Tag Archives: tutorial

DT: Frame Tutorial

Posted on April 16, 2010 by crazydaisy

SCRAP YOUR OWN FRAME

By Amy Kingsford



Supplies:

Wooden Frame
Coordinating Patterned Papers and Scraps
Misc. Elements, Alphas, Ribbon
Decoupage
Adhesive (such as Hot Glue)
Scissors or Exacto Knife
Paint, Ink, other medium (to treat your edges)
Paint Brush

Step 1- I like to approach my frames much like a scrapbook lo and do a brief sketch before beginning…this may or may not help you…but give it a shot. You can use a collage technique or a block design, or you can use a simple layered design like the one I’ve used here.

Step 2- Once you’re set on a design begin by treating the edges of the frame (inside and out). You can use ink, paint , wood burning or leave them unfinished…its up to you. But you’ll be happy you completed this step first, once you get your frame all put together.

Step 3- Cut out the paper pieces of your design, using an exacto knife or scissors, and have all of the embellishments you wish to use ready to go.

Step 4- Now because some of the frame will be coated in decoupage and other parts like your elements and ribbon will not need to be sealed, consider working in order as far as your layers are concerned.

Step 5- Apply each of your paper layers, by first applying a thin coat of decoupage directly to the surface you wish to adhere your layer, using a medium to large size paint brush. Then carefully position the layer, so it corresponds to your design and flatten it out, making sure to remove all bubbles and allow it to dry. You may find that you need to do some trimming on each of your layers…this should only be done only after each layer is secured to a surface and before you have applied decoupage over the top of the paper, to avoid tearing.

Step 6- Now apply a generous layer of decoupage over the top of the layer, making sure to seal your corners and edges and paying close attention to any puckering along the way. After the decoupage is dried you can continue with your other layers.

Step 7- Once you’ve applied and sealed all of your paper layers, use adhesive to apply your ribbon, flowers, embellishments, and alphas. If you too are using paper elements that will not be sealed, but you are concerned about their durability (like the two children in my frame), then coat them in decoupage before hand and let them dry before applying them to the frame, this will give them a bit more stability.

Step 8- Often wood frames that you buy at craft store, etc, do not come with glass in them but you can use glass from an old out-of use frame of the same size and it will likely fit the opening.

Step 9- Now Your ready to place your photo inside your frame and put it out for everyone to see!


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Grace’s Place: Scraps

Posted on March 31, 2010 by crazydaisy

Itty Bitty scraps

By Grace Tolman

Hi guys! I’m sure most, if not all of you, have already received your March kit and you’ve probably made a few layouts here and there with the kit. By the way, don’t you just adore the main kit? The colors work so well together and the embellishments are just plain fun!

Well I don’t know about all of you but I’m one to save every little piece of paper that I can. Sometimes that’s a bad thing (you should see my scrap bin) but for the most part, those itty bitty pieces usually result to some cool new design that I haven’t thought about.

So today let me share with you three cards that I made with my leftover supplies from the March main kit.



These three cards were mainly put together with my kit scraps! I love the idea that by saving all my little strips of paper, I was able to make them come together (in small dozes) and bring color and design to my solid colored cards.



I added a few silk flowers from my own stash but for the most part my kit provided me with so much products to work with.

So that’s my share for today. Before you throw those itty bitty pieces of paper or products away, do a double check on them, you’ll never know what “bit” of inspiration you can get from them.

Till next time,
Grace


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DT: Make a Treat Bag

Posted on March 26, 2010 by crazydaisy

Have some leftover goodies from your March kit? Here’s a fun way to use them thanks to Miss Mara. Enjoy!


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 Hi Everyone!! I am here today to show you how to make the easiest treat bag ever!! This will take you about 10 minutes and is perfect for Easter gifts, teacher appreciation gifts, neighbor gifts…just about anything. What you will need it this:

-1 piece of paper cut 11 inches x 4 inches
-something to create score lines
-clear plastic treat bag (find at your local craft store)
-embellishments for front of the bag


1. Score your paper at 1 inch, 5 inches and 7 inches.




2. Crease the score lines. The 1 inch flap will hang over the top. Seal the 1 inch flap over the top of the bag.




3. Using your circle punch or a pair of scissors, create an opening in the top. It could be a half circle with a circle punch or cut an opening with scissors.




4. Fill a clear treat bag with treats. Put the treat bag inside your folded treat bag and thread the top through the opening. Tie shut with a matching ribbon. Add embellishments to the front of the bag and/or add a tag to the bag.




There you have it!! A quick, fast treat bag that you can coordinate to any occasion! Thanks for stopping by the Crazy Daisy Blog and I hope you found some time today to be creative!


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DT: Katie creates

Posted on March 12, 2010 by crazydaisy

Creating a  mini book

By Katie Turner


Hi everyone, Katie here. I hope you’ve all ordered your kits and are super excited to play with them! I know I was beyond stoked to receive the kit in the mail and sift through all the goodies. Wow, that’s all I can say. Did you know my favorite colors are green and brown? I’m really on a yellow kick lately, too, so needless to say, the March 2010 kit had me covered! I’m particularly fond of the mini from My Mind’s Eye (green flocking? Check. Swirls galore? Check. An awesome silhouette of a bird? Check. Cream chipboard pages? Check!!!), Crate Paper’s fun, doodled journaling spots, the printed ribbon, the shimmery cardstock … Wait, if I list everything, I’ll be here forever. Instead, allow me to stop rambling and share a more visual post with you.

I have a certain approach to my mini albums and how I create each page in them. I’m sure most of you do, too, but I thought it might be fun if I gave you a peek at my process/a tutorial of sorts to ponder over. Here goes:




With this particular mini, I thought it’d be fun to use lace cardstock that I had sitting around in my stash as a base for my pages. I really love paint and it adds such a gorgeous, handmade feel to whatever project I’m working on, so I couldn’t resist it. As you can see, my stenciling wasn’t perfect — I like being able to see little brush strokes here and there, but if you don’t, no worries: You can always use some removable/temporary adhesive (tape runners are nice) to hold your cardstock down while you paint over it. I chose to mix brown, green, and yellow together to form a color that’s similar to the flocking. I don’t like to mix my paint completely; I have always liked to see the individual colors in different places, but to each her own! Anything goes. :)

Notice the slight tear and the yellow spot? That was me experimenting. I do that a lot and if something doesn’t work out or I decide against it (like I did here), I just cover it up. It’s a great way to stretch your creativity.



Next, I made a stencil out of an old label sticker I had by sticking the outline of it (or the “waste” — the part that’s left after the actual sticker is gone!) to a piece of cardstock and cutting out the middle. I used this shape throughout the album to help create a flow from page to page. You can use any shape you’d like; I just happen to like brackets and like using homemade stencils as well. I then grabbed a sheet of paper and traced the shape on it four times before cutting it out and then hand stitching just inside the edges with brown thread to create a nice accent for each embellishment.



Then, I laid the embellishments out as shown above. I turned the center shape on its side for visual interest — everything lined up straight in a row can get boring. I attached the embellishments with glue dots once I was satisfied with their placement.



For this particular page, I used two mock photo booth strips to display photos of one of my favorite houses in the city where I live. (By the way — the photo booth strip is from here).

I just manipulated it in PhotoShop and cropped out the existing photos.) Visual interest played another role in my decision to slightly overlap the strips. I feel they look better that way than when placed side by side.

Finally, the only thing left to do was embellish! I slid part of the printed transparency with the blue design on it underneath one of the paper shapes, plucked a teal pearl from the Prima swirls and glued it to the center of the pretty green button, made a paper flower and embellished it with some blue trim I had on my desk, cut the “One of a kind” sentiment off one end of the journaling card included in the kit, and added the journaling stickers. Voila! That’s my process in a nutshell, although I switch things up here and there.

If you’re interested in seeing the rest of the mini… Here you go:








It’s all about the city I live in and the love I have for the beautiful, old buildings downtown. I am definitely a city girl! The last page features lyrics by Adele, whose song of the same name inspired my mini. If you haven’t heard the song yet… Well, you must! Click here to watch her music video on YouTube!

Well, that’s it for me. I hope you enjoyed my post as much as I enjoyed sharing it with you! Please let me know what you think in the comments. Till next time, have fun creating!


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Get your Gesso on

Posted on October 8, 2009 by crazydaisy

The Crazy Daisy Family is blessed to include some extremely talented ladies serving on our design team. One of them, Miss Kim, is sharing her amazing talents with us today with this awesome Gesso Paint Rag tutorial. (Thank you Kim! We always love it when you’re our guest blogger!) So, let’s get our Gesso on ladies!

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“This technique is something I learned on National Scrapbook Day over at the Scrap in Style forum from the brilliant Lucy Folch, awesome Brazilian artist who has such innovative ideas.  I have modified mine a little but I must credit Lucy with the basic gesso – paint – rag technique.

gesso1

I used the Making Memories kraft album included in the September kit, but you can also do this on a heavy chipboard or cardboard. 

The key to this technique is pre-planning the layout.

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Gather some chipboard pieces and any other items that you want to include on the layout and place them where you want them. 

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I used the cute paisley pieces along with some other pieces from my stash. Since this is going to be an album for my stepdaughter’s end of season horse shows for this year, (photo above) I wanted to use the horse piece I had from Martha Stewart, but I peeled off the slick pattern from the top so my gesso will adhere.  I put the horse on the back of the album.

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Next, since I want to add some pieces of patterned paper to my finished project, I need to measure and cut those out before adhering my chipboard.  I also made a quick sketch of my layout and numbered my pieces to correspond with my cutout paper for easy placement later. 

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Once I have my layout how I want it, I start gluing down all my chipboard pieces.  I did not glue the word “ALEX” down yet because I want to use those awesome 7Gypsies letters as they are. 

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After the glue is dried completely, cover the entire project in gesso.  Get it in every crevice and corner of the chipboard pieces.  I use a smaller dry brush to get any excess out of those same crevices and corners.

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Now let the gesso dry completely while picking out four or five colors of acrylic paint to coordinate with the paper and other pieces. 

This is the really fun and messy part of the project – let your creativity run wild!

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You will need to use a thin consistency with the paint, you may want to experiment on a scrap piece of chipboard or cardboard first.  I began on one side and worked with a color then switched to my next color and so on to blend each color together.  Just keep working with the paint until satisfied.  Don’t worry, it won’t be perfect!

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Next take an old rag while the paint is still wet and wipe and dab the project to remove some of the paint.  If you remove more than you want, just add more paint.  If the paint gets too dry, wet your rag – this method is mistake proof!

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When you are happy with how it looks, let this part of the project dry.  You might want to add some glimmer mist or another mist of choice to jazz it up. 

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Once dry, you can add on everything else.  I distressed my pattern paper and glued it down.  I also distressed my chipboard letters with a small emery board and some paint and glued those down.

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As an afterthought I decided to use the Stickles that were included in my kit, and I love how they look on this project! 

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Once that dried, I got my Sharpie out and outlined, added a photo in middle and used some Ranger Glossy Accent that I had in my stash on the word “ALEX” so it would have some shine to match where I used the Stickles. 

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The album is now finished and ready for my pages to be done inside!


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From start to finish

Posted on August 17, 2009 by crazydaisy

Edited: All of the photos for this post were removed, as Grace’s album was accepted for publication. The next time you see the album, it will be in the pages of Scrapbook Trends. You go girl!


Some times the hardest part of creating a layout or a mini-book is getting started. I know that for me, as soon as I dive into the process, things start to flow and come together. It’s the diving in that I struggle with. I over think. I over plan. And then I start to have stress. So, what we though we’d do for you today is offer you a look at a mini-book project from start to finish. Grace was wonderful enough to be our guest blogger and invited us into her process of diving into creating a mini-book from start to finish. Enjoy!


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Time capsule mini-book

By Grace Tolman

Hello everyone and welcome to a start to finish post from me. *smile*

I really enjoyed working with the Chatterbox mini album that came in our Crazy Daisy August kit. It was cute to be used as is without adding too much embellishment but at the same time leaves enough room for personalization.

1. I’m a big sketch person. I like to visualize what I’m going to end up with before I even start. It’s always great to have a foundation. I don’t ALWAYS follow the plan to the “T” but it’s still good to have an idea of where I’m going to take this project to.

 

2. Next I gather all my supplies, which in this case are small pictures of me, the minibook and everything that’s leftover from my August kit.

 

3. Then I print out my journaling title in the computer using one of my fave type fonts (Adler).


4. After that I take out one of the butterflies from the mini-book. I’m going to dress up my canvas bag with that butterfly piece. After easily taking it out from the book, I set it aside.


5. Then I start working on the book itself. I first cut the journaling title/prompts into strips. I trimmed them down as well.



6. I then start assembling my book. I first lay my journaling strips and pictures on the books inside pages. I just lay them first without adhering anything. This gives me the freedom to move around the pieces until I feel good about them.



7. At this point I decide to add some pattern papers, so I go with the My Mind’s eye paper in the kit. I punched out a scallop border on the edge first before I trimmed the strip that I needed.


8. After moving things around a bit. I decided that it works for me and so I start adhering things. I decided to use the orange paper strips to go under my pictures.


9. Then I start adding my title. Because the project/book is small I had to use smaller letter stickers, so it won’t overpower the rest of the pages. After going through my personal letter stash, I decided on using the tiny alphas from Making Memories.


10. I had one picture that I wanted to put over the transparent butterfly page in the book so I adhere that with glue dots.


11. After getting all the pictures and journaling strips adhered, I start adding my handwritten journaling. Since the theme of the mini-book was time capsule, I chose journaling that would be related to the “me” now. Examples of my questions where: things I can’t live without; things I can’t stop talking/learning about; how much things cost at this time; and my personal testimony. I also added my stats like what age I am right now, address and people in my family. This book is great for your own time capsule or you can also give it as a gift, leaving space for the recipient to write their own thoughts in there.


12. After getting all the important stuff on there (pictures + words) I go on the fun part…and that is embellishing my pages and book. I start from the front and work my way to the back. For the front of the book, I decide to use the sun sticker in the Heidi Swapp sticker sheet, matted it with the orange cardstock (also included in the kit) and trimmed it off with a scallop scissor.


I added a foil butterfly over it and added pearls (from my stash) to finish off the accent.


13. The most fun part for me about embellishing is how much stuff I can layer over each other. In the next page I layered a leftover star cut out from pattern paper, sticker, rub ons and button.



14. I used a thick ribbon from the kit to make a tab over my title page.


15. To finish off the tab, I added a button. Since the button I wanted have that tab in the back, I decided to cut it off with pliers. I like my buttons flat, but since I couldn’t’ take the entire loop out, I added pop up dots to it so I can adhere it without being too bumpy.



16. Another favorite thing for me right now is applying rub ons onto white cardstock first then cutting the image out so I can layer it onto the page with pop up dots.


17. Here I just added a button (from the kit) with a ribbon paper threaded through it to fancy up a butterfly in one of the pages.


18. Here I add some more rub ons applied to cardstock first.


19. I wanted to incorporate the gorgeous flowers in the kit but realized that they’re just too big, so I can trim them off so it’ll match the size with the rest of my embellishment


20. After a few looks at the book, I felt satisfied with how it turned out so I worked on the canvas bag next. I first trace the butterfly onto a cardstock. I’m going to spray some glimmer mist onto the canvas bag fro more color so I wanted an empty white space where the butterfly page will go.


21. I cut out the butterfly and layer that on top of the canvas bag then I sprayed it with copper glimmer mist.



Once I take off the butterfly cut out, here’s what it looks like…


Set it aside to dry completely.

22. Then I decided to make a title page for my mini-book so I played around with more leftovers from the August kit. I decided on using that relax sticker from the HS sticker sheet but using only the shaped border of the sticker.


I traced the sticker onto the orange cardstock then trimmed to size. I also added rub ons and letter stickers to the title block before adding pop up dots to adhere it to the butterfly piece.



And here’s the result. The green pearls (from my own stash) were also added at the last minute because I felt it was still missing something.


23. Then I worked on a little bit more on the canvas bag. I drew the butterfly image with a black pen.


24. Added some adhesive behind the butterfly block and adhered on the center of the bag at an angle so you can see the traced butterfly image behind it.



25. I added the felt thickers (included in the kit) to personalize my book at the back and added the date.


And after a couple of hours, here’s what it looks like…..



Hope you enjoyed my little start to finish article. And if you decide to follow my lead and make your own “time capsule” mini-book with your butterfly book please share. I love to see how yours turned out.

Till next time,

Grace

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Tips for photographing your layouts

Posted on July 2, 2009 by crazydaisy

Here’s a wonderful and informative guest post from our design team leader, Kim Whitten: Tips for photographing your layouts.

A photo Kim took of a layout she created using the June 2009 Main Kit.

A photo Kim took of a layout she created using the June 2009 Main Kit.


I enjoy perusing online galleries and blogs for inspiration in my scrapbooking. What makes it more enjoyable is when the photos are nice and clear with detail. I’m by no means an expert in the photography field, but I have tried to glean something from those who are.

The first priority for me in photographing pages is the lighting. I like natural light and usually take my photo in the early morning or late evening for the best light, or I have a shady spot off my back porch that seems to work pretty well. You may have a good place to do that indoors — but I do not, so play around and see what works best in your circumstance. I do not recommend direct sun, especially the midday sun, it is much too harsh of a light to get a nice quality picture.

An easel can be a great tool for photographing your layouts.

An easel can be a great tool for photographing your layouts.

I have purchased an inexpensive metal easel (at left) to use for the purpose of photographing my layouts.  You may also prefer to lay them down on a flat surface and photograph from above.

I have a Canon Rebel XTI and my favorite lens is my 50mm f/1.8. Don’t worry if you don’t have a DSLR camera, you can work with what you have. Again, to me the lighting is what makes the photo look good.

Without getting too technical, my advice is to fill as much of your viewfinder with your layout as possible and take a straight on shot of the page. I will usually take 2-3 shots like this then look through them and find the best looking one. That is what is great about digital — just keep shooting until you get a good one!

A "detailed" photo

A "detailed" photo

I then like to pick out 3 or 4 details of page to take some close-ups. If you use a lot of dimension in your layouts, try to capture that in your photo. 

A close-up of journaling.

A close-up of journaling.

The way I do this is taking the photo from somewhat of a side angle to the page I also like to get a close up of the journaling. Of course, sometimes just one picture is all that is needed for a page.

From here, I load my pictures and find 3 or 4 that I like best and open them in Photoshop. Again, if you don’t have Photoshop, don’t fret. Use what you have! There are several freebies you can download like Google’s Picasa — it if very user friendly and finally available for Macs! :) I even use Microsoft’s Picture Manager for simple editing and resizing.

What I do is crop down my full layout to the edges. I don’t like to have any background in my pictures to distract from my masterpiece! ;)


From this:

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The layout before the photo has been cropped.

 

To this:

After being cropped

After being cropped

Sometimes I need a little adjustment and have to rotate my photo somewhat to get it straight. I might also tweak the brightness if I didn’t have my camera settings just right. One thing you’ll definitely need to check is the size of your photo. A lot of online galleries or blogs want you to submit in a certain file size, so adjust accordingly. I have an action set up on my photoshop to do this automatically, but I’m a little lazy and I like consistency. Mine is set up to resize to around 1200 pixels at 100 resolution. Also, anything I’m going to upload to the web gets “saved for web…” at about a 75 quality. This will also cut down on upload time.

I would love to know if anyone has other suggestions for photographing or editing photos of their pages or projects. Mine is a work in progress and I’m always making adjustments to my process.


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Folded Flowers

Posted on June 18, 2009 by crazydaisy

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Yesterday I was looking through various layouts our design team has created for the month of June. I noticed a cool flower on JJ’s layout that she created using some fabric from the June Main kit. You can see just how cute the flower is in the photo above.

I decided I wanted to make a similar flower and went searching for a tutorial. Kimberly Sherrod of the blog Calamity Kim  was kind enough to allow us to reprint her direction on how to make folded flowers. The flowers that Calamity Kim makes are a little different than to one JJ has one her page … but they’re pretty close. Both are stinkin’ cute if you ask me.

Directions for Making Fold and Twist Fabric Roses

Step 1: Cut fabric in to 5″ squares and then fold 3 pleats towards yourself. Iron in place and pin on each side. This feels kind of awkward at first but keep practicing the fold so that it is even. Each pleat is about 1/2″ inch.

Step 2: Stitch with matching thread on each side using a 1/4″ seam. I sew them one right after the other, and then cut them apart.

Step 3: Fold 3 pleats in the other direction and iron and pin. You must iron each step down to help hold it and make sharp pleats.

Step 4: Sew each side down being careful not to let fold get caught in seam.

Step 5: This is the fun part- while holding the fabric in one hand, use your finger to push up and make a bubble or balloon. Fold under the squared off points on the bottom. Place the puff on the palm of one hand and gently pinch the top center and twist in a smooth motion (either direction) until you can’t twist any further and push down. Then quickly iron down with a hot iron to hold rose in shape.

The final product ... isn't it just so cute? (Photo courtesy of Kimberly Sherrod)

The final product ... isn't it just so cute? (Photo courtesy of Kimberly Sherrod)

If you go to Kimberly’s blog, you can see photos of each step. It’s relatively easy and the results are super cute.You could use these flowers for all sorts of things … on scrapbook pages or to jazz up  a plain tank top.

I’ll be making some of these tonight!



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