Paper Roses

So you may be wondering what Miss Patti has been working on?? Or maybe not because you have your own Christmas gifts to work on. LOL! Well I have been making roses for a very special wall hanging for my Parents and Brother. You see, before my Grandma passed away she gave me some very old pictures of her and her parents. Well, I thought I would share them with my family. So I busted out the trusty ole scanner and scanned them for reproduction. Anyway, back to the roses. Here they are…..

This is the big one

and……

This is the rosebud. ( sorry about the dark picture, but I was having a hard time with getting a close-up of the bugger)

I will post the whole wall hanging when I am all finished. Right now it is in the drying process and then I have to put a title on it and few other minor details. I should be done by the end of the week so check back! :)

Well off to watch Polymark dry……..

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!

Cereal box album

Ok, I know I haven’t posted in a while, but I have finally finished a project ( well almost finished) All I have to do is add the pictures and embellies. This album is made out of cereal boxes. A few tips for those of you who want to make one yourself.

1. Cut cover slightly larger then the pages.

2. paint all cereal box pieces before adding paper including the edges. It is kinda hard to add the paint on the edges after you add the paper.

3. put the album together first with paper clips so you are sure it will work. This also makes it easier to glue together when the time comes.

This album is a pocket and tag album, but you can also create an accordion fold album. When you make one send me a pic or link so I can see how you made your album.. This was a lot of fun to design and create!!:)

Cricut Cutting Mat Cover Overlay

Hi Again,
Well again I was sitting at my scrapbook counter and an idea came to mind... I had just tossed out a cricut cutting mat that was really bad. I then looked down on my counter and saw the clear mat cover laying there so I picked it up and WAM! my idea... I had decided to make my own overlays for LO and cards. What is great about using the cutting mat cover is that it is larger then 12x12 which is perfect for us peps that scrap in 12x12 format. The first thing I did was cover the whole mat with 3 different color alcohol inks. I put a few drops of one color then used bubble wrap to schmuz it around using a tap and twist motion. Repeat for the other 2 colors. then I stamped my images using embossing ink and powder. I thought that the heat gun would distort the transparency, but it didn't. I just stamped, powdered, then placed the mat cover on a flat heat safe surface ( I used my kitchen counter) and heat embossed. Then repeat as many times as you want. I then cut it out, but you don't have to. If you plan on using it as a full 12x12 overlay for your layout then make sure you run the mat cover through your paper trimmer 1st. before you start stamping. Other ideas are to just cut the center of the mat cover out to fit a picture and stamp around the cutout, cut shapes out of the mat cover with your cricut, then stamp images on the shape. There are so many possibilities!!!! I could be here all day listing them. Remember DON'T THROW AWAY YOU CRICUT MAT COVERS!! Save yourself $1.99 and make your own transparent overlays.

Interesting Find!!!

Hi Again,
I was looking around on the web for something new to try and came across something interesting. I haven't tried it yet, but I will as soon as my kids go back to school ( they had a week off). Ok, here it is.... you fill a balloon with rice, macaroni, beads, buttons or whatever you can fit in it. Then you use it as a stamp and make some really interesting background paper. I just thought I should share this one... If you try it before I do comment this post so I can take a look! I will post a new LO or project next week when i have alone time..
Take Care,
Patti