2010 June | Creative Crafts and Stickers

Scrapbooking, One Of The Newest Forms Of Art

by Tom Simpson

June 30th, 2010

The first real photograph was taken in the 1820′s and we have been making our best attempts to preserve them since then. Photo books have come a long way since the days of old. We no longer have to just stick the pictures in and never be able to remove them, or slide them under sheets of thin plastic material that would often damage them in the heat of storage. Read on and find out the the treasures you can create with scrapbooking.

Through history, we have always made a habit of writing on the back of pictures so that we could remember a special occasion, or the age of a baby in the picture. Documenting photos now has turned into an absolute art form. We separate our photos into books of beautifully designed pages with elaborately descriptive captions, and we call these books scrapbooks.

For quite some time, we filled up our kitchen and craft room drawers with a little of this and that, to make the scrapbooks with. We spent hours assembling just the pages that the pictures were to be placed on. The problem was, if you needed a copy of the book, it was going to take you twice the amount of time to make another one. Thank goodness it finally went digital.

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Clean up your kitchen table, or craft area, and sit down at your computer, because making a digital scrapbook requires a lot less mess. If your photos are already on CD from being developed, just load them. If you have old photos that are priceless, either have them put onto Cd’s, or scan them yourself. Getting your pictures together is as easy as that. Be sure to label and categorize in an organized fashion and you will have it made.

Do not want to burst bubbles, but the digital pages are just as beautiful as the hand-made ones. All you have to do is insert your photos, edit them any way you like, and there you have it. If you need to correct something, do not worry, you can undo and do anything over again. If you need to leave in the middle, just save it and come back later.

You will probably find yourself making a digital scrapbook about everything that happens in your family’s life, because it is so much fun. When you are using scrapbooking software, you can make as many copies to Cd as you like, so that you can distribute them to friends and family.

Another advantage of digital scrapbooking, is that you can post the finished product to all of your favorite websites. Share them with your friends and family over the internet. You can email the scrapbooks to your family if you choose to.

The next time you glance at a picture, tell yourself, it is time to go digital. You will be glad that you got online and started making scrapbooks for your friends and family so that they can treasure your pictures also. Think how much fun you will have making wonderful pages without having to use the scissors. Now you can consider scrapbooking handed down as a family tradition.

With digital scrapbooking you have all the benefits of creativity and imagination while putting together your designs, but you can easily share the finished product online. Scrapbooking software is easy to use and increases your options for styles and expandability.

Categories Digital Scrapbooking

So You Think You Want To Start A Scrapbook Business

by KayCee

June 29th, 2010

Okay, you’ve been scrapping for quite some time. You have created a number of projects, learned the methodologies scrapbooking, collected a few basic tools, you have some supplies and even developed and identified some of your own talents. By this time, you may even have created a few scrapbook albums. The projects were not easy at first. But every one of them was rewarding and a pleasure to do because the memories that you have gathered can now be passed down to your grandchildren.

You know all the scrapbook basics. You learned about acid and moisture and how it effects all of the old photos. You know to use acid-free supplies to preserve your creations for decades to come. Like every good scrapbooker, you have a great cutting tool. You likely have a sharp scissors, specialty scissors with scalloped edges or other shapes, scissors for straight lines and scissors for circles. You’ve found your preference for your form of adhesive. You may have even purchased some rubber stamps, paper crimps and some punches. But even if you haven’t you know that you can increase your inventory as you learn more and use more regarding your scrap booking skills. And let’s not forget about paper, sheet protectors, stickers, die cuts, and other 3-D embellishment elements.

You have come to realize that your own creativity is the main thing you are going to need in order to learn how to master even more scrapbooking skills. You find your inspiration in a magazine, online or by attending scrapbook workshops that you find through many local stores. So, that really only leaves one aspects left for fulfilling your dreams regarding scrapbooking. You want to teach others how to scrapbook and make some money with a scrapbooking business.

Changing your scrapbooking hobby into a business?

It would be nice to think that all that you have to do is, do it. Unfortunately, if you really want to be successful in turning your hobby into a business you will need to do some planning. But don’t fret, because learning to do this can be just about as interesting and fun as scrapbooking itself.

Categories Scrapbooking

Picking The Right Drawing Pencil

by Kerrie Nev

June 28th, 2010

Most of the people think that selecting a drawing pencil is an easy task. You have to just see your pencil jar and grab the right pencil. The difficult part is that there is variety of options regarding this which results in creating confusion in our mind. It is not as easy to select the number 2 pencil.

Number 2 pencils are fine for math class, but not necessarily for drawing. There are both hard and soft pencils in varying degrees. Hard pencils are not harder to draw with. It is the graphite that is described as hard. Because it is hard, less graphite breaks away from the pencil and a lighter line is drawn.

Most of the people love to use the hard pencil for the outline purpose and for the purpose of shading any area in alight way. All the hard pencils are designated by the letter H. It is also known by the number 0 and up like for example, 1H, 2H etc.

As the number will be higher, the pencil will be much harder. This is the reason why the number 2 pencil is named as HB. This particular pencil is a combination of both hard and soft material. The designation meant for the soft pencil is B. This particular pencil also has a varying degree of softness that starts from 0B and up.

In the case of softer pencils, if the number will be higher, the pencil will be much softer. For example, a 7 B pencil consists of softer graphite material when compared with the pencil named as 2B. The soft pencils are great for shading any particular area. At the beginning, you should use the least soft pencil and gradually they should use the softer pencils.

It is seen that when we apply great force on the soft pencils a large amount of graphite starts breaking when we compare it with the hard pencil. If you want to make the best drawings, you should always try to use varieties of pencils. At the starting phase, you should buy the one that is known as the H pencil.

Kerrie Nev runs workshop in pencil making. He has a keen interest on different types of pens and pencils. To have a look at his collections, please visit the sites pentel eraser refill and cheap personalized pencils.

Categories Drawing

Sketch Puzzle for June 27, 2010

by CCAS

June 27th, 2010

This weeks sketch was originally featured in the WeScrap Sketchy Saturday forum. The design was from Calia and it was posted by holly_m from the Inspiration Team. Let me tell you a little about the sketch…

Two photos or images can be featured using this sketch. A single word or title is located below the centered photos and a large journalling area is located on the right side of the page in a column. There are some suggestions for embellishment placement but you could use your own creativity to change this a bit and add those special touches wherever you believe would best enhance your own scrapbook page.

So, here is the puzzle for you to solve. Good luck and have fun!

provided by flash-gear.com

Categories Sketches

The Joys Of Scrapbooking For Young And Old

by Tom Simpson

June 26th, 2010

There are several joys that are able to be enjoyed when a person takes to scrapbooking. It is considered to be one of the more relaxing activities that a person can take up as a hobby. Many people who take this up say that it offers them a very relaxing experience and helps to keep them stress free.

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There have been a lot of advancements in the way of this art that has allowed the process to become digital. As a result people are able to do more with their ideas than they used to. This also has sped the process up by quite a lot. There are more and more programs that are appearing that allow a person to experience all that a scrapbook has to offer all while being in the digital era.

One thing that many people like to do is called tearing, this is when they will tear a piece for the book, and will place it on a contrasting background. Many times the colors black or white will give the biggest reaction for this. There is a lot that can be experienced when a kid is able to get a look that will just stand out from the book and make a statement.

If you are the type of person that enjoys a nice puzzle, then the puzzle idea is one that you will have to try in order to get the full benefits from your scrapbook. Many kids will enjoy the challenge that a puzzle will offer them. When this is transferred to a scrap book, then the idea comes to life and makes your page one to talk about.

There is more to this than just going digital and being high-tech with it. There are techniques that need to be kept in mind when you are dealing with this type of art for many people this is more of an art than it is anything else. The way that you lay the scrapbook out will speak volumes in how well does it come across in its presentation. There are a few popular techniques that are popular in making a nice scrapbook.

Regardless if you are a newbie to it or have been doing it for years, there is no better time to look into the new types of software that is available for a person to use. Scrapbooking will bring a lot of joy into a persons life when trying to scrapbook and share their passion

Now you can create beautiful and distinctive scrapbooks with the great scrapbooking software that is available! You can start digital scrapbooking and create professional designs and themes fast and easy!

Categories Digital Scrapbooking

Sixty Seven Font

by KayCee

June 25th, 2010

Last week during a conversation with a friend of mine about fonts (yes, I actually have conversations about fonts – I must truly lead a strange, but normal for me, life) she mentioned that she did not care for the teacher font “at all”. I was surprized and asked her why? Her comment was that it would very difficult to read if she used it in a card. I was so grateful that she shared that with me because I had not thought about the MANY uses for fonts. I was stuck in the mindset of scrapbooking and using a font for a title. I don’t know how that happened, but it did. You see, my friend hand makes cards for JillCards LLC. So whe she looks for a font, she is looking for something that can be used as text for her handmade cards.

So, this week I am featuring a new font that I think would make both a great scrapbooking title but would also work well as text in a handmade card.

This weeks font is:

The Sixty Seven Font was created by Dave Bastain and originally released in 1999. Sixty Seven Font was recently featured as a new font on the font freak website on June 22, 2010. If you think that the sixty seven font is really cool please visit Steve’s site and download the Sixty Seven font for free. As always, when visiting his (or any site that you appreciate) please leave a comment stating what you liked and how you found out about his awesome font. Feel free to link back to this article so Steve can see how we have featured his work!

And don’t forget, if you would like to have Creative Crafts and Stickers feature you and/or your work just send us a request using the Get Featured Tab in the menus bar.

Categories Fonts

Three Must Have Features In Any Bead Jewelry Software Package

by Kay Laurens

June 24th, 2010

If you have a handcrafted beaded jewelry business of any sort then you’ve probably learned that running a business is not always as easy as it could be. You probably have lots inventory, lots of customers, plenty of invoices to print and some crazy methods for keeping track of all your materials including your wires, clasps and even beads. You probably enjoy making custom jewelry, but you have probably had a challenging time figuring out how much to offer your jewelry for and what price level gives you a decent profit margin.

There are actually many of different options you can use when it comes to picking software to operate your jewelry business, from homemade spreadsheets and pre-made databases to complex jewelry store and software programs. This is where a well-balanced beaded jewelry software package can be helpful. Here are three basic features you’ll definitely want to have in any software package you purchase for your bead jewelry business:

Inventory Control: Keeping track of your beads will also allow you to calculate material costs and labor and help you set the correct price level for each bead jewelry piece you make. One of the most challenging parts of running a bead jewelry business is handling inventory. Being able to keep track of what jewelry creations and even what beads, wires and other items you have in stock is an essential component of any jewelry business software package.

Invoice Creation and Customer Tracking: Repeat communication with your previous customers is a good way to inform them about sales and new jewelry creations you have made. Tracking clients is just as important as being able to give your customers a professional-looking receipt for their jewelry. You don’t want to hand someone a little scrap of carbon paper with some scribbles on it after they spend $50 for an elegant bead necklace and earring set. Being able to print professional and easy-to-read receipts helps make your handmade jewelry business look more established.

Low Cost: If you are just starting your jewelry business, then you should probably budget between $90 to $140 for your initial jewelry program. You do not want to pay too much and get bloated features that you will never use, but you also don’t want to buy the cheapest jewelry software package available and find yourself wanting more quickly.

Of course that the program you buy should help you run your handmade jewelry business, increase your profits and actually give you more energy to do what you love the most: making and selling wonderful handcrafted jewelry! Any beaded software package you purchase should definitely include the features above as well as plenty of others.

Ready to learn more? Check out some jewelry inventory software reviews and previews to see what sort of software is available!

Categories Jewelry Making

Archive for June 2010