If you have been scrapbooking for very long you can probably look through your books and find trends in your techniques. You know, the paper tearing phase, the eyelet phase, the brad phase, the black-and-white phase, the bling-n-ink phase. You get the idea. Some of these things become part of your personal style, some don't.
I've been in an ink phase for quite a while now.
When I first started using ink in my scrapbooking, my hands were always covered with different colors that would not wash off. Friends and even total strangers would come up and say, "What is wrong with your hands?" like I had some sort of contagious disease and they might need to grab their kids and run. I thought that with time I would learn how to use the ink without getting it all over myself. I was wrong. I still get it all over my hands. So if you see me with normal, clean hands, you better tell me to get busy because I probably am not scrapbooking or paper crafting enough.
One of my favorite inking tools is the Ranger Inkssentials blending tool. The package says it gives better control of your ink -- "no more inky fingers!" which might be true for you, but totally isn't for me -- but even though I still get ink all over myself, I don't know how I ever lived without it. It has foam pads that stick on with Velcro, and they work great to blend and apply ink. I keep one pad for each different color. It's so easy and fun to use that I ink random things just to be inking. (Paper, gems, my craft table, my fingers, my sleeves, the floor, the cat...)
That's how this snow sign came about. Karen showed me the cute little Bazzill snowflake chips, and I thought, hey...I could ink those!
The Bazzill chips are white, textured on one side, and they take ink very well. I added lots of sparkles to them and then hung them on wire I had beaded with seed beads. I spiraled the wire to give it a little bounce. The Bazzill chips also come in trees, candy canes and light bulbs. There is also a very cute little gingerbread chipboard house at the store that is calling out my name!
I wanted my project to feel wintry so I used lots of cool blue ink, white paint, blue Bazzill card stock, and one of the newer Bazzill Just-the-Edge borders. I put gems and Hero Arts pearls randomly on the sign around the letters to look like ice or glittery little snowflakes. I really like the way the pearls look, and I love how they can be colored with Copic markers (and the gems can, too).
One thing I thought about but didn't do -- though it could look really cool -- is to use some Stickels to make a little "snow" on the sign.
For the lettering, I used various chipboard and Thickers brand letters. They are all painted white and have Broken China colored Ranger ink on them to add some depth. The "W "is from the Tim Holtz line of grunge board, which is really cool to work with because it is completely flexible and you can paint, ink, or sand it. Each box is full of several different fonts and sizes. If you haven't seen the grunge board yet you should really check it out. I'm sure there are more ways to use it than I have discovered -- if you have a fun technique you use on it, leave me a comment, I'd love to hear!
~Malinda
A pocket page with tags.
I wanted to make something cool from my scrap club kit from Paper Pals. The large letters are monogram letters colored with ranger Mahogany ink. For the smaller letters I used the red Thickers that are at the store right now. I used my ink to darken them up and then I covered all the letters with my Judi kins Diamond glaze covering them not only makes them shine but it keeps the ink on the foam letters and thickens up the paper monograms. Make sure you give things covered in the diamond glaze time to dry before working with them. I inked up a tree and a candy cane Bazzill chip and used them to decorate. The little holly leaves are made from the sparkly Bazzill paper and Hero arts gems colored red. I tied it all together with a really cute red ribbon that was on the Paper Pals ribbon rack and hung it up. Thanks for looking!
Thank you Shawna and Karen for letting me make this banner. I love the way it turned out. I love all the new Halloween papers so much that I bought some for my circle book that was on the blog last week. Two things that I am really into right now are the color orange (you might have noticed), and shiny things (perhaps I was a raccoon in a former life?). I got to use both on this fun banner.
There is some really cute snowflake ribbon that is next to this paper in the store. Make sure to check it out. It was just the right touch for my card and I am looking forward to using more of it for Winter projects. Race you to it!
I loved this Travel line paper from American crafts. I cut it up and I used the Thickers for the car and the arrow. I made little headlights for the car with clear rhinestones that I then colored with a red sharpie.
I made this book from a old childrens board book that I cut up and then reused the pages. I used a piece of clear acrylic for the cover. I love my Zutter Bind it all it works so great for the little books I love to make. I used the Travel line and the Thickers on this book also. More colored rhinestones and the really cool American crafts ribbon.
I added an envelope to the inside of the book and used a really cool stamp I got from Paper Pals .
Happy Halloween! Every year I make little gifts for my kids Teachers, this year, little paper covered bottles that used to hold my prima flowers!
Loved this cute Halloween paper. It had lots of colors to it so I did not have to worry so much about my photos "matching" the paper. I just cut it up a little added a little ribbon and was done. Super fast, super cute.
