Archive for September 2010

Using Newspaper Clippings On Scrapbook Pages

belatedHave you ever thought of using newspaper clippings as the focal point for your scrapbook pages?

It is a great way to begin to get inspiration. Newspaper clippings often retain valuable information about birth announcements, team photos, engagements or even sport heros, historical events and popular celebrities. Any of these can add and enhance your scrapbook pages.

Keep in mind when using newspaper on your scrapbook pages that newspaper contains lignin. This chemical will cause the paper itself to yellow and get brittle over time. But don’t worry about that, just plan for it. The amount of lignin is very low, only about 4% so it will be many years before you even notice that the breakdown process has begun.

One way to delay the deterioration process of breakdown is to prevent the clipping from being in direct contact with the elements. Anything that prevents the clipping from being in direct contact with the elements will delay this breakdown process.  Many people choose to use Mylar, page protectors or even a lamination process. Any of these protections will slow the deterioration process and lengthen the time before any yellowing and brittleness will occur leaving your scrapbook pages looking great for even more generations to enjoy.

Craft Table For Scrapbooking – Get Organized

I submit that a craft table is the most important piece of furniture in the house. If you don\’t have a craft table that helps you to be super organized in your scrapbooking and crafting efforts then you have unnecessary stress in your life. And who wants or needs extra stress?

Scrapbooking and making crafts of any kind is supposed to be a relaxing hobby, not a stressful chore. When you need to make a card for someone, you want to be able to focus on the enjoyment of the gift rather than the stress of having a cluttered and unorganized workspace. You need to be able to allow your creative juices to flow rather than spending time looking all over the house to see what materials you can find to work with.

Your craft area or room should include cubbyholes for the variety of papers and fabric that you have. It should also include some shelves for all of your tools-the most used ones closest to the work table. You need a large, sturdy work table. And you want the area to look aesthetically pleasing so that its not an eye sore otherwise you\’ll have stress the minute you begin every new project.

Before you go shopping for a craft table and other scrapbooking furniture, you need to jot down and track down all the crafting material and tools that you have so you know how big of a work area you need. Also, you should decide on the color theme of your craft room so you know what color options you need to be looking for in your table, shelf, and cabinets.

In conclusion, just get organized so you can enjoy crafting again and continue to enjoy it forever. When you enjoy it, the recipients of your craft projects will be able to tell.

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Sketch Puzzle for September 19th 2010

A large single image and matching sized journalling area are the main focal points of this sketch.

Starting with a solid and accent colored background, layering with a complimentary color that has an interesting edge and embellishing with bold and big dots, this sketch is simple yet catchy and fun.





provided by flash-gear.com


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A Complete Look At The Three Birds On Parade Die Cut Cartridge

There appears to have been a large space within the Cricut Cartridge lineup for all of us out there that love anything to do with birds. Nevertheless, with the release of the Three Birds On Parade Cricut Cartridge this void appears to have been finally addressed.

The pictures on this cartridge are just so adorable that actually any design or undertaking that you come up with is bound to be cute too. There\’s a massive choice of birds to pick from. However, these are not your typically boring bird pictures that you may discover on other cartridges in definitely fewer numbers. The bird images on this cartridge are for all of those fun projects which are in your head.

Each of the bird photos is dressed in a special way to be representative of a specific theme on their very own. For example, you can find snowman birds, cowboy birds, teacher birds and pirate birds. There are so many different variations of these bird pictures that you are certain to locate the proper one for any venture or person that you have in mind.

The 3 Birds On Parade cartridge also comes with a full font set so that you can finish any venture that you have without having to use any other cartridge. The font letters are also truly lovable and match the bird theme by having integrated bird extensions in the letters.

The variety of projects that you could complete with this cartridge really stretch as far as your imagination will allow you. This cartridge is excellent, for producing some truly lovable cards for any occasion and the shapes and pictures make it truly simple. There are quite a few inspirational card examples spread on the world wide web so that you can get some great tips, but I particularly like the ones that use the birds as the central focus and then dress the card up with the choice of other cut out elements that also come on this cartridge.

This cartridge is also great for all of those occasion specific scrapbook pages, particularly the family ones and depending on the event, there may be certain to be an appropriate bird image that suits the theme perfectly.

I know lots of folks out there are keen on creating actual craft items and then using die cuts to dress them up. I have noticed a entire range of kitchen products, ranging from simple boxes to decorative pictures to hanging baskets and even egg baskets that have utilized this bird cartridge to add the finishing layout components to really add that final look. These, I believed were fantastic tips to make use of this cartridge and I may possibly just begin trying my hand at the easy, but appropriate egg basket.

One of the funniest products that I have observed, was a scrapbook of a husband, where the wife thought that the bird photos truly resembled her husband. It may possibly sound strange, but looking at the photos and also the bird cut outs side by side, there was undoubtedly a similarity. I\’m certain she had a laugh about that when the cartridge initially came out and hopefully her husband did too when he saw his finished scrapbook.

The images on this cartridge, being themed birds truly, offer plenty of inspiration on their very own in what layout you\’ll be able to undertake next. So in the event you genuinely are stuck for tips, look through the assortment of photos and go from there.

Certainly one of the most effective uses, I should say, that I\’ve discovered for the pictures on this cartridge has been to take single bird images when I\’m actually doing some thing non-bird related. For Christmas styles you will find Santa birds, for Easter styles there are Easter birds, for graduation styles you will find graduation birds, for new baby styles there are new child carrying birds. Whatever undertaking you find your self completing, there will often be an right image on this cartridge to add an additional adorable image from.

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Layout Techniques To Produce A Better Scrap Project

When it comes to scrapping, few things are probably more important or influences the end creation greater than the particular layout. This is why, it is wise to be certain that you plan this from the outset and do not merely allow it to take its own direction while you complete your project.

There are numerous layouts to pick from nowadays and numerous layouts for each distinct scrapbook type, that often the choices are simply so overwhelming that you can be inclined to by pass this step. Neglecting this step will inevitably lead to only regretting the little bit of extra time and energy that this stage would have taken once you have completed and review your finished scrap project.

Here are a few tricks to make this process just a little less difficult and definitely much faster.

Initially, determine the type of scrap booking project you want to develop, regardless of whether that\’s a standard scrapbook to house certain memories, a themed scrap booking project for example particular news events, or possibly a mixture of more than one. When you understand the scrapbooking theme, then the selection of page layout results in being a lot less difficult to focus in on.

Common memory type scrapbook projects are generally chronological in order and clearly laid out in a sequential manner. The pictures or photos are usually the focus of the scrapbook and really should be placed in the center on the page. Even though a date order may perhaps be important and right for some, generally the page layout will probably in fact center around the most crucial events within that design. For various other non-date ordered projects, the selection of layout is a lot more at your personal discretion and enables you to truly exhibit your design skills and tastes.

Should you have a message to get across that is the main target of the overall scrapbooking design, then ensure that your extra elements that you add don\’t distract from the principal message. After you know precisely what the essential elements of your scrapbooking design are, then comes the time to decide how best to present it.

Size matters and even though some scrapbook projects might perfectly match a large canvas to convey the actual meaning of the scrap project purpose, occasionally smaller sized and more personal sizes are more appropriate. Should you be in any doubt about what size to develop, then I would likely recommend that you simply stay with a medium size format, certainly until you develop into more of a scrapbook expert. After you have decided upon the size and general direction of your project then the fun truly begins.

The next stage really is the creativity stage of any scrap project and the reason why every finished work is so different. You need to choose what elements you would like to have for the scrap project and also what range of tones you want to choose. Color plays an important role in any scrap booking project and the choice of color really can assist to express the correct message or not. For more serious type projects, you probably would be best off staying with more natural and less garish tones which will probably trivialize or even draw attention away from your main intention or concept of the entire project. For fun and funny type scrapbooking projects, then the option of far more vibrant colors would work nicely.

The following phase is to select the extra elements that you\’ll add to the project in order to both match and emphasize the main photo or picture. A lot of people make the mistake of using very large or overwhelming additional elements that it definitely does overpower the main theme. The idea here is to choose elements that will compliment and help to focus the attention onto the main point of the scrapbook so the overall message isn\’t sacrificed in the clutter of supplemental elements.

As soon as you are at the stage of having a good idea of the sort of elements that you wish to use for your scrap booking project, then go ahead and get these together. Once you\’ve the primary elements collected, you can start to lay these out without actually sticking them down. Through this stage, you may decide to change the positioning or in fact lots of the elements that you initially thought would be ideal. This is entire normal and if you are in this position than simply go with it as the end layout will be all the better for the adjustments.

Eventually you will get to the stage where you are satisfied with the complete layout and also the elements which you have selected to showcase and focus the attention of the project to the key message that you\’re wanting to convey. When you reach this particular stage, then you are ready to fix the numerous elements down and finalize your layout and scrapbook.

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Sketch Puzzle for September 12th 2010

Clean, simple and to the point. This sketch highlights a large single image set on a relatively mono-chromatic background. The background features different layered patterns of varying opacity. The effect is dramatic, classy and interesting.

Corner areas have room for additional embellishments and journalling is featured inside of accent colored strips. This sketch was created using Java Joe from Raspberry road.





provided by flash-gear.com


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