Always and Forever

Darlene here this week with a home decor idea I created for the Valentine's holiday. I started with a cardboard heart that had some depth to it and traced it onto some cardstock. After adhering the cardstock to the heart, I hot glued this beautiful ribbon around the outer edge of the heart. With the Tim Holtz, "Just Sayings" stamps I stamped  "always and forever" onto a banner and distressed the edges slightly to give it a little more pop. I chose a coordinating background paper and hot glued the hear on top. I did find I needed to remove the glass from my frame.

Hello Friend Card

Hi everyone! It's Darlene here!

It's a rainy fall day here in the northeast so I had some time to be a little creative today.

I created this card using Lawn Fawn's "Joy to the Woods" stamp set and the sentiment is from Paper Smooches "Just a Note" set. Starting with a 5 1/2" x 4" card base. Using Tim Holtz Distress Inks I created my background image of the sky and grass. The colors I used to create the sky were: Broken China, Tumbled Glass, Weathered Wood, Faded Jeans and Black Soot. The grassy area was done using the following Distress Inks: Shabby Shutters and Pine Needles. With the trees, I had lightly colored them with my Copics (N0 Neutral Gray No. 0).  I also used 3D foam dots to pop up some of the trees for dimension. The bird and fox are colored with Prismacolor pencils and blended with odorless mineral spirits.  Thanks for stopping by!

Wedding Card Box

Hi everyone! Darlene here ….

I wanted to share this beautiful card box I made for my daughter's wedding last week. There is a lot of inspiration on Pinterest if you are interested on creating a project like this. I created the beautiful flowers using a Martha Stewart 4 Leaf Clover punch. Each flower is made from 3 clovers with the stems cut off. I distressed the petals using Tim Holtz Distress Inks- Dried Marigold, Spiced Marmalade and Vintage Photo. I then layered the 3 clovers on top of one another using hot glue and embellished the center with a decorative pearl. Fold up the edges of each petal to make it look more realistic. After punching several leaves, I scored the center of each one and used some Walnut Stain along the edges. I punched a scallop edge using one of my punches to outline each pennant in kraft color cardstock. Going through my stash I found the perfect color chipboard letters to add to my pennant. I punched two holes at the top of each pennant and fed the twine through each hole.

For a little detail, I added a couple of tags to the handle one says, "I DO" and is distressed with Walnut Stain, Black Soot and Faded Jeans distress inks. The "getting hitched" tag is a stamp from Avery Elle's Home Sweet Home Stamp Set.

Envelope Art

Hello everyone-Darlene here this week.

I have been a big fan of envelope art for years now. So when you are making all those beautiful cards don't forget to dress up your envelopes with a little art using your stamps. Have fun addressing your envelope with a variety of lettering too.

For this image, I used some of my Studio112 stamps. I colored the horses with Prisma pencils along with Copics. I also used some Odorless Mineral Spirits for blending. I distressed the envelope with some of Tim Holtz Vintage Photo distress ink. The sunflowers were colored with Copics.

These envelopes I used some stamps I had on hand and colored the images using my Copics. The sky on the larger envelope was created using watercolors. The smaller envelope was created with We are Memory Keepers Envelope Punch Board. This is definitely one of my favorite tools! It can make envelopes in over 60 custom sizes! 

This is a fun stamp set by Inky Antics. Images were colored using Copics. I also made these envelopes using my We are Memory Keepers Envelope Punch Board.  

One of my favorite envelopes! This was also made using the We are Memory Keepers Envelope Board. For the clouds I used a template and some Tim Holtz Distress Ink. The Bird Stamp is Inkadinkado Cling Stamp. The birds were colored using a combination of Prisma colored pencils and Copics.

Many of the supplies were generously donated by EK Success.

Have a "Super" Day!

Hi everyone! Darlene here this week....

This week was my husband's birthday. In the past, I have always bought him a card but this year I decided to finally make one for him.  My order from Paper Smooches came in and I couldn't resist their "Super" stamps. I stamped the images and colored them with Copics. I also used Stampin Up ink "Bashful Blue" to create some light clouds behind the buildings. Tim Holtz Distress ink "Weatherwood" created the street in front of the buildings. I fussy cut all the images and adhered them to the card base using 3D foam circles.

Scrapbook Video Saturday & CHA!

Happy New Year! Carla here to welcome you and finally let you in on our big news. We're proud to release a series of beginner scrapbooking video tutorials on Howcast.com! There are 24 videos in all. We'll share about one a week here on the blog, but you can view all of them any time at Howcast.com's How-to-Scrapbook link. We all know someone who's just starting out in scrapbooking, and if they haven't started, you know they want to. Send them our way for lots of tips!

Because one of the most commonly searched scrapbook topics is How to Distress Paper, we'll start our Scrapbook Video Saturday series with some ideas for giving a weathered or aged look to your paper.

Note: You may need to allow a moment for the video to buffer before viewing.  If it doesn't work for you, you can view How to Distress Paper on Howcast.

All the projects shown in our videos were completed by members of The Crafting Journals. The scrapbook page in this video was created by Virginia Haverick. In addition to all the cool distress techniques she used, I love the way she re-created the look of shoelaces using cord.  What a great way to embellish a masculine page!

Products used in this video include:

• Distress Tool: Edge Scraper, Making Memories 
• Inks:  Clearsnap® Colorbox® Chalk Inks; and Ranger Tim Holtz® Distress Inks
• Stamps:  Scratches, Stampers Anonymous/Tim Holtz® Collection; Coffee Stain, Inkadinkado®; Aged Background Block, Hero Arts®

By the way, Howcast is a really great place for an amazing assortment of how-to videos -- from taking a panoramic photo with your iPhone, to how to deal with a screaming child while shopping, to hip-hop dancing. I could seriously spend all day there learning stuff.

And when the new sewing machine arrives that Santa ordered for me, you can bet I'll be checking out the videos from my sewing guru friend Jennifer Wiese! Woo-hoo!

Meanwhile, I'm headed out of this snow-strapped Northeast to the milder climes of sunny Anaheim, Calif., and the dream destination of every crafter: CHA, the Craft and Hobby Association trade show! I can't wait! It's strictly a trade show, and I was fortunate to work it for many years with EK Success. This year, I'm going as a designer and blogger, thanks to the incredibly talented Nathalie Kalbach. So keep your eyes here Jan. 9-14 for my reports from the show on the latest crafting goodies!

Nancy's Birthday Album

Carla here today, with a special project for a special friend! 

I met Nancy though my running club, and we immediately hit it off. As it turns out, pretty much everyone who meets her feels that way; one of our other friends from the club calls Nancy "everybody's best friend."  So when Nancy turned 50, I knew I had to give her something out of the ordinary.  I decided to create a theme album, with input from our group of friends:  “50 things we love about Nancy.”  

I was inspired by Graphic 45’s Olde Curiosity Shoppe line, because its vintage look and amusing icons suit Nancy’s quirky nature.  I decided on an 8 x 8" album, with two “things we love” per page, for a total of 25 pages -- plus a cover page and a few additional pages at the end for her friends to sign the book.

To number the "50 things," I wanted to use my Tim Holtz Idea-ology wooden game pieces, because Nancy likes to play bingo.  But I couldn’t include 50 thick wooden pieces that way, because they'd create way too much bulk. So instead, I found an image of the numbered pieces online, and printed it on cardstock.  I punched out the circles in sequence as I created the album, and I used thin 1/16” foam dots to give them just a little dimension without making the book too thick.  I varied the paper from page to page, but tried to keep the layouts simple for faster assembly, and to allow the photos and journaling to take center stage.

I was pleased with the finished album -- and Nancy clearly was, too!  I had a lot of fun with the cover, but I still need to photograph it (if Nancy lets me borrow it back!), so that will be a separate post for another time!  Here are a few pages from inside the book, starting with the title page.

It was a real joy to make this album, because I knew Nancy would appreciate it.  Have you done a theme album like this for someone? Tell us about it, and/or link us to it!

Paper:  Graphic 45, K&Company, ephemera & paper scraps from my stash

Stickers:  7 Gypsies, Martha Stewart Crafts, Echo Park, EK Success

Circle Punch and Circle Cutter:  EK Success

p.s.  Edited 10/26/13 to add the cover: