Make your own metal accents with pop cans tutorial!

So are you tired of buying expensive metal accents for your cards and scrapbook pages??? Well I have a solution…. MAKE YOUR OWN:)
What you need:
1. pop cans ( use pepsi product cans because coke uses thicker aluminum)
2.  you will need 2 thick dish or hand towels
3. A pair of old sharp scissors ( DON’T use your good scrapbooking scissors it will ruin them)
4. iron
5. punches or die cut
6. an older paper cutter you don’t care to dull
OK now the directions……..
1. cut your pop cans open. You are going to cut the top and bottom off, then cut in half like this…
* Warning edges will be jagged and sharp be careful when handling)

and this

and this

Now your can should look like this

Step 2:
Now lay a towel down on a hard surface. You are going to want to fold the towel twice. Then open you can up with the cans design facing up like this..


now lay the other towel over top of the can like this..

Now you are ready to iron your can flat. This is how you are going to iron it…..
With one hand on the iron pressing firmly down and your other hand  under the bottom towel  on one side. now press up with the towel hand as you iron like this…

( excuse the no hand on the iron because someone had to take the picture:)
When you are done with the one side turn the towel around and do the other. What you are trying to do is make the can lay flat. like this….



ok let it cool a few minutes before you pick it up!
Step 3
Get out your punches and die cut machine ( do not use your cricut machine). I used my ancient sizzix machine and it cuts through the aluminum like butter.
 
or use your punches like this…



Now you can use a paper trimmer to make borders like this..


Now you can use your Alcohol inks and metallic rubs to alter the metal.
Well everyone, now you can go create your own metal accents and recycle at the same time:)
Have fun!

Plastic bag album & Tutorial

This is just a few pictures of the finished album. Now for the How To……

You will need…

1. plastic store bags

2. an iron

3. tow sheets of computer paper

4. craft paint

5. decoupage and strong craft glue

6. paper

7. items to attach your album together ( ribbon, rings, etc.)

optional items: stamps, ribbon, embellishments

Step 1:

Lay your bag out like this…

Now your are going to cut the handle and bottom off.

Next you are going to open up the remaining part of the bag like this…

Last you are going to cut off any writing or design on the bag.

Now you will have this left….

OK, now onto folding…….

fold in half the long way to make a square

Then…

fold again from the bottom of your square to the top

Now……

 

fold again in half..

Now do this to as many bags that you need for your album.

Step 2:

Ironing your plastic bags….

* Do this in a well ventilated area

Heat your iron to a medium heat. Since all irons are different I don’t really have a setting to go by. You may want to make extras so you can test your iron.

If the iron is too hot you will have a shrinkie dink thing going on and if it is too cool there will be no fusion at all.

Now get your two pieces of computer paper ready. Lay one down on your ironing board then put your plastic bag on the paper and then put the other sheet of paper on top. Just like this….

Now you are going to iron on top of the paper. Move iron slowly over the area. It takes about a minute for each of them to fuse.

You will want to check it every so often by pealing off the top sheet of paper. Also you may want to flip the whole thing over too and iron the other side. You are going to want to keep ironing until all layers of the bag are fused together. You should not have any loose layers. The plastic will get hard and durable. Like this….

some wrinkling is normal and a little shrinking.

Now comes the fun part…

Step 3:

you are going to want to paint the whole surface on both sides with craft paint. Do very light coats.

Once you have painted both sides and they are dry you can stamp on them like this….

and if you don’t have stamps don’t worry… A lot of items found around your house can be a stamp like bubble wrap

You can either ink up the bubble wrap with a stamp pad or with craft paint. If you use craft paint you will want to paint on a light coat directly to the bubble wrap.

When all is dry on both sides you are going to want to seal the paint and protect you pictures by using decoupage on both sides. 2 coats will be fine.

Here I decided to decoupage after I added the paper. It really doesn’t matter which way you decide to do it. Either way you will need a strong craft glue to adhere your paper to the plastic. I used the Martha Stewart craft glue.

Remember to do both sides.

Note: Some curling may happen when you are waiting for the one side to dry after decoupage application. If this happens just gently bend the page back into shape.

Your last thing to do is punch holes for your ribbon or rings to hold the album together.

Don’t forget to decorate your pages!!!

Hope you have fun trying this:) Be Brave, I know you can do this!