Alternative Uses for Scrapbook Paper

Scrapbook paper can be used in a variety of ways -- other than scrapbooking. Think outside the box! There are many different textures and patterns of paper that make terrific collages for wall art. Here are a couple of examples of collages I have made.




I purchased a 10x10 artist stretched canvas and painted it black. Then I layered and glued different textures and sizes of scrapbooking papers.


Across the bottom, I pierced two holes on each side with a sewing needle and threaded a wired string of orange beads.


Paper is from Paper Pizzaz.

When I saw this frame I thought it was perfect for a paper collage. The papers are sandwiched between two pieces of glass, which makes them appear to "float."

I crumbled the paper and then smoothed it back out for a textured look. Paper is from Paper Pizzaz. Other elements are Rebecca Sower's Fresh Cuts - Keys to the Past.

Iris Folding Cards

A couple more cards using the iris folding technique. The template and papers are from the Anna Griffin kit.

How to Create a Sunflower Centerpiece

November was my parents 47th wedding anniversary! We planned a very nice family dinner at home for them. I created a fresh flower centerpiece to brighten the table. I re-used a square glass container (I think it had cashews in it before) and placed river rocks in the bottom. I filled the vase about half full with water and emptied the packet of flower perserver that came with the bouquet. This stuff really works -- the flowers lasted over a week before they started to wilt.

I picked up a fresh flower bouquet for $15 at Sam's Club. Starting with the most prominent flowers first (the sunflowers) I cut them to size and placed in the container. I use kitchen shears and cut the steams at an angle. Remember to remove any leaves that will lie below the level of the water in the vase as this will help to keep the flowers fresh. Next, I cut the filler flowers at shorter lengths and placed in the container. Since this arrangement was a centerpiece and viewed from all sides, the flowers must be placed all around at different angles for the best look. For a finishing touch I added some lengths of grapevine and leaves I had on hand from another floral arrangement.

A Quick Baby Shower Invitation

Have you ever needed to make an invitation quickly? That was my dilemma and they needed to be fairly simple since I was making 20. I could have resorted to an e-mail invitation, but there is just something nicer about a traditional paper invitation. Browsing through the racks of scrapbook paper at the store, I came upon an idea of using a clear overlay of baby words from Creative Imaginations. I used a green paper from Die Cuts With a View for the background. For all the inside details of where and when, I printed those out and glued it inside. Done!

Upcycling contest

I entered the Upcycling contest sponsored by Singer/Craft Magazine and was chosen as a runner-up! I created baby shower decorations using a pair of old jeans, stash ribbon and paper napkins. Check it on on their website.

Instructions:

Invitation -- use a blank greeting card, stitch ribbon, jean material, and paper napkin to front of card using zig-zag stich.

Centerpiece -- cut out two squares from old jeans, stitch sides together to create a bag, insert ivy and flowers, tie with ribbon, and cut out paper napkin elephant graphic and glue on front of bag.

Favor bags -- cut out small squares from old jeans and stitch sides together to create small bags, fill with candy, tie with ribbon, cut out elephant graphic from napkin and glue on front of bag.

Banner -- cut out denim squares and paper napkins with pinking shears. Stitch paper napkin squares to denim using zig-zag stitch. Cut small slits in corner of denim squares and thread ribbon through, tying knots at each slit.

Iris Folding

This is a recent card I made using the technique of iris folding. The paper and instructions used come in a kit by Anna Griffin. I added the ribbon bow and metal circle tag. I also used a Fiskar corner punch on the green background paper.

Iris folding refers to a technique where folded strips of colored or patterned paper are layered in a spiral pattern behind an aperture. It is called Iris Folding because it resembles the iris of a camera. This particular pattern included using ribbon as well as paper in the layered look.

I found an excellent tutorial on iris folding here. This really helped me in understanding the technique.

You can find free patterns here.

Scrapbook Flip Calendar

I bought several of these flip calendar kits from K & Company. I made one for me and 3 other for gifts.

The kits includes the easel-back calendar, die-cut pocket pages, lined and numbered tab cards, die-cuts, stickers, Grand Adhesions, Clearly Yours, rub-on transfers, lace, buttons, ribbons, bow, colored floss and string. You add your own photos for each month. It also comes with 5 years worth of stickers to change the year at the bottom of the calendar.







Since this involved so much time in creating, I wanted to use it year after year. So, I attached each photo with photo-safe repositionable tape, so that I could change the photos out.


These are close-ups of two of the months created with photos of my nephew.














The tabs for each month pull out and you can write dates to remember on the cards and then slide them back in the pocket.

Wedding Invitation

One of my first card making ventures was to make wedding invitations for my sister in 1997.

Materials/Instructions:

5x7 Blank Strathmore Creative Cards

Large round paper doilies

Hunter Green ribbon

Hunter Green ink

1. Cut each paper doily in half.

2. Spray back of cut doily with adhesive.

3. Attach to front of card.

4. Ink the front edge of the card dark green.

5. Hot glue a small green ribbon bow to the front.

Window Treatments

Choosing window treatments can be daunting. This is one area that I do pay a little extra to get good quality fabric. Fabrics soften a space, and the right look will enhance your room's decor. It is usually best to use decorator fabrics as opposed to fashion fabrics. Decorator fabrics have different features which lend themselves better to drapery. Decorator fabrics are more durable, drape better and most have had a finish added to increase stain, crease, mildew, and fade resiliency.

But it is easier than you think to get a custom look at a bargain price. I wait for the 50% off coupons for JoAnn Fabrics and then go shopping. These are photos of different window treatments I have sewn for our home.



Living Room. The panel curtains came with the house when we bought it and were lined. They were a little plain but good quality. Using Simplicity pattern #8803 I made the swags and jabots in coordinating fabrics to match the panels. They are attached (I stapled them) on a mounting board and attached the board to the wall over the current curtain rod system. These were definitely the most difficult window treatments I have made and took several days to finish. I kind of promised myself never to do these again :).


The Dining Room is visible from the Living Room, so I made a matching swag topper here too. The plain panels were not wide enough for the window, so I added 2 coordinating print panels.









Using Simplicity pattern #7204 I made these for the Office. The big saving here was the material I used were the curtain panels that came with the house for this room. I just repurposed them! I added two plain panels as accents.







I used Simplicity pattern #8894 for these. When I chose the wallpaper and border for this room, matching fabric was also available. I purchased only 1 yard because it was REALLY expensive. It was just enough to make the fabric triangles. Each triangle has a tassel attached at the bottom. The triangles were attached to the curtain rod with metal curtain rings that have clips.



These are the curtains I made to match our bedroom set. Pre-made floral curtain panels were available to match the comforter. I thought that much of the pattern was overwhelming. So I cut the bottom off the purchased panels and sewed brown suede fabric onto them.






I found a really good deal on these curtains, but they were too short. I liked the large grommets at the top, so I found coordinating fabric and sewed it to the bottom of the panels. My own custom look!

Bedroom Suite Furniture

We built this wall unit for our bedroom. My brother-in-law had built two of these previously and created the design himself. Working with him it took us a week to cut, stain, and build everything. After we had it placed in the bedroom, my husband added the overhead lighting system. My favorite find are the door handles. I spent several hours on the internet searching for just the right size curved handles. I just love them! The guys weren't so thrilled as I guess there were quite difficult to install. It was a big project and was hard work, but we were really pleased with the finished pieces.

Sculpture String-Art Sailboat

My Dad encouraged my crafting ability. He always was bringing home different kits for me to put together. This one is a 3-D string-art sailboat that I did as a teenager. I've not seen one like it anywhere else.

Great-Aunt Esther's Embroidery

Much of the embroidery we see today is done by machine. But beautiful stitching is possible by hand. Hand embroidery is a traditional art form passed from generation to generation in many cultures. This is a photo of a handkerchief that my Great-Aunt Esther embroidered.

Embroidery designs may be stamped or drawn on the material, or they can be done freehand. Embroidery uses embroidery floss and an embroidery needle, which has a slightly larger eye but is still sharp.

There are five basic stitches. There are more, but if you learn these five you can work 95 percent of the kits available. The stitches are:

(1) Outline stitch. This is a running stitch that, as the name implies, outlines a design.

(2) Satin stitch fills in open areas with closely worked stitches that give the appearance of satin.

(3) Lazy daisy makes small flower petals

(4) The basic cross (X) stitch also fills in open areas, or forms designs

(5) French knot is used to suggest small dots, such as eyes, pebbles, flower centers, and so on.

A very handy dictionary of different stitches

Free patterns for hand embroidery

Great-Great-Grandpa's Desk

My Great-Great-Grandfather Bone made this drop-lid writing desk. By the time it came to me it was covered with an awful black shiny varnish. Apparently black varnish was my Great-Grandma Ringer's solution to everything. I can remember that most of her furniture was covered with it. I striped the old varnish off and stained it a beautiful walnut color and then rubbed linseed oil into the wood.

Great-Grandma Fannie's Quilts

Grannie made each great-granchild a quilt. She hand-quilted each one -- no machine quilting for her! The photo shows 2 of her quilts. One of Grannie's favorite pattern was the flower garden. She would use up all her fabric scraps from old dresses and other fabrics that she had on hand.

You can find the flower garden pattern here.

Ever wonder what to do with all of those plastic grocery bags? Instructions to quilt your very own tote using the plastic grocery bags are here. Very cool . . .

I just love these quilted bag patterns, particulary this blue bag. I bought this pattern! I hope to make one soon.

Grandma Vera's Crocheting

Here are a few things Grandma Vera crocheted. An Afghan she made as a wedding present for me and one of her handkerchiefs. Grandma was a whiz at all things crochet. She could whip up sweaters, scarfs, hats, afghans, dollies, whatever she wanted, all while watching TV.



She made attempts at showing me how. I know the basics but did not seem to have the patience required.


Of course now that I've seen some patterns for jewelry made by crocheting, I'm more interested in revisiting this craft. These are some of the free patterns that caught my eye:







Crocheting w/ beads

Wire crocheting

necklace

This one isn't a free pattern, but I really like it -- and I think it's well worth the $7.00 for this pattern and 3 other styles that come with it.

The Art of Shuttle Tatting

Tatting is a vintage craft used to make a type of lace. A tatting shuttle facilitates tatting by holding a length of wound thread and guiding it through loops to make knots.

To make the lace, the tatter wraps the thread around one hand and manipulates the shuttle with the other hand. No tools other than the thread, the hands, and the shuttle are used, though a crochet hook may be necessary if the shuttle does not have a point or hook.

My Great Grandma Fannie used a shuttle to tat. She made lace for edges of handkerchiefs, dollies, and pillowcases. One of her handkerchiefs is pictured to the right.

While the finished product looks quite complicated to complete, many websites promise it isn't so hard to learn. You can find several sites to learn tatting, complete with step-by-step photos.

A beginner's guide to tatting.
Instructional video on YouTube that is very good.

By far the coolest thing to inspire me to learn to tat is JEWELRY. I'm always a sucker for unique jewelry. I found several free patterns online.

tatted necklace and braclet set

tatted earrings










tatted earrings

First Post! -- Milk Filter Bed Dolls

Well, here goes my first post . . .

This is the doll that started the idea of this blog. My Mom has kept this doll for years because, well, it was made by Great-Grandma Lucy. You can't throw it away, geeesh. The idea was born to keep a record of family hand-crafted items.



This doll is called a milk-filter bed doll because milk filters were used to create the dress. Even after 50+ years, it still looks in pretty good shape.

These were popular in the 1950's and kits were sold by various stores. A 6" to 8" doll was used, and you made a dress out of milk filter discs about 6" in diameter. You quartered them, then tied them in rows with yarn to form a dress and skirt.

If your interested in trying it for yourself, click here to download the instructions.

You will need about 60 discs for each doll. You can buy the milk filters from Hoegger Goat Supply. The item number is 11G. They come in a package of 100 for $5.45.