This week’s tip was submitted by Melitta Ball:

When I am finished reading my favorite scrapbook magazine, I don’t throw it away. I keep them under my craft table and then stamp my projects on them. Along with providing a cushion under my project, when they get inked up I just rip off the messy sheet and I have a new surface to ink against the next time.

I have a ‘coupon’ folder that I keep on my craft table, and when I see a layout in a magazine that I like, I cut it out and place it into the coupon folder. When I need inspiration I reach in and grab out a saved layout.

Whenever I buy products (especially kids toys) and the box has a window front made of plastic, I keep the plastic to use for my shaker boxes on cards. Free windows.

Melitta has earned a ballot for this month’s draw. You can send in your random tips to me at thynner5@yahoo.ca to earn a ballot in this month’s blog prize draw!!

~Tara~

Here is some advice for a new scrapbooker:

* Scrap for yourself and no one else. Being happy with your work is the only thing that matters. Do it for you and other’s will love it as much as you do.

* Only buy the papers and embellishments that you LOVE and not just the ones you “like”.

* Don’t be scared or intimidated to try something new. New things = Good things

* Start out with kits.

* Don’t buy tons of anything until you see what kinds of things you will use the most…espcially new fangled tools!!!

* Do not be afraid to crop your pictures. And also do not go overboard on supplies.

* Don’t buy everything just to have it….. make sure you actually USE the stuff.

* Enjoy what you are doing and why you are doing it.

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Let’s talk about scissors. I don’t know about you but I have my very favorite, must have, scissors. I was upset yesterday when my girls used them to cut sticky food with. Yup… they gunked them up so bad that I couldn’t use them. I cracked open my unDu and removed the goo but they were so dull they wouldn’t cut paper anymore. Now I am on the hunt for a replacement pair. I can’t seem to find them anywhere…. at least not yet.

I have several pairs of scissors. I use them for different jobs. My first pair I ever bought were Honey Bees by Cutter Bees. These have a great Teflon coating and work great for cutting through sticky glue dots, double sided tape other such sticky supplies. 

When it comes to cutting any type of fabric I have my straight blade and my pinking shears. They work the best for fabric and felt. I find any of my other scissors aren’t sharp enough and snag. Fiskars makes great scissors for cutting through felt and fabric.

I like to work with wire, metal, acrylic and plastic. I have some strong Titanium  scissors. They are extremely durable and strong. They seem to cut through anything and remain sharp.

Now… my favorite pair are spring loaded. I adore them because they are extremely comfortable and my hand doesn’t cramp or get sore when I plan on doing either a lot of pages or a lot of fine detailed cutting. They are always sharp and have a fine tip for detailed cutting. Alas…. they are wrecked. *SIGH* My Tim Holtz, Tonic, Spring Loaded, Fine Tip Scissors are sad too.

Quick Tip#1: If you are finding that your scissors are sticky just use a little dab of unDu and it will disappear. 

Quick Tip#2: If you find that your scissors aren’t cutting like they did when you first bought them you can cut a sheet of aluminum foil or you can get them sharpened professionally.

You can send in your random tips to me at thynner5@yahoo.ca to earn a ballot in this month’s blog prize draw!!

~Tara~

These days we all get so much annoying junk mail. If you are like me, there are tons of plastic or paper advertising credit cards included in the various marketing envelopes (junk mail LOL). Instead of throwing them out, keep all those phony credit cards, phone cards, etc.

Next time you are working with liquid glue, use the cards to spread the glue around your project. Once you are done, you can either wipe it clean or recycle it.

Enjoy!

~ Jen

Today’s Tip Tuesday is all about vellum.

-  Print off song lyrics, essays, etc. onto plain vellum to add to the journalling of a page. Use an italic-like gray font to make it fancy yet subtle. Looks very nice!

-  Use tracing paper in place of vellum.  Tracing paper is a little more inexpensive.

-  If you have an out of focus photo that you want to use on a page, try covering it with vellum for a nice soft look.

-  Try tearing strips of vellum to achieve a “wavey” look to your lake and seaside pages.

-  Try adhering vellum with specially designed vellum adhesives like Scotch’s Vellum Tape or use brads, eyelets or staples to adhere it to your page.  You can also glue it down with glue dots that are hidden under larger elements on the surface, like under a flower on the top of your vellum.

- If you are using vellum in your ink-jet printer, ensure it is designed for an ink-jet printer.  This minimizes the dry time and print spearing.

- Store your vellum paper in an acid free 8.5×11 page protector and put it in a regular 3 ring binder for easy and flat storage.

- Need more space?  Try journaling on vellum and then adhere it over top of one of your photos for a great use of limited space.

I hope you’ve enjoyed today’s tips!  If you would like to share a tip or two, please email Tara at thynner5@yahoo.ca and submit your tips for a chance to win our monthly prize!!!

Have a great Tuesday!

Here is a wonderful sewing tip submitted by Jackie

This week’s tips are all about buttons….

- Great storage containers include: clear jars, fishing tackle boxes, bead containers, weekly pill containers and mini clear Ziploc bags.

- Have a whole lot of buttons to add knots to? String them all on on piece of thread and tie them that way. Saves on thread!

- Sew the thread through your buttons before you glue them down. Saves having to struggle sewing through paper too.

- Instead of adding the bulk of thread on a button, you can use a white paint pen to “paint” the thread. Looks like the real thing and is faster as well.

- Don’t throw away your buttons with the plastic attachment loop in the back of them. Just get some wire cutters and cut the loop off. You can then use glue or glue dots to adhere button to your page. It also makes your button flatter.

- Use a need threading tool to pull embroidery floss through hard to thread buttons.

- Recycle your not-so-pretty coloured buttons by painting them the colour of your choice.

- Add some rub-ons or stamps to the surface of your buttons for added whimsy.

- Use buttons for flower centers. They are cheaper than brads.

- Use the buttons that you have collected in your junk drawer from off of all those new clothes you buy.

SEW… have some fun with buttons on your next page or card!!!

I have a small collection of random scrapbooking tips to share today. They have been submitted to over the last little while:

If you’re going to work with glitter, here’s a great tip or two!
Before you start, take a dryer sheet (you know… a bounce sheet) and wiped down all your items: tray, your paper and your working surfaces. It takes the static charge off so you won’t have as much “stray” glitter when you shake off your page!
Use a dry fine tipped paint brush to brush away those stray pieces of glitter from your paper. ~Ally 

When heat embossing, heat your project from underneath to get a “cleaner” even finish and to keep the embossing powders from blowing around. To get a sharp image when stamping a project, lay a 1/4″ dense foam pad under the paper that you are stamping. If your gel pens stop working but still have lots of ink in them, remove the cartridge and put it in hot water for a few minutes (don’t allow the opening to get in the water) this will soften the ink and allow it to flow again.  ~Jackie

When you are going to paint, emboss, bead, cut little pieces from paper, place a piece of Glad Press n Seal to the table you are working at. When you are done, simply pick it up and throw it and all the little pieces away. It hs also protected your area for the paint and embossing crystals. ~Jen

When I am doing a layout where I use a large piece of cardstock as the border, I cut out the center of the page that will be covered and I save that paper for something else. This also works for photos. You can cut out a smaller shape of the hidden cardstock and save it.Cutting out the extra paper also makes your completed pages lighter and your overall book lighter.

They are often times when you want to remove the adhesive from a portion of a sticker. The best way to do this is to sprinkle baby powder on the area that you want to remove the adhesive from. If you are trying to remove the stickiness from a portion of a sticker that is overlapping from your page, be sure to stick the sticker to your page before sprinkling the baby powder, or you may remove the adhesive from the wrong part of the sticker.

You can add texture to a layout in so many ways. One fun and easy way is INK. You can straight distress, of course, but one fun way is to take things with interesting patterns, ink them up, and use the item as a stamp. Bubble wrap is perfect for this. Cheesecloth wrapped over something sturdy (like a stamp block) is fun too! ~Erin

You can send in your random tips to me at thynner5@yahoo.ca to earn a ballot in this month’s blog prize draw!!

~Tara~

This weeks tips are all about scoring….

If you have a paper trimmer, like a Fiskars, use an embossing stylus, or a pen that has run out of ink to score your paper. You can line it up so you can measure exactly where you want the score, and the blade track will keep it perfectly straight.

An easy way to score your paper to make a fold is to use an old mouse pad under your paper. This adds a cushion for a better crease and you don’t have to push as hard. Just use a ruler and a bone folder with your mouse pad and you will have perfect folds!

A new and innovative scoring tool is the Scor-Pal. This hard plastic board is grooved in measured intervals and allows you to score your cards and projects. It also has a snap in bone folder so you don’t loose it.

I came across these wonderful organizational tips yesterday and made a note to myself to post them here today. These are great tips I found in the Resource section by Sheri.

Organizational Tips: Alphabets by Sheri

As an alphabet addict, this was something I had to learn the hard way.

As my collection grew from a cm carrytote, to a manila folder, to a photo storage box, to a small decorative trunk-box with a lid, my alphabets became a huge mess!

Suddenly, it occurred to me to sort my alphabets by color.

AND THIS IS AWESOME!

Several times, I’ve been working on a project, knowing orange, for example, was my overall theme, I just went to my trunk, grabbed my orange alphas, used what I needed, and put them back in my box. No more digging!
I have them seperated by color first, then by size. So all my blacks are together, with largest packages in the back, moving up by size, then all clipped together with a binder clip. On alphabets that are thicker– like a package of epoxy stickers, for example, I might have another binder clip attatching just that pkg.. but still all clipped together in that color stack.

For my mm rubons, that come in those pkgs, they are loose.

I also had several Monograms/stencils that i’ve recv’d in swaps, and I have those binder clipped together by alpha.

Now my box stays nice and neat, and I can easily find what I need. Even if I’m going to mix it up, it’s still all right there!

I have a pretty cool system that I just love here. I’m big into the metal pieces, gameboard pieces and such as that for alphabets. I was having the same problems with stuff getting out of control. Although I never got into a trunk.

Anyway, I went in back in late June and organized mine differently. I have these trays by Craft Mates. They are plastic compartment things that lock shut. There are 14 compartments per tray. So, I took two of them and sorted by letter. There’s a space for each letter of the alphabet and I dig through it like that. I find that it’s much quicker for me to know if I’ve got enough of a certain type of something to write what word I want. Much quicker than rummaging through a package of that style and hunting desperately for an E. Ya know? Plus, when I want to do the mix and match ransom sort of effect, this system is totally perfect!!!!! I’m soooooooo glad I did this.

As for rub-ons… They are all together in a photo box and easy to sort through. My stickers are in Cropper Hopper Verticals with sticker organizers. One holds alphabets, one holds assorted leftovers and another holds all my nice sticker packages. I find that it works great!

If you happen to have any tips you would like to share with us please email them to me at thynner5@yahoo.ca and put CCAS Blog Tips in the subject line. Everytime you do you will earn a ballot for the monthly Blog Prize Draw!!

~Tara~