Flowers & Style

This is the first post about flowers and scrapbooking.  The reason is quite simple; except for the few occasions I've used paper flowers - in very limited quantities - on a scrapbook page, I haven't seen a need from them.  There's a dimensional aspect that I figured would fail when used in a traditional, sheet protected 12x12 album-bound book.  

For the past couple of months when doing the scrapbook store run I've began picking up a package or two of assembled flowers when found on sale.  They aren't cheap.  Last week, TM had a sale on Prima Flowers (the industry standard) which reduced the $4.00 packages down to 99c each.  Talk about building a rapid inventory! 


Though I'm not quite sure where to start, I'm fascinated by the flowers made by I am Roses. You get a big bang for each buck there, and they are truly lovely.  They have a huge assortment of flower types, sizes and colours, and priced very reasonably.  Except that I have to restock on some very basic supplies, I would order enough to sample and play around with.


The big box craft stores all carry silk flowers, which they regularly have 50% sales.  This is an area to pay more attention, especially the bridal section.


And in no way least, there's virtually an unlimited range of paper flowers created with the Cricut.  I've watched scores of YouTube video demonstrating techniques of creating beautiful flowers I never would have thought possible.


Primarily through the warehouse sales, I've built a reasonable collection of Tattered Angels sprays and glimmer paints.  These consistently put out stunning effects, but they really need to figure out a better spray system.  I've yet to complete a project without having the sprayer clog.  Everywhere I turned I kept hearing about Lindy's Stamp Gang, a direct competitor of Tattered Angels.  I watched several videos from both the manufacturer and independent reviews, and I'm convinced this line definitely has a place in my growing spray paint/mist collection.  Lots of them!  The mention of the sprays and mists while posting about flowers is because these play such an important role in colouring flowers... and so much more.


The white flowers at the lower right corner are some left over from a wedding several years ago.  Cheap, cheap, cheap.  The coloured flowers are the same set but with a stingy application of differently coloured Tattered Angel's mist sprays.

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It's taken awhile to figure this out, but I do have a "style".  It is the colours and images predominate between 1910-1960.  Yes, that's a sizable range, but these are the colours I love working with best.  G45 probably helped with that, but it holds true across all paper lines and graphics.  When I heard yesterday about an online store, CraftySecrets.com carrying vintage papers, postcards, and images; I had to go check it out.  Using incredible ultra-human restraint, I left the site with only a large stamp set (perfect for the G45 On the Boardwalk line!!) and 32 page postcard collection, and two booklet sets.  Yes, all from the 1930-60's.  And as it happened, they had a sale in place.  I will go back to "visit" again, some time soon.  Oh, yes, life is good!


Then, as if the gummy karma worms weren't helping along most wonderfully, today I found a blog site here called The Graphics Fairy LLC, with free(!) vintage images... thousands of them.  Too good to be true.


On a sadder note, one of my all-time punches got damaged somehow.  The question becomes:  do I go out and buy another, or do I go with a similar punch? This is really discouraging; having to buy something a bit pricey twice.

Adhesives, Photography & Lessons Learned

I've selected some of my best pages (best in my opinion) and began photographing them.  Certainly a skill set of its own!  I've noticed some of the pages set out in the house as temporary decorations throughout the year warped.  Too much heat?  Not enough support?  Really, there was no clue as to what factors, or combination therein, cased this discernible warping.  The largest concern was that once warped the page could not be straightened or photographed properly.

I just LOVE the internet.  There's absolutely no question that anyone can ask that the internet can't provide an answer.  However did we live our lives without it? A couple of inquiries solved the riddle about warping.

The key seems to involve the amount of adhesives used on the page.  The more glues, the more certainty to warp.  Well... that's a problem since almost everything on the page requires taking down onto the page. 

Early on I understood different sorts of glue were on the market, and many not suited for scrapbooking due to acid or other chemical content.  Fortunately I have a niece with years of experience in the hobby pound this information into my head before I ever picked up a pair of scissors, and nothing was ever ruined or threatened by paper- or photo-toxic adhesives. 

Without a little experience in this craft it's difficult imagining how many, many different types of adhesives are available specifically for scrapbooking. There are dimensional dots that raise an element off the page.  There are liquid glues for paper-to-paper bonding.  Glue runners, where a line of rubbery glue bonds many types of elements together.  All stickers come pre-glued.  And finally, for purposes of discussion, there are glitter glues.

(Upon reflection the previous two paragraphs probably been posted previously... if so, whoops.  It's not as if anyone happens on to the page anyway.)

So!  Is it the weight of the glues or the types of glues that cause the warping?

The project in question begins with a heavy paper, or what I consider card stock.  In this case I used the Cricut to cut out "Give Thanks" in 3 inch letters to mount on the page.  (Side note:  the size of the script was primarily determined by the skill set I had at the time in working with the Cricut.  Today I could easily bring that down to 1 inch.)  This element was also heavily decorated with glitter, since this was my first work with the stuff and I wanted to experiment.   And, because the glittered element was never to actually come into contact with the photo page, I cheated and used regular Elmer's Glue from a bottle.  (Covering a 3 inch phrase with glitter requires a whole lot of glue!)  There were several dimensional stickers added to balance the height of the overall page.  Finally, since the page was created to decorate a holiday table, it was placed on a plate holder for a full month.

When described as such, retrospect tells me I probably did everything possibly wrong to the page.  The tip offered here is:  watch the use of glue and the quantity used.

Live and Learn!!

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In a huge departure of my buying philosophy "never pay full price for anything," I did just that.  Not once, but twice!


Paper companies come out with full lines of accessories in almost all collections.  This usually includes: 12x12, 8x8, and sometimes 6x6 inch paper pads, individual sheets, stickers, chip board sets, perhaps coordinating ribbons, alphabet stickers, stamps and possibly more.  The longer a collection has been out in the market, the harder it is to find many of the accessories.  Thus and therefore, to assure the option of buying collection accessories, it has to be bought early on, and usually at full price.  This lesson came painfully when I found an older collection and discovered nothing but the one pad and a sticker set remained.  That was after I conducted the most extensive internet search possible.

Graphic 45 specializes in nostalgic 1920-30's images in incredible colours.  It's a great paper to work with be that scrapbooking, or in creating home decor; some pages are nice enough to frame as is.  It also runs on the expensive side.  Thus far, I found the paper line too intimidating to use in everyday scrapping.  What I have worked with has been found at greatly reduced prices with limited accessories, if any.  This year they came out with a line called "Little Darlings."  It was love at first sight.  I knew this was a collection applicable to so many pages I want to scrap, but had not found paper to do the intended photos justice.  I bought the FULL line, except the 3 different stamp sets and the 8x8 paper pad; however, I bought extra copies of some of the accessories.  I all but fell over when the price totaled over $50, but every scrap of this stuff will be used for years.  I may go back and make up for the accessories not originally purchased my next allowance cycle.

Then I found a completed layout from scrapbooking.com featuring a different company line.  I used restraint and didn't go all out and buy the full collection, but did purchase enough of the coordinating supplies to pull together a couple of antique photo pages.  Again at full price. 

This is the type of post (very chatty) where there's not much I can't do for the day.  Obviously, this is one of those days.

I couldn't resist putting an image of the collection here!

Graphic 45 Little Darlings Main Image Page

Shock and Awww!

There's still an itch to get back to scrapbooking, and yet I simply can't find the inspiration to actually sit down and do the deed.  I miss this stuff!

The Kiwi Lane Design templates arrived.  That should be enough to cause immediate breaking down of doors and pulling out the drawers and get down to scrappin'; alas, not quite yet.  For reference, I purchased the bracket and scallop 12 in sets.  They are adorable.

I found an online scrapbook store called Blue Moon Scrapbooking.  They may not be the largest store out there, and they are large, but what they have are collections and items fairly unique, and on the pricier side.  (Okay, I consider anything over $10 an item is on the pricier side!)

While perusing there last night I fell head over heels in love with a new Graphic 45 collection called Little Darlings, an infancy paper theme with 1920-30's colour schemes.  I showed Martin the collection and he absolutely looked aghast.  "Angel, how would you EVER use this paper?  It's too pretty to cut and some of the pages are works of art in their own right!"  Yep, his first exposure to Graphic 45 scrapbook paper.

The following scrapbook page is one of the very first done and is one in a series of three.  And yes, I'm still working to perfect the photographing of scrapbook pages.

Sharpies & Photos

Altering photographs is scarey business.

I attempt to decorate photos  only on prints that can easily be taken to the local photo shop and have them printed again.  Never, never, never on original prints dating back years.

Today I played with a print recently back from Walgreen's and decided to use one of the journaling templates bought, but rarely used.  The template is plastic if that makes any difference at all.  For the colouring medium, I decided on a Sharpie Marker.  (Sharpie has such a great range of colour you would never expect, usually found in the art department of a craft store.)

Not the greatest idea I've come up with!  The ink sets on top of the print and the moment the template moved the ink dragged with it.  Fortunately, I was able to save the print because the ink sets on top of the print instead of quickly absorbing into the photograph paper.  This is a mixed blessing.

I would have been much better off using a regular ink pen.  Yes, I know:  standard ink is bad for photos.  Bad.  And so, my first attempt of decorating photos with ink was a partial failure.  Live and learn, right?

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The Peach Keen Stamp set arrived in the mail today.  My first project using these stamp will surely involve anthropomorphizing a soccer ball, since the next scrapbook page involves documenting this winter's Futsol games.  It's safe to say there will be many uses for the stamps throughout the hobby.  Now I'm dancing around waiting for next month to buy the animal faces.  I did decide that eventually the monster faces are a must.


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Getting down the right photography skills is a process and world into it's own.

Another projects finished in the past week:

Feeling A Little Snooty, Page 2

Peach Keey Stamps

I've wanted a Peachy Keen Stamps stamp set for months now.  Today (ta-da) I purchased my first set.  (Now to wait forever to them get to the house.)  This site has to be the best collection of face stamps available.


I ordered the original set, which is a good start.  I also bought an acid/lignum-free white pen to colour in the eyes. 

 

But, oh, how much more they've put out; human, animal, Halloween and many more faces in every size and expression imaginable.  They've even come out with die sets with two different face stamps per die... and they are adorable!

I can only imagine it would take a small fortune to own all their products.  I'll have to be very selective with my inventory.  I think I'll stop at the assorted face stamp set and one assorted animal face set.  Or more.  It depends on my mood.  (I did put a set of acrylic block set with the rounded grips in my wish list for next month's order.  All are currently 90 degree edges.)  They even have stamp sets that coordinate with various Cricut cartridges. Along those lines, MyPinkStamper.com has designed word stamp sets that compliment Cricut cartridges, but I've yet to buy from there, either.  To own fully integrated Cricut cartridge, word and face stamps is a dream come true.

When I receive my next allowance payout I am 100%-positive-sure buying a border template set from Kiwi Lanes.

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Over the past several days I've filled my time by finishing scrapbook pages and have created a few more.  There's no feeling like putting a page in the scrapbook knowing there's no more work to be done.Here is one of the latest pages:

Now that I'm getting the hang of photographing the 12x12 pages I'm sure to post more!

*** Whoopie: My new Spellbinders Edgeability set arrived in the mail today.  :D