Friday, November 13, 2009

Paper Star Tutorial

When I saw Basic Grey's adorable Eskimo Kisses line, I couldn't resist making a holiday decoration that I could enjoy all season! Using just a few simple supplies, these stars are a cinch to whip up, and look really cute whether hanging from a window or resting on the mantle!
Materials: Patterned paper (I used 6x6 sheets), wet adhesive (like Zip-dry), ruler or straight edge, bone folder, your computer and printer, an embellishment for the center (I used the BG brads, but these would look cute too), and thread (optional).Step 1: Copy the above image and print it onto the back of your patterned paper. I resized it to fit the 6x6 paper, but you can experiment to make your stars either bigger or smaller. Mine came out about 10 inches across. For each star you'll need 6 of these templates printed out.

Step 2: Cut out the template--using my guillotine trimmer, I was able to cut 3 at a time.
Step 3: Score the template using a ruler and your bone folder. I did two at a time, making sure all the edges stayed aligned. Note that I made the little cut between the two angled flaps, as shown in the picture above, using my scissors and not the trimmer.
Then fold along the score lines, again using the bone folder for crisp folds.
Step 4: Apply the wet adhesive to the patterned side of the longer flap, and glue it to the opposite edge, holding in place with your fingers for a few seconds to assure everything stays lined up. Let this point dry while you score, fold and glue your next point.

Step 5: The above picture shows the two smaller flaps, which you'll use to glue one point to the next. I assembled all of my points first before gluing them together, or you may want to build the star as you go.
Here are all of the points ready to be glued together...
Apply your glue to both of the smaller flaps, then tuck these under the edges of the next point and hold in place for a few seconds
Here you can see where the two points are glued together...
Another view.
Step 6: Apply the glue to add the third point.
Before adding the third point, I added a loop of thread to hang the star from, making sure that when I adhered this point to the others, the thread remained on the outside (see below).

Step 7: Before gluing your star together completely, add the brad to the center.
Note: Other directions call for just five points, but this is what I got when only using five--I couldn't close the gap! So I highly recommend going with six, unless you want this wide opening to add a light inside.

Thanks for checking out my project--if you decide to give them a shot, be sure to load up your pics in our Idea Gallery! Let me know if you've got any questions!


Thursday, November 12, 2009

If you're like me, you are always trying to find something new to use on your layouts. Something that you aren't seeing on everyone else's pages. I have some wine corks and have been staring at them for a while. Well, today I got a hankerin to do something with them! So I took out my trusty Tonic utility knife, ran the blade out a ways, and sliced the cork into as thin of sheets as I could. They're still probably 1/8 of an inch thick. I didn't dare try any thinner as I was afraid it would either crumble or I would cut myself!


I adhered it down with a couple of glue dots. You can put brads through it, as long as they have a long back. You could paint them or spray them with ink or glimmer mist, stamp on them, or cut them into shapes! This nook and pantry is so fabulous sin't it! I also used some prima e-line bling flowers and pearl center, a Sassafrass velvet brad, Maya Road Velvet flower, I really hope you give this a try! Have a bottle of wine tonight so you have something to play with in the morning.



Wednesday, November 11, 2009

Thankful Banner

Now that it's November and the Halloween decorations have come down, my house is feeling a little less festive. Not to mention my poor glitter pumpkins are feeling quite lonely. So I decided it was time for a little fall decor. I opted for a Thankful Banner and some gorgeous fall colors.




To make this banner, I first decided on a shape. I used a pageframes acrylic mini album as a template and traced the shape on to chipboard 8 times and cut out my pieces. Next I headed to my paper stash and pulled out papers in my color scheme (orange, green and brown). I sliced my papers in to strips and started randomly gluing them onto my chipboard shapes. Once this was done, I glued my chipboard pieces to a long piece of wide ribbon and added the felt leaves in between each shape. I adhered some orange Sassafras letter stickers onto brown cardstock, cut them out and glued them to the chipboard shapes. I kept the banner pretty simple, but thought about adding other embellishments and/or some glitter. Now my house feels a little more fallish and I am loving the daily reminder to be thankful.

Tuesday, November 10, 2009

Getting Ready For Christmas

Hi Everyone!! It's piradee here...and I'm just so excited & honored to be the Guest DT for November - thanks so much Scrapgals for this amazing opportunity!

For my first post, I would like to share a little something that I am currently working on... and that's getting ready for Christmas. I know that it's still over a month away, but time has really flown by this year and the next thing I'll know... it's Christmas & the New Year!

I've been working on making these little gift boxes for my presents using/recycling the packaging materials from various manufactures - this one is from maya road. So grabbing some Christmas pattern papers, glitter cardstock (from american crafts) and the maya road boxes that I've been hoarding...


... and with a bit of cutting, gluing and pop dots. The perfect Christmas gift box for all the presents. And talking about the presents, don't forget to check back later in the month as I will be doing another post for the little surprise in these boxes.

supplies used include: pattern paper: american crafts merry mint collection; glitter cardstock: american crafts; ribbon: american crafts; box: packaging material for maya road mini chipboards or trinket pins.

** and would love to see what everyone is preparing for Christimas**

& thanks for stopping by. - Piradee

Monday, November 9, 2009

Whooo loves autumn?

Hello there! I'd like to start off your week with a little banner project I made...


I used a Maya Road Owl Coaster book and the Cosmo Cricket Nutmeg collection. The alphabet is Maya Road as well and I topped them off with Cinnamon Stickles for some sparkle. Threaded them all on a piece of ribbon, tied a few bows on the end, and use the Brown Shabby Green Door Bakers twine to tie on some of the Cosmo Cricket chipboard buttons and leaves. And voila! a cute banner for autumn.



**Tip: I started off by tracing the coaster onto a piece of cardstock a few times, cutting each part of the owl out making templates. So, I made a head, wing, body and brow template to trace onto the paper to make all the pieces of each owl.

Have a great week!

Saturday, November 7, 2009

*Black Wednesday*

Friday, November 6, 2009

Winner, Winner!

Ladies thanks for your feedback on the blog!! I have everything written down and try to make things easier to read on the sides. For now I did make the color of the font different and larger. Hopefully that works for now. So on to the WINNER!


tam said...

I love the new look!Love the ribbon, the staples and the stiched flourish. I love Scrapgal blog and site.
I constantly come back and scroll through archives for inspiration. Thank you!

Girl congrats!!!!!! please email me at scrapgaldt@gmail.com with your name and address and I will get those Crate goods to you!!

NOVEMBER CONTEST

"Let us be grateful to people who make us happy;
they are the charming gardeners
who make our souls blossom."--Marcel Proust


Our November contest is all about nurturing an attitude of gratitude. Every Monday, Heather and I will be presenting a new challenge in this thread. Be sure to check out last Monday's post and Heather's super cute gratitude journal idea. And check back on Monday as
I'll have a new challenge posted!

"Develop an attitude of gratitude, and give thanks for everything that happens to you, knowing that every step forward is a step toward achieving something bigger and better than
your current situation." --Brian Tracy

Thursday, November 5, 2009

"What's New," you ask?

At Scrapgal, we are always blessed with tons of the latest products. Jenn does a great job of keeping us in what we want, when we want it. And sometimes, so much new stuff comes in that we can't keep up with it all. More times than I can count, we will be talking about our latest purchases and someone will say "well I bought this." And I cannot believe I missed it! Of course by the time I get around to my next order, it's all sold out!

So here is your rundown of some of the fabulous new goodies in Gal Store!
First and foremost (at least for me, cause I am in LOVE!), is the individual pieces for your ribbon ring! These are new in YESTERDAY! If you are like our very own Kelly, you would need to buy these buy the case! But for me personally, I don't have very much ribbon over 1 inch wide. In fact, I think I have like 5 pieces! So there are these fabulous JUMBO cards. You don't have to buy a whole pack, you can just buy a few! We also have the regular size
as well as different sized rings.

These are the long awaited Prima E-line flowers. At $1.50 a pack, it's the perfect way to stock up on colors you use a lot (for me, I bought the white daisy shaped ones!) or for a special project, like invitations or room decor. No more buying a whole jar to get the one or two you really want!

Next is a TON of cool new paper lines. First up, non-holiday paper. My personal favorite is the October Afternoon "Report Card". Let me begin by saying this is my FIRST OA purchase ever. I ordered the 8x8 paper pad as well as the wood grain alphas and the journaling spot stickers and cards. WOW. I am in love. the colors are SO vibrant and the detail is amazing. Plus the stickers come with plenty of letters, so you can actually do more than 1 or two titles with them! Farm Fresh is also new and VERY cozy! Fruit and down home goodies!
Crate Paper. This has always been a personal favorite of mine. They have such sweet, mixable colors. Seasons and Cottage are the two new offerings in the non-seasonal category here. So beautiful! Like the cottage collection? Check out this post by Jenny Chesnick for a chance to win some of it!



Cosmo Cricket is always good for some serious cuteness. I think they upped the cute factor here! Nutmeg is full of fall colors and "awwwww" worthy animals!




This is another of my favorites and a recent purchase. Nook and Pantry is a bit of a departure from the more grungy look Basic Grey is known for, but the colors and patterns surpass everything before this collection! I am a fan. Since it's new, they have the dimensional stickers AND woolies! Yeah!




And now for Christmas, cause you know that's what you are all waiting for. 'Tis the season. And this one is easily justifiable to the hubby! "I need to make gifts and cards, I need the whole collection just to make sure I have enough..." October Afternoon turned loose "Good Cheer" and it's awfully happy! But not to be outdone, Crate Paper answers with "North Pole." I just love the combination of red, green, and light blue! But wait, there's more! Pink Paisley tosses in another blue beauty! Are we seeing a trend? I hope so because I am loving it!
Mistle Toe and Co. is this year's paper collection of MY choice. I purchased it for the pictures I am going to pretend to scrap. Mostly I just want to look at it!

And here goes some new fabulousness that I couldn't pass up either. From the look of what is left in the store, (3 colors and I know we had at least 8 or 10!) most of you couldn't pass it up either! These Ranger color washes are SO cool. Think Glimmer mist WITHOUT the glimmer. But the color is a bit richer, at least the color I got it. It's very very cool. You can use it as a watercolor, a spray, an inker... So versatile.
Well, that concludes out tour through What's New! I hope you saw something you missed and can't live without. Head over and check out the store. I only got maybe half the stuff that was uploaded in the past month! Just click the "Latest Products" tab on the right and let your fingers do the shopping!

A Pearl of a Different Color

Hi it's Jamie :) I wanted to give you a few different ways to use those wonderful pearls and gems that have become so popular. Prima has a wonderful e line out that is a high quality at a good price, Kaiser Craft, and Zva have wonderful Lines as well. These can all be altered to any color you choose. On the following project I used different colors of Alcohol inks to alter Prima's eLine pearls.

The steps are easy. Take your chosen color of Alcohol Ink and while the gem or pearl is still on the original packaging, Drop the ink directly onto the gem. Don't worry about the extra ink running down onto the backing. If it loses it stickiness, they can always be glued. You can also add multiple layers of the ink to richen the color. Even if the gems or pearls have a color already on them they can still be changed.

If you don't yet have alcohol inks you can also use Sharpie or other permanent markers. If you have a favorite Nail polish try those out also. These mediums will all stick to the gem's surface.

On the front of my book here. I used "Latte" On all of the different sized pearls....On the Inside of the book I used Copper Additive Alcohol Ink to the pearls on the cross. You can mix colors as well. Do over do it though. It can start to look muddy or muted.





Stay tuned I will also be giving you more detailed techniques to making your own altered book. Thanks for stopping by and I hope this gets the creative juices flowing.