The Scrapbooking Studio Design Team: Quick & Easy Christmas Gift

For one of this month's design team projects for The Scrapbooking Studio I put together a 7ge Printer's Tray will some favorite images from a dear friend's wedding. I mixed it with some Teresa Collin's Notations collection papers.

While this one will be on display at The Scrapbooking Studio for a bit, this would make a great Christmas or Anniversary gift for the new brides in your lives. (I'm guessing you may know a few since Christmas is a popular time to get engaged!)

Printers tray and stand; round sticker - Seven Gypsies; Patterned papers, letter "F" - Teresa Collins; Metal frame, numbers, bottles - Tim Holtz; Black paint - Ranger; Black embossing powder - American Crafts; Purple flowers - Prima; Pearls - My Mind's Eye; Purple bead glitter - Martha Stewart; Cream letters - Momenta; Letter stickers - October Afternoon; Putple Spica Pen - Copic; Trinket pin - Maya Road; Seam binding ribbon - Craft Supply; "Oct" letters - Girls Paperie; Purple Cardstock - The Paper Company; Label Die Cut - Spellbinders; Number "11" stickers - Making Memories.

They were planning to decorate their master bedroom in cream and black with damasks, so the papers from the Teresa Collins "Notations" lines were just perfect for this project!

The photos are all 4" x 6" or less, so it was super easy to run them through my Xyron 510 (it has a 5" width) to make sure that they were evenly covered with adhesive and would be firmly affixed to the printer's tray. For the smaller pieces, I used the Xyron 1.5" (aka 150 or "X" sticker maker). I have always found the Xyron's permanent adhesive to be quite sturdy and reliable.

I used some letters from The Girls Paperie along with some findings from the Tim Holtz Ideaology line to add their wedding date to a few of the squares. The "08" letters were originally silver, which of course wouldn't show well against the cream, so I first painted them black and then heat embossed them with black powder. Their wedding colors were purple, so I filled the mini bottles with two shades of lavender beaded glitter and glued the corks shut so they wouldn't spill.

One of the things I love about Teresa Collin's lines is that she often does ones that are simply just black + cream or black + white. This versatility lets you customize your color scheme with paints and inks to fit your needs. In this case, I colored it in with a purple Copic Spica to add a little glimmer while introducing the purple wedding color. I also used some rub-ons to make a little monogram in the banner.

Head on over to The Scrapbooking Studio to see this project in person and pick one up for yourself. And don't worry about how you'll fill the little boxes, there are guides to the sizes on the Seven Gypsies website and it's a great way to use up little extra trinkets in your stash.

Family Frame

Did you have a grand plan to make all of your Christmas gifts this year? Are you finding yourself running out of time to get them done?

Here's a quick and easy project for you!

I found this frame at Staples for about $4. It has two 4"x6" openings and two 4"x4" openings. And it just so happens that the lovely people at Simple Stories happen to make pattern papers that have designs in 4x6 and 4x4 so all you have to do is pick your theme (baby, birthday, family, everyday, summer, school, etc.) and add some of their designs to the windows. For this frame I chose to use pattern paper and embellishments in all of the openings, but you could use pictures for some of them. You could also put the family's name or "est. date" in one of the windows (instead of the ruffled ribbon.)

Design for The Scrapbooking Studio

Patterned paper - "Generations" by Simple Stories; Key, Clock hands, Token, Brad, Washer - Tim Holtz; Cream ribbon - Offray; brown ribbon & rhinestone embellishment - Prima; Ink - Color box.

Since I used lumpy embellishments, I took the glass out, but it would also be cool to leave the glass in and add vinyl or something over the top of it.

Gifting on the Fly

As the countdown to Christmas runs down you may be finding yourself in a pickle with those hard to buy for people on your list. If you are like me, that means gift cards to the rescue! The only thing I dislike about gift cards is that they seem rather cold and impersonal so I like to present them in a handmade gidt card holder.

On my way home from work tonight  I needed a last minute gift (literally walked into the store at 5:32 and had to be at my destination with gift in tow by 6). Fortunately the giftee is a fellow scrapbooker so I popped into my LSS for a gift card. This year they are offering cute little paper bags embossed with snowflakes to put their gift cards in. Not only did I need to purchase the gift card, I needed to wrap it in store too, so I grabbed a cute little elf sticker (Doodlebug, $1.49) and a foot of metallic red cord (May Arts, 25¢) and wrapped it up at the checkout counter. (Many thanks go out to Michelle for holding it still while I wrapped the cord and for lending her finger to tie the knot.)

Here's the result. It literally under 5 minutes including checkout!

Please excuse the sideways photo. I am blogging from my phone and can't find a way to rotate it.

Dec. 25th Basic Grey

A few weeks back I shared the "foundation" of this layout on the blog. Sometimes when I have supplies I need to work with, I just go ahead and create a layout and then look for the right photo later.

The foundation page was nice, but today I thought I'd share with you how a few added touches can really bring your layout up a notch (or two, or three).

Adding texture and dimension to your pages always helps add visual interest. I like to create different vignettes within the page in order to attract your eye and draw you attention to key elements on the page.

In the image below, the "Merry Christmas" text and pleated ribbon draw the eye into the center of the page where the date of the photo is featured.

Look for this project in the Cricut Holiday Ideas Book.

This project will return in November 2012.

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The cluster of embellishments on the lower left corner help ground the photo and connect the page title "Merry Christmas" to the photo.

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And last, but not least, the white snowflake border strip helps connect the left and right sides of the page.

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Design for The Scrapbooking Studio

Supplies: Basic Grey "Nordic," Tim Holtz; Martha Stewart, BoBunny, Bazzill, Recollections, Cricut, Tsukineko, Making Memories

Using these simple tips, you too can create pages that are fast and fabulous.

My first published page!

The January edition of Creating Keepsakes Magazine is out and it includes my first published page! (See page 73). I'm so excited to be part of a publication that has brought me inspiration for years.

Page 73 from the January issue of Creating Keepsakes Magazine



If you want to make your own version of this layout you can download a free template from Creating Keepsakes.

12 Tags with Tim Holtz meets Ali Edwards December Daily

Every year I follow the tags that Tim Holtz makes as part of his "12 tags of Christmas" event. (It's safe to call it an event right? I mean for us scrapbookers, it might even be THE event of the season!) I love the artistry of his designs and being a card-carrying tools and technique junkie, well lets just say it's like giving crack to addict (Distress Crackle that is).

I also love Ali Edward's December Daily project, but my holiday season is usually pretty mundane. This time of year is typically my busy season at work, we don't have kids, and for the last few years, I haven't even bothered to decorate. *gasp!*

So this year I had an epiphany... what if I combine the Tim's Tags with Ali's December Daily concept? I mean after all, Tim doesn't do anything with the backs of the tags and they ARE are just BEGGING to be completed.

Thus my hybrid approach was born. *Que the chorus*

First, I designed some daily jounaling cards (a la Becky Higgin's Project 365) that I could print out ahead of time. This way, at the end of each day I could grab one to jot down what I wanted to record for the day even if I don't have time to make a tag. Some days they will be things that happened, other days will be things I want to remember or thoughts of the season. I printed them on some grid paper from October Afternoon because well, I had a scrap of it laying there and it fit in my printer. Yes folks, there are very scientific design choices happening around here.

Click to bigify.

Supplies: October Afternoon, American Crafts, KaiserKraft, Martha Stewart, Epson, Colorbox

Once those were printed and trimmed, I set to work creating Tim's Tag No. 4. I started with this one for a few reasons:
Reason #1 - I had most of the supplies.
Reason #2 - It snowed here on December first.

For this tag I pretty closely followed Tim's design, but with a few modifications. For example, I don't have a bird named Coco to share feathers with me, so I used some holly leaves cut out of grunge paper that were leftovers from some other project. I also wanted to work in the new October Afternoon Holiday Style line, so I introduced some elements from that line as well as Very Merry.

Click to bigify.

Supplies: Tim Holtz, Sizzix, October Afternoon, Making Memories, Copic, Ranger, Kaiser Kraft, Bazzill.



The holly on his hat was cut out of grunge paper using a Cricut. The awesome thing is that since grunge paper takes alcohol inks, I was able to color it using Copic markers. Now lets keep in mind that I'm totally a Copic novice. I actually only own them to recolor embellishments. So I was pretty pleased when these turned out quite nicely!

I also made a few modifications to the snowflake border. Since I didn't have any packaging to cut up, I used a piece of acrylic I had left over from cutting out my own acrylic album pages. Then, I wanted it to have the look of glistening snow, so I painted the backside with pearl paint. In hindsight, the pearl came out looking pretty metallic, so if I was to do it again, I'd probably use the Making Memories pearl white paint instead. It has more of an iridescent shine to it.
I think Tim said not to heat the acrylic, but since I tend not to follow directions well, I went ahead and did it anyway. Don't you like the texture it adds?

Have you been participating in the 12 Tags? Leave a comment and share a link to you tags with us!

Christmas Cards on Wednesdays

What can I say? I just can't resist a good kraft paper base!


Still working on getting those cards made and ready to send? No problem, here's another simple (and easy to replicate) design to add to your repertoire. Hey, sometimes simple says it best, right? ;)

Design for The Scrapbooking Studio

Patterned paper - Teresa Collins; Kraft paper - DMD; Black cardstock - Bazzill; Corrugated heart - Jillibean Soup; Star stick pin - Maya Road; Stamp - Inkadoo; Ink - VersaFine; Green ribbon - May Arts

Although, the star is a wee bit lumpy, so you might want to save this one for hand delivery.