Sunday, December 13, 2015

2015 Cookie Book - Flour & Butter & Sugar, Oh My!

Happy Holidays Readers!  It seems this blog has become a once a year thing with me, focusing on the Christmas holiday and the annual Cookie Book.  Maybe I should make it a New Year's resolution to post more often?  Maybe add to that a You Tube Channel and videos...hmmm.  That may have to wait for when I'm retired.  We'll see...

On to the annual cookie book for 2015.  I did skip a year last year due to the move, so this year I wanted to do something really cool and out of the ordinary.  I resized and revamped a version of a coupon book I did many years ago for the now defunct scrapbook store in Cedarburg.  I up-sized it from the original Valentine Coupon/Ticket book idea and toned down the wacky-ness of the page toppers to be more uniform. 

The book jacket I built from 12x24 sheets of paper.  Each top edge was punched with a different design.  The titles were cut with the Cricut.  I stamped the &'s and the little 'Oh My' tag to bring in a bit more of the hand made look and feel to the cover. 

The book covers were done with acrylic paint and my Gelli Print toys.  I pulled two prints from he same paint spread to make a front and back cover.  Sometimes the second print, or ghost print, was not "book-worthy," so I combined it with something not exactly matching.  That's the beauty of a Gelli print.  No two are ever quite the same.  This helps make each book unique for the recipient.  I like to make one of kind things, even though I make 24 of them.  Each is just a little bit different. 

The pages were pulled from my stash of paper, focusing on black and white first, then adding in craft brown and then one Christmas color - red, green, teal, what-have-you.  Again, no two books have exactly the same set of paper in it. 

The recipe cards were cut with the Cricut after spending some time in the design studio getting the shape I wanted.  Then the recipes were printed, corners notched, stars stamped on the pages, and inserted one by one. 








Monday, March 2, 2015

Frisket - ehh..your what hurts?

Hi-ho, Readers! Today we are talking about frisket.  What the heck is frisket, you ask? Well, I'll tell you.  It's a relatively uncommon term in the paper craft industry.  Webster's Dictionary says - A frisket is any material that protects areas of a work from unintended change.  Here is what Wikipedia has to say on the subject http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frisket.  Its a generic term for any kind of mask. 

With paper crafters, it's very common to use some kind of paper masking product or frisket, like Eclipse tape to create a mask. This involves stamping an image and then cutting out a mask for it so that you can stamp other images 'behind' it without over stamping the image you want in the foreground.  But, there are other masking mediums to consider. 

As paper crafters we L-O-V-E to layer paper.  Die-cuts over matt papers over background paper over card base, layer upon layer of paper.  It's what makes us happy!  Ok, ok...but let's put a pin in that for a minute, shall we? 

What if I wanted to build a Valentine without having to layer heart shapes over background paper?  Or, I wanted something I could stamp a sentiment directly onto rather than stamping the sentiment separately and layering it into the piece?  Enter, liquid frisket!  Liquid frisket gives us the chance to go flat, but still be fun and interesting.  The red labeled bottle in the photo below is a liquid masking agent, (go to Amazon.com and search for liquid frisket - you'll see a ton of them) that when brushed on and allowed to dry, creates a waterproof mask.  The drying time is minimal, about 3-5 minutes.  It's completely removable when you are done.  It resembles rubber cement in that you can rub it off with your clean finger, or with a clean eraser or adhesive remover tool. 

I have a TON (seriously, it's a sickness) of stuff to use for coloring, and, it was high time I started to play with something OTHER than actual water colors.  For these samples, I picked Faber Castel Gelatos for the smaller hearts and I used Ranger Distress Ink for the larger piece.  All three enjoyed a spray of Picket Fence Distress paint to splatter white at the end.  You could splatter with bleach water too, but I hate the smell and am I'm tired of white spots on my clothes. 

For the small samples, I cut a heart from scraps and lightly traced it onto some water color paper.  Using an inexpensive brush, (I say that because liquid frisket will render the brush useless for anything else) I outlined the heart with a thin layer of liquid frisket, keeping it about an inch wide all around the heart. After it dries, spray the paper with water.  This helps the colors blend and bleed.  I used a matt knife to snick off a chunk of gelatos and then mixed it with water, using a standard water color paint pallet tray.   This makes a puddle of color you can pick up with your brush.  Once I liked the look of the piece, I used my heat gun to blast them dry, super fast.

The larger sample in the pic starts out the same way, first you trace, then you lay down the frisket INSIDE the heart this time, paint the area outside the heart, dry it completely, remove the frisket.  To get the color inside the heart, Apply a thin coat of frisket OUTSIDE the heart over your now dry paint, and paint as you did before.  


 
 
The end result is a clean edged water color heart that you can stamp over, or around as you like.  In the case of the larger sample, you've got a card front that looks for all the world like you layered paper to get it, but it's flat.  Whoo hoo! 
 
Happy crafting folks! Shout out via comments if you have any questions. 

Wednesday, February 11, 2015

Valentines!

Happy Valentine's Day readers!  Below are some samples of my latest play dates in the craft cave. 

Paper straws hit the crafting scene in a big way last year.  You can find them in every color of the rainbow and just about every pattern too.  I got mine in boxes of 50-100 from Amazon.  Here I used some blue striped straws to create the valentines in the first pic.  Playing with how you lay down the straws results in different patterns emerging in the finished piece.  The trick is to realize that the manufacturer applies the stripes to the straw in one of two ways.  Some get applied wrapping left to right down the straw, and others have the stripe applied right to left.  You'll realize this if you try to make the rick-rack pattern in the card on the right.  This one needs to alternate between left to right and right to left.  The boxes I bought on AZ had a mixture, so I got more versatility.  Its a crap shoot when you buy them, so work with what you have.

This is a simple process that can work for any shape you can fill with the straws.  Think ornaments at Christmas or stars for 4th of July, shamrocks for St Pat's day sound fun too!

My card uses a 4-inch square with the heart die cut from the center.  The backing for this piece is a 3.5-inch square of scrap.  Lay down some tape runner strips onto the front of the backing.  Trim your straws and lay them down onto the tape runner.  It won't stick well, but it will stick enough so you can play with the pattern.  Once you like the pattern, use a bead of hot glue to anchor the two end straws to the backing.  Center the die cut over your pattern of straws and use the hot glue again to stick that down over your straws.  Then it's a simple matter of sticking the whole piece to the front of the card and embellish with whatever sentiment works for you.

Using paper straws in your cards adds quite a bit of dimension. Most straws are 1/4-inch in diameter.  You'll have to accommodate for that in your envelope and expect to pay the extra postage because they are too wide for standard rates.  Still, they are fun and easy and look pretty cool. 


This next card, I'm sorry, but if you put a funny hat on a cute animal,  I'm just plain IN.  'Smitten' the cat was created just because I couldn't just not do it.  Here all I have to say is don't be afraid to go off the edges of your cards.  The heart on the left is bigger than the card. But as you can see, that never stops me!  The stripe over the card is raised up with some pop dots to add some dimension.  The little heart is punched using a Fiskar's Squeeze punch. 


I don't have a ton of completed Valentines and it's already the 11th!  I can see where these might have to stay in the 'shoe box of happiness' until next year.  I'm so behind! 

Love to you all this Valentine's Day!

AMK

Friday, January 30, 2015

Daxton's First Year

There's another Grand who needs a book!  Here is the cover I put together for Daxton Lee Coffer, grandson to my gal pal Jill out in Sparta, MO.  I've blogged about these baby books before so rather than repeat myself here's the link to that page here:
http://annespaperplace.blogspot.com/2012/01/auntie-unusual.html

With love, Daxton - from your Auntie Unusual!



A Tim Holtz Redux - Winter Wishes, Everyone!

Hi Everyone!

I've been a fan of Tim Holtz ever since meeting him at CHA back when they used to hold the event in Chicago.  Don't get too excited, I'm sure he has no recollection of our meet and greet.  Alas, Chicago CHA days are gone.  They only do it in California which is too far away. 

This past December, on Tim's blog, is his 'Winter Snowflake Card'.  You can see his version here: http://timholtz.com/winter-wishes-snowflake-card/.

I was enamored with all the tools he used to make this thing.  Of course, he offers links to not 1 but 2 shopping sites where you can buy all the stuff he used.  I, of course, scoured the Internet and found them all at steeper discounts elsewhere.  You know the rule; Never pay full price!  Here is my version of Tim's card and a narrative of how I changed it up. 


  • The only Frosted product I could find was a sticker backed roll of the stuff.  There are flat sheets available, but the roll was a better deal.  When I cut it and embossed it with the snowflake tools, I wound up with the backing as well as the frosted front looking kind of cool.  I used them both on the card.  I smeared the back of the frosted piece with chalk dust to remove the stick. 
  • I changed up the angle on the words, because straight was a little too, well, straight for me. 
  • My center-of-the-snowflake baubles were just what I had in my stash.  They are from CK&Co.
  • I swapped out tinsel for a thin silvery ribbon.  I kept the tails on the knot long so they could wrap around and make loops to add interest.   
  • I used a shimmery spray on the background rather than the Picket Fence he used.  Mostly because I don't have Picket Fence.  It's coming in the mail still...
So - why did I blog about all this?  It's a lesson to all of you crafters out there who feel you have to have everything EXACTLY like the sample or PERFECTLY clean and straight.  Stop that shit right now!  There is no such thing as exact or perfect.  Art has no rules. Let it GO!