TAPE "FLAGS"

BUNTING WITH DOUBLE SIDED TAPE

This probably isn't the best example in the world but its good enough to give you the idea. (The "string" and star are stickers).  It would look much prettier with a whole row of multicolour flags and a piece of baker's twine.

This is a super easy way to make flag bunting.  Just angle up the ends of double sided tape and place two pieces side by site with the lower edges on the outside.  Next sprinkle with  fine glitter, rub in well and........there you are.....
sparkly bunting!!

FEATHER COLOURED WITH GLIMMER MIST

BLUE GLIMMER MIST FEATHER

Can you colour white feathers with Glimmer Mist?  Yes, you can!!  I know this is not paper, but colouring card, paper flowers, cotton ribbons and things such as feathers with an ink spray is one way to make sure everything co ordinates beautifully for a variety of paper-based projects.

It does make the sides clump together a tad, but if you don't like this look I think it could be teased back into shape.

Outline Stickers with Dimensional Magic

DM+Stickers+Pens

I am beginning to like the idea of using alcohol makers (Kaiser pens) under Dimensional Magic.  The beauty of using outline stickers as a base is that the outline forms a little wall that stops the Dimensional Magic from "escaping" as easily as it otherwise might.

In this example I've coloured the large purple flower petals and leaves and just the centres of the smaller yellow flowers.  As has often been the case, the effect, although still on the subtle side, is more apparent in reality than on screen.

I'm kind of coming around to liking outline stickers again too!!!!

STAMPING ON A CANDLE

This is a long-term Gunnadoo that I have finally actually done!!!  For years I've been reading about stamping onto candles but never quite got around to trying it out .  Basically you stamp onto white tissue paper, then apply it to a candle by holding it in place and heating gently with a craft heat gun (whilst avoiding third degree burns to the fingers) until it fuses with the candle. 

This illustrates why the Papertrek blog is good for me - having decided to do a different thing every week means raiding the dark recesses of the brain for new/old ideas, and not just repeating the same old same old.  (Having said that, even after doing the blog for over two years now, I still haven't quite mastered putting the photos where I want them to be on the page, so apologies for the layout - I must add learning to do this properly to my "Gunnadoo" list!!).

Anyway....back to craft.......Before trying this technique I suspected that the end result would look like a candle with a dodgy piece of stamped tissue paper stuck to it.  The good news is that I was wrong.  Even although I used a piece of tissue paper that came inside the box with my latest pair of shoes, and some very cheap dye ink, the results were great - you couldn't really see the tissue at all, and the image was soft but distinct.

CLOSE-UP OF STAMPED TISSUE PAPER ON CANDLE

This was the point when I became overconfident and tried a huge red stamped rose on a big blue candle......well, the colours worked OK.  I thought the ink might be translucent and that I would end up with a purple rose, but that didn't happen.  Even the white tissue blended OK with the blue candle.  What did happen was that with my handheld craft heat gun I was unable to apply an even amount of heat all over the paper so that some pieces failed to blend in with the candles and others sank in.  Also where the wax was overheated and slightly melted its colour changed to a lighter blue.  As you can see from the photo, the result was "ordinary" to put it mildly.

 

WHAT NOT TO DO

STAMPED CANDLE

I guess what I've learned is that small motifs on white candles are easiest to apply, and that if you were, say, intending to do 50 large candles for wedding tables, I'd buy a few more than needed, spend some time practising, and have a few spares as well!!

I haven't burnt the candle to see whether or not there are any implications when the level of the paper is reached.  I don't anticipate any dramas but wouldn't leave them unattended until I definitely knew the paper wasn't going to burn!!!  (Another little something to try before you use them at a social occasion!).

CROCHET FLOWER GREETING CARD

CROCHET FLOWERS

There are so many sources of crochet flower patterns at the moment.  I bought myself a book by Claire Crompton that has lots but there are any number of free patterns available on the web, and once you get started its not all that hard to just make it up as you go.  The first picture is a mix of all three origins.

I find crochet really relaxing, and have any number of bags and purses to prove it.  Flowers are fun because you get the reward of having finished something quickly.  Then, of course, you are left with bags of flowers, and good intentions of finding something to do with them.

As this is the Papertrek blog, here's one thing to do with surplus crochet flowers - combine them with an embossed and sanded piece of Core'dinations Whitewash, pop them on a card blank and give them away to the next person you know who has a birthday!!!!

CROCHET FLOWER CARD

SNOWTEX AND GLITTER

DIECUT STENCIL+SNOWTEX+GLITTER

I was cutting out snowflakes with a die from Couture Creations and thought I'd use one of the cut out backgrounds as a stencil for Snowtex.   I was pleasantly surprised with how well it worked as this has quite fine detail, and I was expecting it to smear under the edges.  Snowtex is a very thick white texture paste.  Whilst it was still wet I added loads of fine glitter, which (despite some reservations on my part as to whether or not it would be the case) stayed put once the Snowtex was dry.  The result is a rough dimensional glittery motif, that I rather like.  (It looks better in reality - the photo doesn't do justice to the sparkle).

STAMPING ON CORK

STAMP WITH COLOURED PENCILS ON CORK

There's a simple example of a simple idea this week.  Stamps will (with the correct ink) stamp an image onto any number of different surfaces.   Cork works well with most inks - I've just used Versafine sepia on a stamp from Rubbadubbadoo in this example, and coloured it in with pencils (nothing fancy, just some of the kids cast-offs).

The very thin cork I've used here tends to be a bit crumbly so I've punched slightly larger holes than I would normally make for the split pins.  Tearing the edges proved quite hard to control, so I had to resort to a ruler on the outer boundary to make sure it didn't tear too far.

I have written myself a mental note to try some other colouring media on cork to see how that turns out.

MAGIC CLAY IN SILICONE MOLDS

MAGIC CLAY IN SILICONE MOLDS

I found my air dry Magic (paper) clay the other day.  Truthfully, it wasn't exactly lost, just put aside for 3 or 4 years....I don't really know why, as  I went through a phase of stamping into it and making topper buttons for cards with quite pleasing results..."been there done that syndrome" perhaps? Anyway, when I saw these Martha Stewart molds, I thought it was time to get the clay out again.
Unfortunately the years of neglect meant that the clay was a bit dried out.  Surprisingly as long as there was some moisture left, it still seemed to work OK, but clearly needed using up ASAP......hence all these little card-sized bits and pieces - great results for little effort.  Just push the clay into the silicone mold, then carefully remove it and leave overnight to dry.

WAXED PAPER DIE-CUT BACKGROUND

WAXED DIE-CUT BACKGROUND

Making the scrumpled waxed paper background the other week, made me think....

I've been using waxed lunchwrap with my doiley dies because it reduces the amount of paper left in the die, but this means that I'm left with a lot of waxed paper die-cut doileys.... I have actually used a few on some of my cards but mostly they end up in the bin.

This time I ironed the cut-out, waxed side down onto plain coloured card.  The result was a clear (clearer than this photo would suggest) albeit subtle impression.  The die-cut doiley still ended up in the bin, but at least I got a second use from it.

Remember to use a fairly cool iron on a dry setting.

PAPER BEADS

PAPER BEADS

CLOSE UP

I made these a little while ago and have in fact worn them to work a couple of times (after all if you can't wear paper beads in a craft shop where can you wear them? )

One sheet of 12 x 12 paper will be enough to make all of these grey beads, as long as you end each in a point which becomes the edge of the wide end of the next bead.

I've just used a glue stick to add a bit of body as I wound them up and then coated the finished beads with Mod Podge to glue them properly and provide a protective finish.

After a bit of experimenting, the easiest way to do this seems to be to wind the elongated diamond shaped pieces of paper around a bamboo skewer  (you can make several on the one skewer).  After that if you rest the ends of the skewers across a shoe box or plastic container, you can brush the sealer over all the beads at once, and they will turn as you brush so all sides are done at once, and you can just leave them in place to dry.

For this necklace I've used white shell beads as a spacers.  I think the extra weight helps it hang better.

WOODEN BOX WITH PAPER FEATURES

AUTUMN LEAF BOX

Marvin has been making some more boxes.  This one has a patterned paper (Autumn leaves) inset on the top, which was varnished afterwards.  A hole was made in the side of the box with a Forstener drill bit and the same paper was glued underneath a glass cabochon as a feature.
My contribution (and hence why I include it on my blog even if it is cheating a bit....well a lot) was to line the box with suede paper.
To my mind paper and wood are natural companions so I'll be exploring the combination more this year.

WAXED PAPER BACKGROUND

CLOSE UP

CRUMPLED WAX PAPER BACKGROUND

 I've seen this in every second craft book but never tried it until now.
As with last week's post, this falls into my favourite category of super simple but really effective.  All you need to do is crumple up a piece of waxed paper then gently iron it with a coolish iron, waxed side down against the paper to which you want to transfer the pattern.  Apart from remembering not to have the iron on steam, that's really all there is to it.

SUPER SIMPLE DO IT YOURSELF BACKGROUND STAMP

STRING STAMP

I think this photo is fairly self-explanatory but......  If you would like a simple background stamp, just wrap string around a block of some sort (I used the box which used to be packaging for a hole punch).  Tie it off at the top so that the knot doesn't intrude into the design,  Paint on a little acrylic paint and stamp it gently onto the surfact you want to decorate. Too much pressure tends to squeeze the paint out, so all you need is basically to make contact with the paper/card.
thats all there is to it.  Cheap as chips and quite effective!

MORE PENDANTS

MORE PENDANT IDEAS

I'm still enjoying playing with wearable paper.  Two of these are photos (the red and gold round picture is the ceiling of a local church, the other is one of my touristy snaps from London.  The top example is a bit of a "ring in" as it is made from wood veneer.  For the record I'm not super keen on the end result with this one as the glue reacted strangely - I think that perhaps sealing it first would help.

The same is somewhat true for the photos - the London one in particular (printed on my home inkjet printer) went a bit blurry as the dimensional magic I used as glue dissolved some of the printer ink.  It was a bit of a happy mistake in this case as I don't mind the end result at all.  I used less glue on the other photo and there were no problems.

All of these so far have glass tops, but the remaining pendant features a cut out from a Kaiser paper pad, and is topped with an acrylic sticker.  This worked way better than I would have predicted.  I was going to use it as a card embellishment but am now thinking it might have an outing or two around my neck before I consign it to the craft box.

USING STENCILS IN CUTTLEBUG

MACHINE EMBOSSED STENCILS

One of my on-going resolutions regarding my craft supplies is to "use or lose it."   Now of course I don't want to get rid of anything potentially useful - which is just about everything, so I've been raiding the shelves and re-discovering some almost forgotten "toys."

In the olden days (i.e. a few years ago) machines like the Cuttlebug and Bigshot were rarities and when we wanted to emboss a pattern we used either a lightbox or a window and a brass or plastic stencil combined with a stylus to hand-emboss our paper.

With the advent of embossing folders my collection of brass and plastic stencils has stayed unused and unloved for a very long time.  I've just bought a new rubber embossing mat for my Cuttlebug so I thought it was a good time to try it out with these stencils.  Previously I hadn't been overly impressed with the results but this mat is fabulous and suddenly I'm all enthused about using all my long-neglected stencils again, especially as I don't have to laboriously trace around them all by hand!!  The main thing I have learnt is that the type of embossing mat used DOES make a difference.

The stack I used was A, B, stencil, paper, rubber mat, B.  Do be aware though, that despite a lot of info around that suggest otherwise, there is no magic combination that suits all situations - it really depends on the thickness of your paper/card, the thickness of your rubber mats, whether your plates have a bit of a bend or not etc.  The trick is to do a few trial runs before the main project, and never force a stack that feels too thick through the machine.  The examples shown in the photo were my trial runs and hence they aren't properly centred etc.  I had anticipated having to muck around with bits of cardboard etc. and was pleasantly surprised to find it worked first pop with both kinds of stencil!