What to do with vellum!?

Vellum is one of all those things that I bought when I just started scrap booking! I thought it was a "must-have"...well it wasn't of course and now it's been sitting here for a couple of years. What do you do with it?

Here's a few ideas.

I made some of those strips flowers that I posted yesterday. I just made the strips a bit thinner and added more of them. This is how it turned out when I made a card.
The butterfly is also made with vellum and I used my Slice to cut it out.

I have tried to print out photos on vellum instead of photo paper. I really like how it turned out! The photos get such a soft finish to them! I did not have any problems with the printer "bleeding", but I know you might have to change the settings (...don't ask me to what though...)

Here is a older scrap book page I made, where the photo is printed on vellum. It also has a handmade vellum flower:

This is one of my earliest scrapbook pages where I used the vellum as I would any patterned paper.

To print your journaling on vellum is a great idea too. Then you can place it partly over the photo. I have seen examples where they cover the whole photo with vellum,but I'm not crazy about that. I want to be able to see the picture real good.

What to do with vellum?

• print journaling
  
• print photos
  
• use as patterned paper


• make embellishments


• use in any die cutting machine


• use with your punches

I can't say that vellum is my favorite,but once in a while I don't mind using it. It gives your projects a soft and delicate look.

Do you have any great ideas on how to use vellum-please share!

Tutorial for strips flowers

I was inspired by these fabric flowers from Pink Paislee. So easy to make myself, I thought!
I used patterned paper and decorative scissors and tried to copy them. For some reason they did not turn out pretty at all. :(



I made some changes and this is how they ended up looking;

You hardly need any instructions on how to make them, but here's a quick how-to anyways.

Cut thin strips of card stock or patterned paper. Use trimmer, normal scissors or decorative scissors. The strips can be any width and length. If the length is uneven doesn't matter. Just trim them later.
You can use as many strips as you like, but I would say use at least 8 of them.



Just glue the strips on top of each other.

Finish off with a button, brad, rhinestone or just a circle of matching paper.

Dress them up with Stickles or give them a distressed look with ink and roughing the edges with a scissors.

I like to gently bend the strips up a bit, for added dimension.

You can have all the strips the same length or do the top layer shorter as the Pink Paislee flowers.

Not gorgeous or anything, but they could definitively add something extra to a scrapbook page or card. And could it be any cheaper,easier and faster to make!!

Here is something that you will not see a tutorial on anytime soon. I made my first pop up card! Sorry to say; but it was a pain in the..you know what!!

I found instructions in a book and I think I read them about 10 times before I could even start. I'm so blond sometimes!!

I might give it another try some day, but not this week;)
If you look closely you can see some quilling in the flowers...that was the only easy part.

I hope some of you are up for a challenge. I planning to start my first challenge later this week, so see you soon!:)

PS. If you haven't guessed how much all my scrapbook stuff weighs,check out previous post. Nice goodies up for grabs!

Celebrating

YAY! Today is a big day; I'm celebrating that I started my blog one month ago! Who knew it would be so much fun! I'm very happy! I have already quite a few followers and now I can also see all the traffic that hit this site. I had people from India, Russia and South Africa visit my little blog. Very exciting!
So of course I have to celebrate and give away some goodies to share my excitement!

It's a nice package from Making Memories. It's their line called "Chloe's Closet". It's so cute without being girly. The colors are so versatile. One lucky winner will receive:

• 19 patterned papers
• 25 rub-on words
• 8 layered button flowers
• 20 journaling stickers

What is it that you have to do to win this you wonder.

Some of you might know that I'm moving back to Japan in a few weeks. Actually today the movers will come and pick up our first stuff. We are sending 500 lbs so called "express shipment" and it will basically be on Okinawa when we get there. The rest they will pick up in two weeks.

The thing is, that we can not send an unlimited amount. I think we had about 8000 lbs coming here and now we can only bring 3500 lbs back and the rest we have to put in storage.

As you guessed my scrap booking stuff has #1 priority. I don't care about kids toys and furniture and all that unnecessary stuff;) as long as I can bring ALL my scrap stuff!!

Your job is to guess how much all my scrap stuff weighs!! I have no idea myself,but I'm about to find out, since my intentions are to weigh it.

I can give you a hint;my scrap desk alone weighs 246 lbs. And that's without anything in it. This picture is taken last year, so that you can get an idea about how much I have. Of course I have shopped a lot in a year! What you do not see in the picture is all my scrapbook albums. I have 25-30 finished albums and they are HEAVY!

So take a wild guess how much my desk(not the book shelf), my albums and all my supply weighs together. You can use pounds or kilo. The one who gets closest will win the prize. Leave a comment on this post with your answer. I will probably know sometime next week the actual weight!Good luck!

Quilling

Have you ever tried quilling? It's super simple and I don't think embellishments could be any cheaper to make! I'm not talking about making big peacocks or anything. The quilling I have tried is on a very basic level. Like these flowers here;

You can use cardstock or double sided patterned paper, but I think solid colors look best. You can also buy precut quilling strips, but that's totally a waste of money in my opinion.
Dig up your cardstock scraps and cut thin strips, no more than 1/8" wide. The length is up to you. I usually use strips between 6" and 8" long.

I have quilled without a quilling tool. I think I used my paper piercer, but it's so much easier when you have the right tool. It costs about 3-4 dollars.

Put the very end of your strip into the opening of the quilling tool and start rolling the paper in between your thumb and index finger. Actually when I think about it, you are just holding the paper still while you roll the handle.

Put a tiny bit of glue at the end of your strip when you are done and squeeze to your circle. Before you do this - decide how tight you want the circle to be rolled.

If you wanna make one of those simple flowers I made, you will need one circle in the middle and 5-7 around.

Use fast drying glue and glue the circles to the middle one. And don't forget to put glue in between them as well.

To make a leaf, you do the same thing, but don't have the rolls so tight. Then you just pinch one end of the circle to make it look like a leaf.

Easy enough huh?

Look what I bought from Martha Stewart. Doesn't it look super simple to make yourself?

Here is a layout from last year where I used some quilling in the middle of the flowers.

(Click to enlarge!)

I have bought a book about quilling and I thought I should move on to the more complicated stuff. Give this a try, so that you can move on with me!

PS. Come back on Tuesday..I have had my blog for a month then and will celebrate with a nice giveaway!

This and that

I don't know if you have noticed, but I bought my own domain name. Now you just use www.scrap-a-little.com and it will take you here. I'm very excited about that, just in case I decide to try the whole web site thingy again...then I will already have my dot com name. What's not so cool is that I lost my template!! You know the birdie and the flowers. They are gone! I'm working on solving that now. I have contacted them blog people...


I don't know if you have a Cricut and where you buy your cartridges, but I only buy my cartridges from one place;
www.hallmarkscrapbook.com.
Not only do they have a very wide selection. They also have awesome prices. Right now they have a sale going on, with the cartridges starting at $29.99. They also have Cricut machines selling for $ 99.00!!! Check this out at
http://www.hallmarkscrapbook.com/cricut-cartridges-c-159.html
And they ship international too!!


Any day now I'm expecting my monthly package from Pam and http://kraftgirlkits.com/
Here is a sneak peek of June's kit. Doesn't it look fabulous? I can't wait to start working with it.

That's it for now...see ya later!

Another card stock rose tutorial!

Here comes another card stock rose tutorial! This one is super simple! Will take you about 10 minutes to make.

All you need is;

• scraps of card stock
• fast drying glue
• scissors

Optional:

• ink
• glimmer mist

Cut out a spiral with diameter about 4 ". Usually I don't even draw on the card stock. I just cut away. Make sure to leave a spot in the middle about 1".

Ink the edges if you like and then comes the trick..to bend down the edges. This makes all the difference.

Start from the outside and roll to the middle. Another trick is to try to roll the bottom edge a little bit tighter than the top edge. So that the rose will kind of get a cone shape.

When you are done rolling up the rose, put glue in the middle part and press the whole rose on top and hold down for a while.

You can finish off with glimmer mist and hand cut some leaves and attach under the rose.

I think they are so pretty. Now I just have to find some use for them;)

I stole this idea from a very talented lady;http://www.nancyburke.typepad.com/

Tutorial for the cutest cardstock roses ever:)

Whoever came up with this idea is a GENIUS! Unfortunately, that would not be me. I found a tutorial for these awesome roses over at;

http://fiskarscraft.typepad.com/my_weblog/2009/02/making-cardstock-roses.html

and the lady who demonstrated was Debbie Buckland;

http://artycrafty.wordpress.com/

So I take NO credit at all for this! I just love them and wanted to share!


You will need 18 hearts in 4 different sizes. If you have a Cricut it comes in real handy here. I cut from sturdy card stock:

6 x 2 1/4"
5 x 2"
4 x 1 3/4"
3 x 1 1/2"

I didn't use the "Real Dial Size" button, so they are in fact smaller.
If you don't have a Cricut you could use a Fiskars heart template. That's what they used on the tutorial I saw.

I inked all the edges with two different shades of darker red. You can also use acrylic paint or chalk. Punch a tiny hole at the bottom of every heart.

Take a brad (in the same color) and turn it upside down and start putting all the hearts through it.Start with the smallest hearts and work your way up.
This is what you will have when you are done:

Now the magic starts: take petal by petal and scrunch them up and around towards the middle. Don't be gentle here; the more manhandling the better!

It will look something like this when you are done;

Then, bend the petals back out as much as you want. Depends on how much you want the rose to be open.

Last step is to spray the rose with glimmer mist. You can buy it or make it yourself as I did. Click here to find out how to make it!

Here is a close up of the rose. Not too bad huh?

Because of the mist, the card stock gets kinda moist and sometimes the paper starts to flake. I like that! In fact I take a paper piercer and try to split the card stock.

Here is the first one I did with acrylic paint. I think I like the look with ink better.

The top two roses I made with white card stock. The color is from the mist. Awesome don't you think?

I say the same thing about this as I do about driving;if I can do it, anyone can!!

Let me know how it goes!

Make your own glimmer mist!

Have you heard about glimmer mist? Honestly, I heard about it for the first time two days ago,when I came across a tutorial where it was needed.

You can buy it already made. I know they have it here at scrapbook.com's superstore http://store.scrapbook.com/taanglmi.html

I would have been willing to pay the almost $7 for a bottle, but I wanted/needed it right away and they didn't have it at Michael's:( So home I went to google it and found ways to make it myself. I went back to Michael's and I picked up something called Perfect Pearls from http://rangerink.com/

"Powdered glitter" I guess it can be described as. If you have it, all you need is a empty spray bottle. I found some from Ranger Ink , but you can use any travel size spray bottle.

You will also need to add some color. I used re inker, but food color, egg dye and water color can also be used.

Fill up the spray bottle with water, add a few drops of color. Amount depends on how much mist you are making and how intense you want the color to be.

Use a Popsicle stick and fill the tip of it with Perfect pearls and add it to the spray bottle. That's how easy it is to make your own glimmer mist! Just shake and spray away. Your projects will have such a nice shimmer to them.

I used it for these cute roses. Click on the photo to see it close up.

I'm working on the tutorial for these roses and will be back shortly;)

Giveaway winner and Design Team Call

After reading all the reasons why you are a great moms, I know we all have this in common; we put the kids first!



It was not an easy task to pick a winner, but I decided that "Karen" deserves it the most. She is not a mom to her kids, but to her parents. I can't even imagine how hard that must be. So if you read this Karen: big congrats! You just won 50 papers from American Crafts!!



I don't know if you have ever applied to a Design Team before. I have, but no success so far. I'm not giving up though and here is the next one I will apply for;

http://inspiredblueprints.ning.com/

They are the ones that have all those awesome sketches that I like.

Here is the link to the info about the DT call:

http://inspiredblueprints.typepad.com/inspired_blueprints/2009/05/design-team-call.html

The due date is June 5, so you have plenty of time. Good luck if you give it a try!



I'm a working on another flower tutorial for later this week. I have to say; it's the cutest thing I ever done. You will love it! So stay close;)

Lollipop flower tutorial

I'm sure that most of you know how to make these by now,but just in case... here is a how-to:

Hand cut 5 circles from scraps paper (of course). I like to use similar colors with not too much patterns on. Make the circles between 1 1/2" - 3" and don't use a template or anything like that. They are not suppose to be perfectly round. We want character and charm;)

Then, ink the edges generously, in the same tone as the paper,but a darker shade.

To add some dimension, I use "puffy paint"/3D paint around the edges. That can be found in the aisle for fabric/t-shirt decorations.

The 3D paint takes about 30 min to dry, so now is a good time to fill up that coffee cup,clean up your scrap area or check on the kids,though I tend to always forget the last two things...

I want you to know that I painted my thumb nail for next picture,ha,ha!!

Have you seen all those demonstrations for this and that and their nails always look so fancy with white tips..well my nails haven't seen a manicure for a loooong time and my skin look like elephant skin..no-really!

So that's why I painted that one nail so you wouldn't be totally grossed out!

Anyways..this is what you do in next step. Use the back of a pen and "scrunch" up the circle towards it. I do this step at least three times.

This is what you will have now:

Just one thing left; make a hole through the circles with a paper piercer and add a brad of your choice.You can see here how it looks with and without the 3D paint. Of course you could use Stickles instead, but I just don't like it too much, since it takes forever to dry!

Again..this was not my own idea.
I found a Lollipop tutorial at another blog http://ukmuminusa.blogspot.com/. I just added the ink and 3D paint!

I just love making these flowers, but have a harder time using them...oh well...

Tomorrow I will announce the winner for the Mothers day giveaway and also let you know about a "Design Team call" that you can all apply to..at least I'm gonna give it a try!

See ya!

Happy Mothers Day!!!

What could be a better way to celebrate Mothers Day, than a generous giveaway for all you scrappy moms!

Here is 50 papers from one of my favorite scrap book manufacturer; American Crafts




Leave a comment to this post and tell me ONE REASON why you are a great mom(step mom,grandma,aunt...) and one of you will win this!But remember..only ONE REASON!



I can see why some people might feel intimidated with the bold colors and pattern of American Crafts. There is a few things that you can think of when you use them;

• "When in doubt-use white or black cardstock" That always seems to work for me. I'm a big fan of white cardstock. I use it more than any other color. But basically- you can use any solid color cardstock when working with "very patterned paper".

• Cut smaller pieces of the paper, so it doesn't overpower the photos. Here I just cut 4 strips of 1" wide paper.
  

• Also, if the paper is very busy,I hand cut parts of it, like here:

I hope you all are having a great day..I'm off to play with my Mothers Day gift...I got a Slice ( http://whyslice.com/ ) :)

Giveaway winner and big no-no!

What do you all do when your creative juices are running low?

That happens to me more often than you think...I can be on a roll and then I hit a wall all of a sudden.

The best way to get me going again is to use a sketch. I love the sketches from http://inspiredblueprints.ning.com/

The latest one they have look like this:

I think I will try to use it this weekend. I have done so many cards and paper purses this week and I have to get back to getting all those photos into albums.


Here is a layout I did a while back using one of their sketches. It's actually one of my favorite layouts. I guess the pictures contribute a lot.

It's based on this sketch:

So if you are in a rut and need a kick start, I totally recommend to head over to http://inspiredblueprints.ning.com/ They always have nice prizes too:)



After a lot of agonizing I picked a winner for my giveaway. The winner is;

orangeheromama

this is what she wrote:

Hmm...i deserve the prize because my hubby left me in Feb and I'm in the middle of moving and selling the house and i'm depressed but trying to be SUPERMOM...and I NEED TO SCRAP!!!! wahhhhhh!!!

Who can't feel sympathy for that.I hope the giveaway will cheer her up a bit!

I did a big no-no the other day when I posted the fan flower tutorial. I didn't say where I got the idea from. That's my biggest pet peeve in scrap booking. To take credit for something you didn't come up with.

That tutorial is more or less a copy from a Swedish blogger http://misscutiepiegoes80s.blogspot.com/

I hope you will all have a great weekend and a happy Mothers Day! I have decided what I want for Mothers Day..it's starts with SLI.. The bad part is...I don't know if I can wait until Sunday..I want it today...that's just how impatient I am..anyways...next week I will have another nice giveaway and tutorial. See you soon!