

Since I was running short on time to get them ordered (and they didn’t actually arrive until AFTER Christmas), I didn’t want to take the time to design a custom cover, so I chose to do a chocolate brown linen cover instead. Then, I took some stamps and acrylic paint and did a handmade custom cover for them. Technically, you could use craft/pigment ink to stamp on the fabric, but the color would not be so vivid, and I’d worry it wouldn’t really hold up as long as the paint will. To stamp with paint, I just used a small foam brush and brushed the paint right onto the stamp. Worked like a charm. Cleanup is a little bit of a pain, but it’s worth it.

This is what the pages on the inside look like.  My only regret as that some of my pages had ‘stuff’ too close to the margin that got sorta sucked into the binding. It’s not a huge deal, but something I’ll try to be more aware of next time I create a book like this.

I tend to be a nonchronological scrapper, so it doesn’t always make sense for me to have my layouts printed as bound books, but every once in awhile it makes sense for a project to be printed this way. It’s nice to see a completed project, too, rather than stacks of individual pages that need to be reorganized/reshuffled whenever I need to insert something. I don’t scrap chronologically, but I put them in albums chronologically. Because they are loose pages, I can swap them around. When they are bound in a book, they are there for good. In some cases the thought of committing them permanently doesn’t sit well with my preferred scrap style… but sometimes, it’s just the thing I need to do to create a specific book. I definitely plan to create more books in the future!

Mothers Day Cards and Gifts

I set out to make some homemade gifts and cards for Mothers Day. Neither one of these things took a long time to make, but I think they turned out great. Both my mom and my mother-in-law like bath salts, so it was a logical gift to make!

These simple cards were so easy. The images were some I had received in trade already stamped for me, so I just had to color them. I used my watercolor crayons and an aquapainter. I mounted that image onto a layer of always artichoke cardstock. I love that color green! The card base itself is certainly celery and was stamped with my favorite Sanded background stamp in chocolate chip ink. I wanted to add a little ribbon embellishment, so I used my wide grosgrain celery ribbon and made a little loop. I adhered it to the image layer with a little vintage brad. I wanted to use a Happy Mothers Day sentiment, but the stamp I had was too large for the cardfront, so I stamped inside and instead used the generic ‘for you’ sentiment on the outside.

 

To make the bath salts, I took out a bunch of my soaping supplies. Normally I make bath salts with a combination of epsom salts and dead sea salts. One is readily available at any pharmacy, but the dead sea salts are harder to come by and must be ordered. I didn’t have any dead sea salts left. (I use them in my bath whenever I can!) So this batch of salts was made purely with epsom salts. But that’s OK, because part of the purpose is to salt the water, but the other part is to provide a nice aroma, and any salt can serve as a vehicle for the scented oils. I colored the salts with some mica (which I had on hand for my soaping) and used some fragrance oils to provide scent. Mixed them up in a bowl and then poured them into some sturdy cellophane bags. To finish the bags off, I rolled the tops down and tied them with a wide organdy ribbon. I also wanted a little tag to decorate the bag. The flowery stamp is actually an image from a set of scallop stamps that coordinate with the SU scallop circle punch. I didn’t like the inside sentiment, though, so after I stamped and punched the image out, I stamped a smaller 3/4 inch circle from brown paper to look like the center of a flower and to cover the sentiment up. I wanted a little more dimension, so I added a threaded button to finish it off.

 

I think these salts turned out great! I am especially partial to the peach one in the center. Good thing I mixed up an extra bag just for myself! 

Mojo Found

I’ve spent some time getting my new stamp/scrap/photo space organized. It’s not complete, but it’s functional, and that makes me happy. However, I’ve just not had the creative energy to do anything! In fact, I’ve been trying to force it, and it’s only made me more frustrated. Finally, Monday night, I was able to find some inspiration. Gigi and I spent the evening in the stamp room and created some fun stuff.

These are the cards I came up with.  The blue card is meant to be a sympathy card, which I sent to our previous next door neighbor. Scotty passed away the week after we moved after a very quick battle with cancer. He and his wife Marilyn were always very friendly, and Scotty will be missed. I wanted to send a card to Marilyn to express our sympathies.

The other two cards I made had no real intended purpose – I just felt like stamping them! When I make cards, I often don’t start out with something specific in mind. I usually just start playing with stuff and letting it happen. You’ll often see my cards incorporate a dark brown color – that’s just my usual style!

I’ve been able to spend more time in my stamping room this week, and I’ll have more cards to share in the next few days.

More Gifty Things

Just wanted to post a few more photos of some of the homemade Christmas gifts I made this year.

This first is a travel journal I made for my little sister. It’s just a blank album that I did an altered cover for. Very simple. I thought she could attach some photos, do a little journaling, and have a quick and easy travel scrapbook.

Again just some travel-themed paper mounted on black cardstock is the main piece for the cover. I used my favorite laser cutter to cut those letters out at my LSS (RIP).

This next project was a gift to Gianna’s grandparents. I made two separate books. when I was done with them, I thought they were so cute I wanted to keep them for myself!

The pages in these scrapbooks measure 5x5, so I took some of my favorite scrapbook layouts from 2008 and had them printed at 5x5 size and simply mounted them to the scrapbook pages. I added a few embellishments to some of the pages to add a little dimension.

The front cover has an opening that shows a photo on the first page. Getting that photo aligned was harder than I thought it would be! Added a few flowers and the year as embellishments.

And then the inside pages. Since I already had the scrapbook pages done, this was a really quick and easy gift to make. I still have a few pages to add to give to them but the rings used to bind the book are removable, so it’ll be super easy to add pages and give them to the grandparents.

Fun stuff!

Photo Album Scrapbook Journal

One of the projects I’ve been wanting to post here was the fun photo album/scrapbook/journal thing I made for my hubby for Christmas that highlights our trip to California over Memorial Day weekend. I have been sort of focused on my project 365 blog recently, and this blog has taken a bit of an unintended backburner. If you haven’t see my project 365 blog, you can see it here. I haven’t missed a day yet! Well, photos don’t always get uploaded the same day I take them, but I do try hard to get the photos uploaded to the blog on a regular basis. You can see them here: http://cameragirldenise.typepad.com/denise_365/

Anyway, back to this blog.

My intention has always been to do a complete digital book for this trip, but I’m taking my time with it. I currently have about 25 pages scrapped (with a goal of about 100 pages when it’s done). Remember, I took 1100 photos on this trip and have lots I want to include. But I also had an itching desire to create a paper album as well. I knew I didn’t want it to be as formal – just something to showcase the top 50 photos from the trip and tell the story more concisely.

Digging through my scrapbook cupboards I discovered an empty wire-bound journal. No doubt I purchased it to use for photos from our trip to Italy nearly 9 years ago. (I will NEVER be caught up with my scrapbooking!) But it was still unused and figured it was perfect for this project.

The journal had blank black pages and just the right number of pages to hold my photos. Remember, it’s wire-bound already so I can’t add any pages to it.

I had ordered my photos from Shutterfly and included a white border on them. It’s really easy to do and it makes the photos look more classy, I think.

I also knew I wanted this journal to be very Martha Stewart-ish... simple and classic. Nothing says simple and classic better than photo corners. I remember scrapbooking in 1985 in my bedroom in the basement, putting photos of my various elementary school activities into a huge album with black pages and photo corners. Either my tastes are outdated or some things are just classic. I’m going to say classic never goes out of style.

Looking back, I should have used the kraft colored photo cornes for this project to set the white photo border off from the black pages, but done is done.

I used the handy laser cutting printer at my local scrap store to cut out those pretty red letters. Sadly, this store went out of business about two weeks after I finished this journal. I will MISS that laser cutter. I will miss the store, too… but that laser cutter was definitely the highlight of the store!  The letters are cut out of a cranberry colored cardstock and are on the front cover and then inside for each ‘section’ that separates each of the cities/regions we visited.

 

Then, to mark each day that we were there, I stamped the days of the week onto kraft cardstock and placed them in the appropriate spots in the journal.

I dressed up the front cover of the journal by putting a piece of black velvet ribbon between the black and kraft sections. The cover design is a piece of wine-themed scrapbook paper mounted on black cardstock to set a theme for the book. Then, I used the best photo of the trip as the main focal point of the cover.

I didn’t do any journaling inside this book for two reasons. First, it’s just meant to be a photo album, and I took great effort to find photos from each of the places we visited that told the story really well. It should be pretty evident going start to finish exactly where we went while we were there. Secondly, the bound digital book has journaling and I didn’t want two books saying the same thing.

I think I have one more homemade gift idea to show you… and then it’ll be time for Valentine’s projects. :)

Homemade Christmas: Photo Frames

I have been eager to share these on my blog since I stared working on them early December! I held off because some of the recipients read this blog, so I didn't want to give away the surprise. I really made an effort to do more handmade gifts this year - especially for grandparents and godparents. Plus, it gives me a chance to do fun creative stuff as well. I think I really scored when I created these photo frames. First of all, they were so much easier than I thought they'd be. Secondly, they turned out better than I expected. Thirdly, I think the recipients liked them! (Well, I'm going to assume they did!)

These first two were 12 x 12 frames. (I actually made two of the red/brown one.) I covered them with coordinating paper, which was convenient, since paper comes in 12 x 12 size! I tried a few different kinds of glue until I found on that worked best. I ended up using Stampin Up!'s Crystal Effects - which is awesome stuff! The hard part is to not use too much so that it doesn't seep thru the paper or out from under the edges.

Then I used a sharp exacto knife to cut open the opening for the picture. Then I took a sanding block and sanded all the edges. This part was messy; I was wearing black pants. But it looks so cool. I sanded the photo opening as well.

I glued some big brown ric-rac on the red/brown frames. I knew I wanted to add some flowers to give it a 3d effect, but I knew the traditional paper crafting choices would be rather limited. So instead I headed to the silk flower section of the craft store and bought some flowers there. I used hot glue to glue them on, and then that was all there was to it. Best of all, the photo is removable, so the recipients can put a new photo in there later on if they like.

This next one I made for my little sister. I had her name for our family Christmas exchange, and since she's a big traveler, I tried to get her some travel-themed gifts. (She's sitting on a beach in Puerto Vallarta celebrating her 30th birthday as I write this.) I created this travel frame for her to use to feature a photo from one of her many vacations. (I also created her a travel journal, but I'll share that in another post.) The embellishments on this one were from a travel scrapbook kit I purchased from Stampin Up.

These next two were made for Gianna's dance instructor and her daycare provider. We haven't given the dance one out yet - and I'm going to have a hard time parting with it! It's soooo adorable! That ballet dress embellishment on the front is a Jolee's sticker and was worth the $3 I spent on it alone. It is so cute! Plus, it matches the dance costumes Gianna's class wore in their recital! The second one for Gianna's daycare provider I thought she could use to put a photo of her daycare kids in.

If I wanted to, I could have sealed these frames with ModPodge to protect the paper. I decided I wasn't patient enough to want to wait for ModPodge to dry. Plus, knowing me, I'd screw something up and make them look worse somehow. (I've been working on knowing when to stop. :) )

New Catalog Swap Cards

As promised, I thought I'd share the cards I made for a new catalog card swap. (Well, technically they are just card fronts... not a full card....) I like to do a swap when the new catalogs come out because it gives me samples of sets and ideas that I just couldn't do otherwise. Plus, swapping is just fun. :)

This first card uses a set called Light Unto Your Path. I got it because I loved the lighthouse image. For this card, I inked the main lighthouse image in close to cocoa ink and then rocked and rolled the stamp in chocolate chip ink (see where it's darker around the edges) and THEN stamped it onto vanilla paper. I sponged the edge with close to cocoa ink, and then took a scissors and distressed the edges. I mounted it to chocolate chip cardstock.

 

The card itself is close to cocoa cardstock that I stamped with the Sanded background stamp in close to cocoa ink. Finally I added the sentiment/definition 'remember' from the Define you Life set in the lower right corner. I stamped it in chocolate chip ink because I wanted it to be darker than the lines in the background. I chose the remember sentiment because I thought the lighthouse card might be a good sympathy or I'm thinking of you type of card.

The other card I created was a more happy, springy type card. I used the set Best Kind of Friend. I started out with the main image - the flowers and the vase. I inked the flowers up with markers - regal rose and certainly celery - and stamped them. Then I stamped the vase in chocolate chip. I punched the corners with the ticket corner punch and then sponged the edges with the same regal rose ink. I mounted the image onto chocolate chip cardstock.

For the background, I stamped a piece of certainly celery ink cardstock. I used the It's Beautiful jumbo wheel, inked in white craft ink. I mounted it to a piece of regal rose cardstock (the card itself). For this card, I debated about putting a sentiment on it. Still, I wanted to incorporate a fourth color (trying to work outside my comfort zone. LOL.) I decided to use some so saffron cardstock. I stamped 'happiness' from the Warm Words set in chocolate chip ink onto the so saffron cardstock, and then punched it out using the large oval punch. I sponged the edges with chocolate chip ink. And that's it! I really debated about adding some ribbon to this card. In the end, I decided not to, but I think if I made this card again (or if I get one of my own back in the swap) I will attach a little ribbon flag to the main flower image - just to give it a little dimension.

Tomorrow is a day off from work for me. Woo Hoo. I'm hoping to spend a couple of hours stamping and finishing up a couple scrapbook layouts (paper layouts) that I had started on my retreat last weekend. In the meantime... Happy Sunday!

Valentine Themed Projects

I made a few fun altered projects a couple of weeks ago to include in my secret exchange reveal package to my WishRAK secret exchange partner, JMHutnik. Janet and I have been online acquaintances for awhile now, so I felt so lucky to have drawn her name in the exchange. It's always fun to spoil someone you know with your gift package!

I tried to do a few fun altered projects for this exchange. First up, I really wanted to create an altered tin using the fun new tins that Papertrey, Inc. has available.

This tin was really easy. All I did was wrap some patterned paper around the outside of the tin. Wrap some contrasting paper around the rim of the lid, and then create a template for cutting the heart shaped lid. It was a little hard to cut the inside window evenly, so I sorta cheated by lining the inside of the heart with a row of prima flowers. Then, to give them a little 'center' I used some clear Stickles on the inside. Then I added a white rub-on to the clear window. Finally, the edges of the tin lid were sponged with white craft ink. The inside was also covered with matching patterned paper. Then I filled the box with all sorts of goodies - stamps, ribbons, stickles, etc. 

I also created this matching altered photo frame. The frame I picked up from the Target dollar spot and just removed the ribbon from it. Then I created a template (just traced the frame onto paper) for cutting the patterned paper.  I sponged the edges with white craft ink just to soften them up a bit and hide any imperfections I might have had in cutting. To finish it off, I added the pink flower to the top, with a flat pearl attached as the center (and two more pearls along side the flower, too.)

When I attach the paper to the frame, I simply use my gluestick. I glue up both the paper and the frame and then stick them together. It works for me! I've also used Mod Podge, which I also like, but I don't like the mess. (And also, I ruined a favorite shirt of mine by getting Mod Podge on it, so I've been reluctant to use it since. LOL. I know I have the weirdest hangups about things.) Other people like to spray them with a Krylon type sealant when they are finished.

The final piece I wanted to include in my package was a little altered clipboard. I found some of these in my 'things that can be altered' stash under my desk. I know I picked them up for a dollar each... and they are by Nicole Crafts.

To make it, I first painted the clipboard in a dark chocolate brown paint. (I use the acrylic paint that you get at the craft store.) When the paint was dry, I attached the paper. (And I don't remember what I used to attach it!! Sorry!)

I added the little silk flower in the bottom corner, along with some ribbon trim. Finally, to finish it up, I gave the clippy part the old ribbon treatment... lots of different ribbons attached to the hole on the clipboard clip. I think it turned out really pretty. (And I'm not just saying that because the projects were all done in my own favorite colors. LOL.) Now, this clipboard isn't really meant to be used to write on... it's just a decoration that can be used to hold a recipe or a photo or something like that.

These were definitely some fun projects to make. I sure hope Janet likes them, too!