Journal Friday - covering unwanted areas in magazine ads

Yesterday I was able to complete a page in my collage journal and decided to bring you all along to watch as I covered up unwanted areas on a magazine page.  I really liked the image and wanted to use it, without cutting the unwanted parts off.  So, I decided to cover up those areas with roses and butterfly wings.  

I wanted to share this with you, because there are so many wonderful magazine images out there but a lot of them have unwanted areas, words, and even ladies with amazing expressions on their faces and a lack of clothing in the appropriate areas. lol  But, it's not hard to cover those areas up with flowers, butterfly wings, watch faces, jewelry and such.  You could also use your own cut-out title to cover up places, too.  I have even (very lightly) used matching acrylic paint to cover up some things but I don't do that often, because the paint can cause the magazine paper to wrinkle up and sometimes it doesn't like to dry flat and smooth. 

Click here to watch the video for this page:

Thanks so much and if you have any questions, please ask in the comments and I will get back with you as soon as I can!  

Have a wonderful day!

Dianne

icad - day 21 - step by step art

I've been wanting to make this one for days....after I saw "Rock of Ages" last weekend I knew that I just had to make a card about it.  It's just taken me this long to kind of decide what to do.  I say kind of, because I really didn't know what I was going to do, but I had pulled a few music inspired items to possibly use on this card.  No video again, but pictures were taken along the way....

 Pile of odds and ends to possibly use.....

Adhered a few things down with mat medium....words, wings, t-shirt and photo of band were clipped from a magazine.....

add some letter stickers to finish the phrase..... 

rub around the edges of the card w/ black ink..... 

draw around the words with a black pen..... 

 what's the 80's w/o hot pink and lime green? lol  added some color with acrylic paints and a stamp....

and here's the finished card!

ROCK ON!!!!! 

Be sure to visit Daisy Yellow to learn all about icad2012!  It's never too late to join in on the fun!!!

Thanks for stopping by and God Bless!

di

Envelope Bookmark w/ Tutorial

Something on my mind....I -heart- Books

I've been wanting to share with you how to make these super-easy and totally fun bookmarks for quite awhile now. I made one for this weeks challenge at Practical Scrappers (which is using a die-cut machine of any type) so I decided to take pictures as I went along making it and now I can finally show you how to make them!

The base of the bookmark is made from the corner of an envelope. You can use any size, I have a business-sized envelope and a card-sized envelope pictured above. You can use regular-sized envelopes as well, but your bookmark will be smaller. These work the best if you know that you'll be using your bookmark in a small, paperback book. So, you might want to think about what size you need (how big or small your books are) before you start. For my bookmark, I used a business-size envelope.

Seal the envelope first. Then, make a cutting mark with pencil as shown above:

*business-size envelope mark at 3 3/4 inches at the top and at one side

*card-size envelope mark at 4 inches at the top and at one side

I'm sorry, I don't have the measurement if you use a regular envelope. Just measure the envelope and see how tall it is and make your marks about 1/8-1/4-inch smaller than your measurement.

Place the envelope in your paper cutter so that you can see the cutting mark lines. Center the lines in the center of your paper cutter and then cut the envelope. If you don't want to use a paper cutter or don't have one, simply draw a line from one pencil mark to the next and then cut. You can also draw the line and then cut it with your paper cutter. This helps if it's hard for you to see exactly where you need to cut your envelope.
You will end up with a triangle, that has one open side, like a pocket. I forgot to mention that you can sometimes make two bookmarks from one envelope, if it's long enough to cut the corners off of each side! This would also be a great recycling project. You could use junk mail envelopes, because we will be covering the envelope with paper and that would hide any printing, etc.
The next thing that I did was to figure out how I wanted to decorate my bookmark. You can do this first, of course, but I usually get my bookmark base done first and then I start pulling out things that I think I might want to use to decorate my bookmark with. Sometimes I already have an idea, but a lot of times I don't. This time I didn't, except that I knew I needed to use a die-cut for the Practical Scrappers Challenge and I was leaning towards using my paisley one. So, I pulled out my sticker binder first and started flipping through it. I knew that I wanted a word of some kind on there and I found this sticker w/ a Bible verse on it. I liked that it was about "hope" because I really need to be putting my hope and faith in God better, so that's when the rest of it came together. I started going through my paper scraps and found the paper (one pattern for the front and one for the back), then I went through my blue color drawer and found some paint swatches. I liked this one because the name of the paint was "Inner Harbor" and I thought that was pretty fitting for a bookmark about hope.....God is my Inner Harbor. Whatever you decide on, just be sure to think FLAT. You don't want to use buttons, brads, eyelets, Prima flowers, etc., because this will be too thick. You want you bookmark to be flat so that it lays nicely in your book and doesn't blemish or mark the pages of your book.
Next you need to cut your patterned paper to cover the base with. You can either measure it like you did above for the envelope, or place your base on the corner of the patterned paper and use it as a template to mark the patterned paper. Cut one triangle from each piece of patterned paper, or two of the same.....or just one for the front. You don't have to cover the back really, unless you want to! lol Adhere the patterned paper to the front and back (or just front) of the bookmark base. I use a glue runner and I run the glue all the way around all three sides, as close to the edge as I can. I don't like the paper to gap between the patterned paper and the envelope base, if that makes any sense. It also keeps it nice and smooth and stays together better....helps keep the edges nice and flat.

For this bookmark, I cut a piece of the patterned paper that I was using for the back that was about 1/2-inch thick and then cut along one edge with some scallop deco scissors. I then put it on the side of the triangle where the opening pocket is. Then, I turned it over and trimmed off the excess.

So, here is my finished bookmark. I really love how this one turned out!

Find Rest, my soul, in God alone; my hope comes from Him. - Psalm 62:5

And here are some other bookmarks that I have made as some more inspiration for you!

This is my spot
I made this one for my 13 year old daughter who has her nose in a book as much as I do....all of the time! lol

There is a time....for everything (Thomas Edison)
especially BOOKS

I hope you enjoyed this tutorial and that it all made sense! If you have any questions, please ask! I'll do my best to help! And, if you make one of these bookmarks, I would LOVE to see them! Share you link in a comment here!

Take care my friends and happy crafting!

An awesome list of tutorials.....

I stumbled upon this incredible list of sewing tutorials this morning and I wanted to share it with you. I am in total LOVE with the red, mushroom houses that are in the center photo. I have pretty much decided today that I am going to have to come up with some sort of creative-time schedule. There are just way too many things that I want to do and I'm not able to do any of them because get stuck working on just scrapbooking and do make any time for the other things that I would love to do. Right now, I'm thinking of just alternating days.....scrapbooking on one day, sewing on the next, then scrapbooking, and then sewing.....you get the idea. There are lots of things that fall into that sewing category, too. Clothes sewing for me, clothes sewing for GG, accessories and bags, softies and toys, home decor.....there are so many things that I want to do! I need to schedule my creative time somehow, because my right-sided and easily side-tracked brain isn't letting me get to all of the things that I want to. I'll let you know what I decide to do and I need to decide fast, because my stack of projects that I want to create is just getting bigger and bigger!

Anyway, here's this amazing link!

The Long Thread Top 100 Tutorials of 2008

Talk about lots and lots of super-cute goodies to make! I hope that you find something fun here to make, I know that I sure have!

Take care and happy crafting!

Easy-Peasy Ribbon Flowers - tutorial

It has been a pretty crazy and busy week for me. I have actually gotten a lot done in my scrapping area (no layouts but lots of organizing!) and I hope to share with you all what I've been up to soon! But for now, I am going to share with you how to make some easy-peasy ribbon flowers. I took these photos last week while making a flower for a layout and I'm finally able to show you how to make them. They are super cute and I hope you enjoy learning how to make them! I've made them from several different types and sizes of ribbon and they have always turned out super cute. So far, I've used them on my "Silly" layout and my "Thanks from the Heart" card.

So here we go!!!!

The first thing you need to do is pick out your ribbon and cut it. I honestly haven't been measuring them as I make them. I've just kind of been cutting the ribbon to the size that "felt" right. I know that doesn't help you much, but I'll try to explain. lol The thicker the ribbon, bigger the flower will be so you can cut the ribbon longer. Thin ribbon will make a small flower, so you need to cut it a lot smaller, like 2 inches or so. I used a 1-inch thick, organdy-type ribbon above. It's a thin material, so I knew it would gather tighter and make a nice, frilly flower so I cut the ribbon around 5 inches long. You just need to play with it and see how it's going to work, if you're not sure. You can even stitch and gather it (without cutting the ribbon) to see how it's going to look first.
With a nice, sharp needle and matching thread, run a straight sewing stitch all the way across one edge of the ribbon. For my thread, I cut a nice long piece of thread, run one end through the needle, fold the thread in half, and tie the knot about 4 inches from the end. You want the thread double, so it's strong enough to handle your pulling on it later and a long tail at the end of the knot. That way you will have extra thread to hold on to and help gather the ribbon. When you're done sewing, it will look like this:
Now pick up your ribbon and start pushing the ribbon in on both sides until you can bring the two ends together and tie once. Don't tie it in a complete knot yet! Pull the ends of the thread tightly until the ribbon has gathered together tightly in the center and has made a flower. Now you can tie the thread into a knot....or two, or three. lol I usually make a few knots, just in case. lol In the picture below, this is what it looks like after I tied my first "knot" and before I pulled the two threads to tighten the ribbon into a flower. Once you pull the two threads, the center will close of your flower. If your ribbon is thick, it won't close as tightly.
Now take a good look at your flower. See if you can tell where the two ends of the ribbon are. Sometimes the ribbon folds over it's self and hides the ends and looks just fine. Other times, you can easily tell where the ends of the ribbon are and I think it looks a lot better if you can't see the ends. lol So, with this thin ribbon, I was able to just add some Mono-Adhesive to the ends, just a bit, and then pinch the ends together to seal it up. It works great on thin, organdy ribbons. For thick ribbon, I use the same thread that I gathered the ribbon up with and run a straight-stitch down the ribbon and back up to the center to sew those two ends together. I had to do this for the flowers on my "Thanks from the Heart" card, even on those little flowers. Now you can cut off those two threads. Here's a finished ribbon flower!
Now here's the fun part where you can really play! You can add whatever you want to your little flower or leave it like it is. Here are some examples as I was trying to decide what to add to my flower for my "Silly" layout (I ended up picking the button one! lol) :
You could even add another ribbon flower that's smaller....that would look cute, too!

I hope this made sense. This is really the first tutorial that I've done and I tend to get a little wordy. lol If you have any questions, please ask and I'll help as much as I can! I have some other fun, flower ideas to share with you soon! I'd also love to see any projects that you do using these easy-peasy flowers, so please share here!

Take care everyone and I hope you all have a wonderful day!

Scrapbooking Idea/Journal Jar

Here is a project that uses lots of different ribbons! I made this idea/journal jar awhile ago and thought that I would share it here since the challenge this week at Practical Scrappers is to use at least THREE different ribbons on a project. This is also a great way to recycle a jar.....I think this used to be a salsa jar. I wrapped this jar a little differently. Instead of totally wrapping the jar with paper, I made the paper "label" part only big enough to cover half of the jar. I matted a piece of patterned paper on it and then added the letters that I had cut out using an old, plastic letter template (I LOVE those things! lol Old-school scrapping at it's best!) All of the paper pieces/letters were rubbed with a brown ink pad to shabby them up a bit. Then, I placed an eyelet about an inch in on each corner. I threaded a piece of ribbon through one eyelet and then tied it across through the next. I did this so that there are two ribbons that wrap across the back of the jar and hold the paper "label" in place. It's not held on to the jar with any adhesive. The two tags and the flower/ribbon cluster are all tied onto or adhered the ribbon that is holding the "label" onto the jar.
Inside of the jars are little strips of paper. This is where you can decide what type of ideas you want to keep inside your pretty jar. You can put techniques to use, ideas to scrap, journaling starter ideas, anything you want! These ideas can be applied towards scrapbooking layouts or cards. Then, when you're stumped on what to scrapbook next, you can grab a slip of paper from your idea jar and see if that gets your creativity going!
Here are some ideas to keep inside your jar that I have collected from various places, including a lot from Bridge that she shared at the Yahoo! group I'm in called ScrapFromYourStash (it's a great group to help you use up your stash!!!!). This list is LONG! lol And, there might be some doubles on things.....it was hard for me to remember what I had and hadn't already typed out. lol I would suggest that you copy this list and paste it into a word document and enlarge the font to a size that's comfortable for you to read. Make sure that there is a space to two inbetween each sentence, so that you have room to cut them into strips. Print out the list and then cut into strips, fold them up and put them in your jar.
Scrap Jar Idea Starters:

• Use fabric or fabric-styled paper
• Make a card
• Let something hang off the edge of your page (tab, ribbon, etc.) outside the page protector
• Use a map on your layout
• Cover a page element in Utlra-Thick Embossin Enamel or embossing powder
• Use a stamp on your layout
• Add flowers to your layout - silk, Prima, etc.
• Journal in a shape - around a photo, inside a shape, in a shape, etc.
• Use acrylic paint
  
• Sew on your layout
• Use a monogram larger than two inches on your layout
• Make a heritage layout - if you don't have any photos, make the layout based on a memory about someone from your heritage
• Use border punches
  
• Make a layout with no photos
• Tear the paper on your layout
• Alter something - book, cd, tin, box, etc
• Use your deco scissors
  
• Use sandpaper or the edge of your scissors to distress something on your layout
• Use a sketch
• Scrapflift a layout from the web, idea book or magazine
• Make a layout using scraps from your stash
• Use a pre-made layout - i.e. from a swap, make & tak class, or store-bought layout.
• Use photo corners
• Dry emboss an element
• Dangle something from the title
• Mix template/die-cut letters for the title
• Decorate the four corners of layout
• Journal on a photo mat
• Weave a fiber behind the title or picture
• Use a photo to make letters using a template/die-cutter
• Use a photo for a mat
• Cut a title from a cursive font
• Make a monochromatic layout
  
• Use Magic Mesh
• Chalk edges of a torn phot mat
• Decorate one side of photo mat wtih eyelets
• Dangle tags from photo mat
• Cut graphics from pattern paper to use as emellishment
• Use nothing but card stock
• Use nothing but printed paper
• Sew a title
• Use your favorite shirt as inspiration
• Turn on the TV, use the first words you hear from TV on your layout
• Usu your favorite knick-knack as innspiration
• Hand write your journaling
• Journal using a list
• Journal two points of view the the picture in your layou
• Use pop-up dots
• Make a shaker box
• Use at least three photos on a page
• Use ribbon
• Use colored pencils on your title
• Journal on vellum over a photo
• Use buttons
• Make embellishments wtih punches
• Mix patterned papers
• Use "wood"-looking pattern papers
• Put your title down the side of the page
• Journal under a "lift-up" photo
• Use a shaker box in your title
• Roll the edges of the paper
• Use fabric flowers - easy to make by cutting circles of fabric and layer on top of each other, secure stacked circles with a brad.
  
• Use teeny-tiny beads
• Tear the edges of a picture
• Print a picture on watercolor paper, tear and chalk edges
• Print photo on vellum
• Put title letters on individual tags
• Use a one-word adjective for the title that describes the person in a picture for the title
• Write a letter to the person in the layout
• Pick key words in your journaling to highlight with borders, a larger font, or with color
• Color-block a background
• Embellish your page with a paper doll
• Dot the "i"s in your title with an embellihsment
• Use white as your background
  
• Use stickers in a creative way
• Use a die-cut in a creative way
• Use a pre-made frame
• Use a sticker border
• Use a stamp you bought ages ago and haven't ever used yet
• Use the last thing you bought
• Use something you got in a swap
• Use the name of a TV show for a title
• Use the name of a song for a title
• Use the name of a book for a title
• Use the word "love" in the title
• Use your computer to print out a title
• Use letter stickers for your title
• Use a hand-written title
• Use die-cut/template cut letters for your title
• Use the title only to explain your pictures - no journaling
• Use a pre-made title
• Use wire, raffia, or string
• Use plaid paper
• Use all pastel-colored paper
• Use a black for your background - solid or printed paper
• Use crumpled paper
• Use all bright colors
• Use metallic paper
• Use suede paper
• Use three different patterned papers in the same layout
• Use red, white and blue on your layout
• Use vellum
• Use at least three shades of the SAME color
• Convert an 8.5x11-inch sketch to 12x12 and make layout
• Do a black and white layout
• Use embossed paper
• Use glittered paper
• Use mulberry paper
• Emboss your own background paper
• Scraplift one of your own favorite layouts
• Scrap a holiday in non-traditional colors
• Scrap any celebration
• Scrap a family tradition
• Scrap an event that includes some sort of food (picnic, Thanksgviging, restaurant, etc.)
• Scrap a sports event or a game
• Do a layout that includes toys in some way
• Do an animal layout - zoo, pets, etc.
• Do a Spring layout
• Do a Summer layout
• Do an Autumn layout
• Do a Winter layout
• Do a water-themed layout - pool, beach, bathtub, rain, etc.
• Use a prayer
  
• Use a Bible verse
  
• Use a quote
• Use a song title
• Use a poem
• Do a mosaic on your layout
• Do a page about YOU!
• Do a Patriotic page
• Scrap a current event
• Do a vacation layout
• Do a layout about a family favorite/traditional recipe
• Scrap a special accomplishment by your or someone in your family
• Do an "It's Broken" layout - toy, car, arm/leg, etc.
• Do a "Like Father, Like Son" or "Like Mother, Like Daughter" (or any family member- grandma, grandpa, aunt, uncle, sister, brother, etc.)
• Do a layout about your house
• Do a layout about your career - even if your a SAHM! That's the most important career ever!
• Do a layout about a school activity
• Do a layout about a church activity
• Do a BEFORE and AFTER layout - diet, pregnancy, dirty to clean, home improvement
• Do a color-blocking layout
• Do a nautical-themed layout
• Do a sand layout - either in color, texture or content
• Add an element that moves onto your page - pop-up journal page, something that pulls, etc.
• Put memorabilia on a page
• Make a quilt block from pattern paper and use on your page
• Make a pocket page
• Do a page about your garden
• Use a paper-folded embelishment on your page
• Make a scene with stickers
• Use stickers for the border
• Make and use a journaling square
• Use a ready-made journaling square
• Use computer-generated journaling
• Use something from nature
• Use watercolor pencils
  
• Use colored pencils
  
• Use markers
  
• Use glitter or a glitter pen
• Use Radiant Pearls
• Use Pearl-Ex
• Use speciality paints/ink - Smooches, etc.
• Use beads
• Make and use a paper piecing
• Make and use an embelished die-cut, or use store-bought
• Use ladybug theme
  
• Use pressed flowers or leave
• Use a paper-clips
• Use brads
• Use staples
• Use stars
• Use a ready-made frame
• Use tag art
• Use ribbon
• Do quilling
• Pen-stitch a border or around a photo
• Use your die-cutting machine
• Use chalk
• Use eyelets
• Use shaped eyelets
• Use colored/specality brads
  
• Use a paper crimper
• Use a tool you have not used in over a year
• Use a black and white photo
• Use a 5x7 or larger photo
• Crop a picture into a circle

You can also add journaling starters if you want. There are several places online that have lists of journaling prompts. If you google them, you will find several, so I'm not going to write any of them out here. It wasn't as easy to find a list of scrapping idea starters! lol You can easily add your own ideas, too, especially any tools that aren't listed above and even products or prdocut lines that you might have a lot of in your stash.

If you make an Scrapping Idea Jar, please let me know and share your link! I would just love to see what you create! Or, if you think of some idea starters that aren't listed above, please let me know so that I can add them. :-)

I hope you all have a wonderful and blessed day!
di

(I'm not sure where my pretty graphic went! lol I might have erased it! oops!)