Craft and Hobby Association Trade Show Day1

Greetings from Anaheim, California!

One of the awesome perks of being on Scraphappy's Design Team is that we, the Design Team Members, get to attend a Crafter's Mecca: C...H...A...Known to the rest of the world as The Craft and Hobby Association Trade Show. So that's where I will be blogging from this week. Each day, after exploring the show floor, I plan to come back here and share the goodness with you! Please check in each day and leave a comment about what you like and don't like. When I get home, we'll be sitting down with the manufacturerers' catalogs and making orders for the store! So if you want it, please let us know! And to encourage y'all to comment, Christy will give a prize pack to a random commenter from all of my CHA posts! So comment daily for extra chances to win. 1 comment per person per day.

(DISCLAIMER: All photos were taken on my phone. I thought that that would make it easier to upload them. I was wrong. Blogger is having issues. Please forgive any technical difficulties. I'm not able to post nearly as many pics as I had planned tonight, but I'll do my best.)

And now for the scrapbooking yumminess...

Our first stop of the day: The Ranger Booth. Gotta start with Tim Holtz's creative genius, right? The Kid (otherwise known as My Oldest Daughter/Helper/PackMule) and I started at the Make&Take table. We played with black UTEE, a Melting Pot, and a metal slide holder to make some UTEE jewelry. Who knew you could make a jewelry charm out of embossing powder? I know I didn't!

Photos from the Ranger booth:

1. Claudine Hellmuth's new 2-step stamps - looks like they're designed both for paper crafting as well as collage arts. The chunkier foam stamps make up the image background, and the clear acrylic stamps provide the overlying detail. For some reason, those house stamps just called to me.



2. Kraft Coredinations - now available in books of strips designed to work with Tim's long, skinny Sizzix dies.

3. Distress Markers - designed to work with and coordinate with all our favorite Distress inks.

4. Tim's new stamps - I apologize about the glare in these photos. The lighting here was not-so great, so I'm only going to show you the best. The travel- themed sets are some of my favorites from him EVER. I WILL be adding these to my stash :)

5. New Alterations dies - THESE ARE SO STINKING CUTE!!! New icons include globes, telephones, typewriters, and cameras - both in the larger Sizzix size, and well as in smaller, Movers and Shapers sizes.

Next stop, the American Crafts booth! American Crafts has recently partnered with various well-loved brands, so this booth was filled with fun color just begging to be scrapped! And as a bonus, most of their lines have coordinating Thickers! Happy Sigh...

1. Amy Tangerine - new line = Sketchbook - This line is full of bright, water-colored, whimsical designs that can make any project happy.

2. Dear Lizzie from Elizabeth Kartchner - a soft, whispy-feeling, very pretty pastel-water-color-feel line. Very peaceful. Perfect for spring, babies, or any other project with a softer feel to it. In the top picture on the right, you can see a package of banners. These are precut and presewn/prestrung sheets of die-cut banners. You can use it as one very long banner, or snip bits and pieces as needed to embellish your projects.

This next picture shows one of my favorite finds of the day. See the 'Smile' and 'Love' package? These are die-cut letters that have been strung onto a thin ribbon. Very pretty. These will definitely be on my pages in the upcoming months.

OK, World. I think I'm going to stop here for tonight. It's after 2AM, and I need to sleep! I took over 250 pictures today, so instead of cramming everything into this one post, I'm thinking I'll just write several blog posts for ya'll over the next several days. That work for you? You want more photos? Fewer photos? Photos of anything in particular? Let me know! Until tomorrow, thanks for reading. And don't forget to comment!

- Cori

Burlap Flowers!





Hi Everyone! We are so close to Valentine's Day that I thought I would share a cute little project that I think would be a great Valentine's gift. It's really cute for any time though - just change the paint colors!






I started with a piece of burlap. The color of the burlap really doesn't matter, but the lighter color worked best with my project.










Next I covered the burlap with mod podge. I really put a nice layer of it on both sides of the burlap. I left it to dry over night, but it wasn't quite done. It was much easier to put it in the oven on a low temp for about 20 min. The mod podge covered burlap should be fairly stiff after it's dry.











I picked out a die cut shape that I liked. Surprise! It's a flower shape! I used the Big Shot and cut out the shapes.







Here are my 3 sizes of flowers cut out of the burlap.

Next I used paint to cover the burlap flowers. You can use any color you want to match your project.

I cut a hole in the middle of the flower shapes using my Big Bite and then put a brad in the center of the flowers. I used the flower to decorate a gift bag I'd made with scrapbook paper. A little hot glue to hold it together and you're done. It's a small gift bag that you could use for a Valentine's gift or candy. Too cute and too easy! These burlap flowers are fun and inexpensive to make, and they can be used for so many projects. Since I have a little girl at home, I think it would be fun to add a lot of glitter and put it on top of a headband or barrette. It would also be great to decorate a gift package or a scrapbook page. Changing the paint color can change everything. It would make a great Christmas page too!

Hope you have some fun playing in your craft rooms! Happy Valentine's Day!

Vicky

To You, With Love

Valentine's Day is already drawing near, and love is in the air!!  It's time for pink hearts, flowers, and Valentine's cards.  Whether you like to exchange cute, little hand-made Valentine cards with your friends or if your children exchange Valentine's with friends at school, you have to have something special to keep them in, right?  Today, I have an adorable altered mailbox to share with you that is just right for storing your Valentine keepsakes.  Christy sent me a package of goodies from the store that included some GORGEOUS Valentine papers from Teresa Collins' Posh collection.  At first I thought about using them to make actual Valentine's cards, but then I thought "hmmmm, I will need something to keep the cards in".  If you have been to Walmart or Target, then you know they have the kiddie themed mailboxes in the store, that come with pre-made Valentine cards.  I decided, wouldn't it be more fun to alter the mailbox, than to make the cards...so that's what I did.

Here is the original mailbox that I started out with:

I started out by tracing the backside of the mailbox onto the paper and then cutting it out and re-tracing it, to have two of those shapes for the front and back.  I used Mod Podge to cover the mailbox and adhere those two pieces.


The height of the mailbox was a little over 7 inches, so I knew my 12x12 paper wouldn't fully cover the sides, so I cut two, 2.5x7 inch strips and lined them up with the bottom of the mailbox.  Then I cut the 12x12 down to 7x12.  I covered the mailbox with Mod Podge and added the second piece of paper over the top of the mailbox.  Then I used one of the black patterns to cover the seam, by cutting a 1x7 inch piece.

Next, came the fun part...DECORATING!!  I continued using these fabulous papers, because there are some great patterns for fussy cutting.  I used one of the papers that had some beautiful roses and another that had a cameo pattern.  This mailbox did not come with a flag and what mailbox is complete without a flag??!!  So I decided I would make my own!!  I just free-handed a flag onto some cardboard (I save the filler cardboard sheets that come in my Page Protectors-they are great for cutting out your own shapes and then covering with Patterned Paper to create dimensional elements on your pages or projects) and cut it out.  I used the Mod Podge over the top of it and glued it to one of the Patterned Papers, let it dry, and cut it out once again.  To attach it to the mailbox, I punched a hole with my WRMK brad setter and used a brad that had long enough prongs to go through the cardboard and the mailbox.

Once the flag was attached, I began layering the fussy cut images from my papers.  I also had a few very pretty brads and several little rosettes in my package, so I incorporated those into the clustering.  I added the word "Love" in big white letters at the bottom of the mailbox and finished it off by adding a little ribbon and some baker's twine to the pull tab on the front.

Voila!!  Now you have a beautiful keepsake to store all of those sweet, Valentine's!  You could also use this as the "wrapping" for a gift that you are giving to that sweet someone, or maybe even use it later on for a jewelry box.


You still have a little over 3 weeks to get a jump on all of your Valentine crafts this year, so stop by the store and see what supplies you need to make this February 14th a very special day!!

Upcycled Cabinet Door!

This weekend I covered and decorated a cabinet door that I picked up at a thrift store. It was super fast and easy!! I didnt take a picture of the door before we started, sorry! It is a dark cherry wood color.

Here is the finished project:

As you can see, we sort of used it as a picture frame and put a quote inside! First, it was painted with Heirloom White spray paint. After letting that dry, I used the new Tim Holtz tissue wrap to cover the "frame". I applied a coat of clear drying adhesive with a foam brush, Mod Podge would work fine. I laid the tissue paper lightly over it and patted it down. Once i had the entire frame covered, I went back and added a coat of the clear adhesive to the top. This paper would look really cool if you sort of let it wrinkle as you laid it down, to give it a cool texture.

In the bottom left corner, I just started layering different random pieces I had leftover from other projects, brads, buttons, bling, chipboard, flowers, and pearls. The large flower is also made from the tissue wrap and some black cardstock scraps.

The heart is just hand cut from black cardstock, added pearls and a sticker behind. The top flower is also made from the tissue wrap.
The letters that are making the phrase in the center are from black vinyl cut on my Cricut with the Jasmine cartridge. I added a little bling to the word love. I could have done a better job of lining those letters up. ;)

This project would be so cute using any color scheme, putting any quote or name inside, and even to have photos stuck around it as well! And with the tissue wrap being white and a little see-through, it would be perfect for inking, misting, stamping, staining, etc. Hope you like it!

Time for Tissue Paper

Happy New Year, Everyone! I hope you all had a very Merry Christmas and a safe New Year's. With all this extra time off from work, I hope you had a chance to play with your photos, paper, and glue!

If you need of some inspiration to jumpstart your creativity, I would like to show you a few projects I have made recently with Tim Holtz's new tissue paper rolls. These rolls come in a variety of patterns, including text and music notes, and are a heavier-weight tissue paper than you typically find to wrap presents with - almost as substantial as a light vellum. The rolls contain several yards of paper, so this is a good supply to split with your friends (hint, hint, hint).

First of all, a few layouts. On the first, Rebuilding Ground Zero, I used the tissue paper as part of my background, reminiscent of newsprint. I layered bits and pieces of Coredinations Kraft Core cardstock and scraps from my desk to complete the layout.

On this second layout, She Thinks It Is Called the Mountain of Rushmores, I used a piece torn from the roll as a mat for my title and journalling. You can see how well it layers over patterned papers to subtley mute their brightness.
                                      
After making a few layouts, I decided I needed some messy playtime. I pulled out my alcohol inks, a square piece of acrylic (You can find several different pre-cut sizes in the store. Perfect for ornaments, mini-book covers, etc), some modpodge, my tissue paper, and some random embellishments.

First, I dabbed some alcohol ink over my acrylic block to give it some color (I used Christmas colors since I was making an ornament).

Next, I dabbed some Adirondack Alcohol Blending Solution over the block. Can you see the subtle difference between the 2 photos? In the one below, the blending solution has 'pushed' the ink around, giving it a fun splotchy look.

The alcohol ink dries quickly, so I didn't have to wait to modpodge some of the Tim Holtz tissue paper to the back of my acrylic block. I sandwiched the (very old) brown leafy embellishment between the acrylic and the tissue paper when I did my modpodging.

Once the modpodge glue had dried, I decorated the front of my ornament with some metal Christmas words I had in my stash, as well as some layered poinsettia flowers that I had rubbed with Stickles.

 I used my Crop-o-dile to punch a hole in the top corner, tied a ribbon, and hung the ornament on our tree at ScrapHappy.

 And finally, I don't know about you, but I often wrap gifts with tissue paper. I was curious to see how well the tissue paper absorbed ink, so I used my Tim Holtz Distress Stain (fired brick) to colorize some of the tissue paper. I also used the stain to coordinate the ribbon, and then I wrapped a faux-gift to put under my mini-tree next year. The tag is my first attempt at Tim Holtz's 12 Tags of Christmas. I tied it to the top to make my 'gift' look pretty :)

 I hope I've given you some ideas to stimulate your creativity. Until next month, have fun making creative messes, and come see us in the store! Many of us will be heading to the Craft and Hobby Association Trade Show later this month. If there's any companies or booths you want us to check out and post peaks of, let me know!

Gift Card Tag

 Need something quick and easy for the last minute (hate to shop) shopper like me…yes I have been know to get to the stores early on Christmas Eve morning with both my girls and be done by  lunch time (you can get some really good deals). But then you have to go home and wrap for three hours…Oh wait what if I just hit the gift card department and make it easy and fast.

  Well that’s what I wanted to share with you….What I did with the gift cards when I got home.

  I started with Movers and Shapers dies from Sizzix – tag and bookplates and cut one tag out of Coredinations “Whitewash” collection. Place in an embossing folder and run thru the Big Shot. I then use the sanding grip the lightly sand just the top off the raised parts of the tag. This works great with this paper because it is one color on the front and has a different color core.

Next, cut a slit in the tag.



Shown here on a plain tag

Now cut another tag from decorative paper to place on the back of the first tag. Place your glue only at the top and along the side and bottom so that you create a pocket for the gift card.
  I brushed the edges of the tag with Distress Ink-Iced Spruce and punched a hole at the top. Next I cut a 6 inch 3D paper rose with  My Minds Eye "Be Merry" paper and my Silhouette. You can also cut by hand. Gently roll the edges of the spiral shape with your fingers. Now roll the spiral shape inward starting with the "tail" part on the outside. It is easier if you use a toothpick to start the rolling process.
Roll as tight, now let go and watch in un-roll some and begin to look like a rose. Place a small bit of glue to hold it together (hot glue or "Aleene"s Fast Grab Tacky Glue)

I embellished with some greenery scrapes and netting. Oh and be sure to add some Stickles (life is better with a little sparkle).


shown here with the gift card in the pocket

 Scraphappy has a great Gift Card department and you can get all the supplies you need to make you're own gift tags. Just have fun (and use some of that scrapbooking stuff that you already have)!
Happy Scrapbooking!!  Linda

Products used:
Coredinations "whitewash" collection
My Minds Eye "Be Merry"
Distress Inks, Barn Door and Iced Spruce
Stickles
Sizix Flourish embossing plate
Big Shot

Mix It Up...with Patterns!

Have you noticed all of the great patterns you can find in Scrapbook papers?  There are some fun trends out there right now...who knew that Scrapbooking would resemble fashion, with all of the fun, new trends that come out??!!  Christy has some adorable papers in the store right now from Jillibean Soup's Christmas Eve Chowder line.  It has a variety of patterns from stripes, flowers, text paper, and houndstooth (all of which I included on the following layout) and there are also, cute little penguins, stars, Christmas trees, and skiers.  If you are intimidated by mixing a lot of patterns, take the approach I did on this layout.  Choose a solid background (white is always a great choice, but you could also choose a color that coordinates with your patterned paper) and then add in the patterned paper in small doses.  I used my patterned paper on this layout to create a banner, a scalloped border at the top and bottom of the page, and a ground for my journaling block.  So you get a lot of variety on your page, but the patterns don't overwhelm or fight with one another.

 

Products Used:

Paper:  Jillibean Soup & DCWV
Letter Stickers:  Jillibean Soup, My Little Shoebox, & October Afternoon
Embroidery Floss:  Janlynn
Brads:  The Paper Studio & Bazzill
Baker's Twine:  The Twinery
Pen:  Zig
Font:  CK Going Places
Punches:  Marvy & Martha Stewart
Pearls:  Kaiser Craft
Stick Pins:  Little Yellow Bicycle
Edgers:  Provo Craft
Other:  Wire