From now until Feb. 14th, 2016 save 10% off at the tape depot by using code VDSAVINGS at www.thetapedepot.com
Now would be a great time to stock up on some essentials like ATG tape and other assorted/double-sided tapes!
Disclaimer: I am not affiliated with thetapedepot.com, I just get their promo emails and I want to share with the community these awesome deals 😀
As a student, I don’t have a lot of extra cash to splurge on expensive embellishments, fancy papers or even foam tape. Over the years, I’ve come to be very adept at looking for deals and cheap thrills when it comes to paper crafting. And who’s noticed that it’s almost impossible to get decently priced shipping of anything to Canada? The US economy would be booming if only they shipped to Canada at reasonable prices! So more often than not, I and my crafty friends opt out of cheap US prices and pay the premium at Michaels. It’s still cheaper than paying for shipping. But don’t worry, below are some ways I get around these problems.
So if you love to craft but can’t afford to splurge, there are still ways to achieve beautiful creations using thriftier methods. Read on to see my tips:
*Disclaimer, I am not paid to advertise these companies, these are just the ones I use and in my opinion the cheapest products I can get in Canada and I wanted to share these money saving tips with other scrapbookers.
For ~$26 USD, you can get 12 rolls of ATG-compatible double sided tape at a variety of sizes. My favorite size is 1/4 inch. This comes out to just over 2 bucks a roll! Much better than $8.50 per roll from Michaels and many other scrapbookers claim that this tape works even better than 3M brand ATG tape!
Others have used Silhouette “compatible” blades like the Graphtec CB09 which can cost only 2 dollars a blade. I’ve personally not tried this before but many claim that the blade stays sharper even longer than the silhouette brand ones.
BLACK FRIDAY DEALS on the Silhouette online store
There are really no silhouette deals like the silhouette black friday machine and accessory bundles. For example, a portrait bundle for $99. If ever my cameo broke, I’d wait until black friday to replace it, or if I wanted to try one of their new machines like the Mint. It’s the same price as normal but they throw in extra accessories.
Check out the silhouette online store here.
The Silhouette Design store has monthly design sales for up to 50% off. Sign up for their newsletter to be notified of all their deals.
Check out the mailbox I made for my friends for their wedding using the craft vinyl: 
There are many other cost cutting methods I use but they typically involve keeping an eye out for clearance items and finding deals. There are lots of deals at Michaels but the best ones usually sell out immediately so check back often or just be lucky!
What are some of your money-saving tips? Share them below!
It seems like many scrapbookers like Kristina Werner, Heidi Swapp, etc are all getting into more hand lettering. As such, I’ve been really interested in learning how myself. I’ve already mastered the art of Chinese calligraphy as a child because of many opportunities to learn from experts as a kid, but western calligraphy has always eluded me.
So to jump on this band wagon, I began exploring at my local Michaels store to get started with hand lettering. (Scroll down for a list of the cheapest essential tools to get started)
Dip nibs are cheap, traditional and the method that most people use to write calligraphy.
So here is what I did first, I initially purchased a round hand nib set by Manuscript:
This nib set is great for gothic style, italic and round hand fonts.
An excellent tutorial on how to get started with this type of font is here.
This is a very easy set to start with and was easy to pick up but some of the more elaborate gothic fonts, although beautiful required more practice. I wanted to accomplish other types of scripts though that these more traditional nibs were not able to achieve.
I soon found out that modern calligraphy and more stylish types of hand lettering required flexible pointed nibs. These nibs can also be used to write the beautiful cursive fonts like spencerian script or copperplate script.
Here is an example of modern calligraphy from Lindsey Bugbee
So here is the list of items you need:
These are the basics of what one needs to get started. Plenty of tutorials exist on youtube, pinterest and google. A quick search for cursive fonts or modern hand lettering will bring up a plethora of different fonts. At first it will be hard but practice makes perfect.
My favorite nibs of the above set are the Leonardt No. 41 and the Leornardt 33.
Individual replacement nibs can be purchased online from the Manuscript website.
When holding the pen, hold closer to the nib and angle the arm such that the nib is not perpendicular to the paper but lowered at an angle. Also write with the pen pointing towards 10 o’clock or at a 130 degree angle.
Writing takes practice, and figuring out the best pressure for the chosen nib and ink take practice as well. Once you are comfortable with using india ink, you can start experimenting with other types of inks like water color, gouache, and acrylic inks. This is the power of dip nibs, you can use them with many different types of media.
I am by no means an expert and just starting out myself but this is what I’ve discovered based upon trial and error and save someone else the time, money and effort, I’ve compiled my findings here. Hopefully they will be helpful to someone else just starting out as I would have appreciated someone giving me some pointers on where to start.
Best of luck and what are your favourite tools to use to do calligraphy?
I was looking through my old cards and came across a few of my favourite ones that I never got a chance to share. So I thought I’d share them here today.
I am exceedingly fond of vintage cards and scrapbooking ideas and there’s no one who does this better than Tim Holtz. So using his stamp set “I see Paris” by Stampers Anonymous, I created a set of cards as gifts for my friends. I’m sad to say that I actually don’t have a physical copy of any of the cards I make because I give them away to friends for birthdays and gifts. But I feel that creativity should be shared and not hoarded for oneself. So when I think about how happy my friend will be to receive a card from me, it really inspires me to create for them.
So here is a card I made for my friend who have always wanted to visit Paris but never got the chance to. So to encourage and motivate them to realize their dreams, I gave them this card:
I embossed a piece of black cardstock with Tim Holtz’s splatter embossing folder…I couldn’t find the name of this one, I don’t remember it and I couldn’t find it when I searched for it. But on the sizzix website, they have a new texture fade splatter set. That one will likely work too. But if you find out the name, please let me know!
I went over the raised parts with a brush dipped in gold acrylic paint.
I was really into mixed media back in the day.
Using my Silhouette Cameo, I cut out a shape of the Eiffel Tower and embossed it using one of Tim Holtz’s grid emobssing folders and then I went over the raised parts with gold acrylic paint. 
To give the Carte Postale (post card) a vintage look, I tore the corners and distressed with a combination of vintage photo and walnut stain. I then brushed the top with a layer of clear crackle paint so that when it dried, it would have that lovely vintage cracked look.
To finish everything off, I embellished the card with flower punch outs and I used like blue pearls in the centre to accent.
So I hope you enjoyed looking at this project as much as I enjoyed making it.
Until next time!
With valentine’s day just around the corner, I wanted to share my most recent card creation with you all. I bought some gesso a while ago and I hadn’t really had a good chance to use it so I decided to use it in this card.
I’ve titled this card Romantic Fairytale Dream, doesn’t it look like a fairytale from a little girl’s dream? When I was much younger, I used to dream about what it would be like to be a fairy tale princess, to rule over all the land, protect my people and save prince charming. Yes, I know it’s typically the other way around, but I had a lot of strong females as my role models growing up. Us girls can take care of ourselves, and then some.
I started out with a 5 x 4.5 inch white sheet cardstock which I embossed using a sizzix embossing folder. Unfortunately I forgot the name of the folder but it has diamonds with vintage damasks within each diamond.
To make the damask image really pop, I sprayed a sponge with glimmer mist and gently rubbed the sponge across the surface so that it only stains the raised parts of the embossed image.
To mask the border because I felt it looked a little strange that it was just empty space, I used gesso, or otherwise known as embossing paste, all around the edge and merging partly into the embossed image. Using my fingertips I dabbed with an up and down motion to give the paste some texture. Embossing paste typically takes a few hours to dry completely depending on how much was used. If it’s a really thick layer, I’d wait until overnight which I did in this case. It wasn’t a particularly thick layer but it I just wanted to be sure.
I proceeded to make my centrepiece now that the background was complete. Using a piece of pink vellum, I cut out a circular shape with rounded border using a Spellbinders die. I then used a carriage stamp to stamp and emboss the vellum with Versamark and champagne coloured embossing powder.
*note: Vellum is really delicate and it’s really easy to over heat and warp the vellum. Don’t put the heat tool too close to the vellum and switch from heating the front to the back frequently.
Using my Crop-a-Dile, I applied eyelets to the top and bottom of the vellum and threaded pink ribbon to attach the vellum circle to the card. I made a bow with the flapping ends of the ribbon at the top of the eyelet.
Using a Tim Holtz crown stamp, I stamped using gold ink on kraft cardstock. I fussy cut out the crown and applied it to the edge of the fancy embossed carriage.
I then stamped a rounded rectangle with the words “Dream” and applied that to the corner of the vellum circle using 3D foam dots. Then I used gesso to go over the edges of the sentiment piece. Finally using Liquid Pearls in Platinum I made little droplets on every other circle in the border. Then I let everything dry overnight.
So there you have it, a fancy vintage valentine’s card. Reminds me of a fairy tale of princes and princesses riding in pumpkin carriages, being carried to their magical destiny. 
So there you have it! I hope you’ve enjoyed this card as much as I’ve enjoyed making it. Hope that this Valentine’s day, you can spend it with someone you love, whether that be your beautiful self or with someone who’s dear and special to your heart.
XOXO~
My BFF, Alice, who’s also an avid scrapper, sent me this gorgeous scary invitation to a halloween party. I was so pleased and amazed at the detail and work she put into it that I just had to showcase it here and show everyone else.
She picked up all the supplies from Michaels. Using a stamp with diamonds she made the background of the envelope and then embossed it. The invitation itself was stamped with different colours and then also embossed.
She even made a few red paint splatters on the front of the envelope to make it look like someone’s blood spilled on it while she was busy working away. Very creepy indeed…I love it!
One of the things that I hate about using wet media when scrapbooking or crafting is that afterwards, the paper dries all wrinkly and ugly. As much as I like the wrinkly look for SOME projects, I don’t necessarily like it for ALL of my projects. So, I’ve adapted one of the techniques I normally use for watercolour painting to prevent my paper from curling, developing ridges and overall looking anything other than smooth.
Measure out a piece of cardstock for your project and add 1/2 inch to each of the four sides. Cut it out.
I’ve printed a picture of a calendar for a birthday card project and cut it down to size.
Tape that piece of cardstock to something hard, like a big fat heavy textbook or encyclopaedia. Or tape it to your craft table.
You can use washi tape or masking tape. Masking tape is better but whatever you have lying around is just fine.
I’m using washi tape in the above photo because I have this really terrible washi tape from K and Company’s Smash album. Terrible Terrible stuff. With a capital T. Thankfully, it won’t go to waste because I can just use it for taping stuff down like when I’m die-cutting for example.
MAKE SURE YOU TAPE DOWN EVERY ONE OF THE FOUR SIDES COMPLETELY.
This is essential to ensuring you have your desired final product free of wrinkles. If you miss even a little bit of the paper, you’ll have an imperfect paper after it dries. But hey, maybe that’s what you were going for?
Spray your favourite glimmer mist or use your distressing inks or water colour pencils, etc. Have fun, go crazy, make a mess, it’s all good!
Mine looks like this after:
Now let it dry completely.
It should look like this!
See how flat it looks?
And this is how it looks after I’ve cut it out!
I’m using a rectangle piece of cardstock for my project, but your project may need a different shape. Just use this method to ink up a larger sheet of cardstock and cut/punch out your desired shape after the paper dries. So simple right?
TROUBLESHOOTING
1. Tape lifts up from page after applying wet media.
Possible reasons why:
– Your tape is probably not suitable for wet media projects. Try masking tape, it’s awesome!
– You didn’t press your tape down firmly and there was a gap somewhere. It’s ok, just remove the piece that became unstuck, try to blot the wet area with a paper towel and then stick another piece of tape over it.
2. The paper dried wrinkly
Possible reasons why:
– Your cardstock was too thin. This technique doesn’t work with paper unfortunately because paper is so thin it’s flexible and can stretch a bit when wet. Try using a thicker cardstock next time like Baziill. I’m using Recollections cardstock here which works ok, not the best but ok…it’s cheap.
– Your tape may have come loose upon applying wet media or during the drying process. See above solutions.
And that’s it! Post a comment below if you have questions, this technique allows me to create vintage yet neat projects which I really love!
Have fun with all your wet media!
So I have a whole bunch of scrap ribbons that I always feel too attached to to throw out. Plus it’s such a waste and ribbon is not cheap!
Sometimes, when I’m working on a project and there’s just a little bit that I need to snip off except that it’s not long enough for a new project…I would save it in a small zip-lock bag and then create a card like this!
just snip little V’s into the ends of each piece of ribbon. It’s actually better if the pieces of ribbon are different in lengths. Then just put together a few pieces of ribbons that seem to match together.
Use double-sided tape or an ATG gun to glue down the ribbon because wet glue will seep through the fabric of the ribbons and show through.
Here I’ve made a Christmas style one using scraps of Christmas-colored ribbon from other projects.
Then I used a spellbinders frame die and my sizzix big shot to cut out half a frame to use as a border and put a Christmas sentiment on it.
That’s it! So simple and fast! I think i finished this card in about 15 minutes! The hard part was cutting the ribbon by hand haha~
Today’s tutorial will be on how to make a fast and easy snowman Christmas card. If you’re pressed for time or need to pump out 15 of these in one night, this is the card for you! All of my stamps, embossing folders and papers can be replaced with anything you might have at home so you don’t need exactly the same ones to make a fun and spirited card!
I love to watch Kristina Werner tutorials on Youtube and this card was definitely inspired by her creative style. Hop over to her youtube channel to check out some of her techniques and tutorials as well!
What you’ll need:
1. card and envelope – 4 x 5 1/2 inches
2. printed Christmas cardstock in green and red – preferably with gittery designs
These are cut in the following dimensions:
Red: one rectangle of 3 x 2 1/2, and one strip of 1/2 x 4 inches, with rounded corners
Green: one banner of 1 1/2 x 4 inches
3. An embossing folder, preferably with a simple design like bubbles
4. Snowman stamp – I’m using the Imaginisce Snag ’em #003367
and acrylic stamp block if needed
5. One cream cardstock rectangle of 2 3/4 x 2 1/4 inches with rounded corners for stamping the snowman image
6. Foam dots
7. ATG gun
8. Green or red stickles
9. Corner rounder punch
10. Versamark stamp pad
11. Silver detail embossing powder – recollections
12. Heat tool
13. Silver marker
14. Rhinestones in red, green or silver
Instructions:
1. Take the folded card and putting only front flap of the card in the embossing folder and wrapping the back of the card around the back of the embossing folder, run the sandwich through your die-cutting machine.
2. Take the small cream cardstock rectangle of 2 3/4 x 2 1/4 inches and stamp the snowman image using versamark or your favorite embossing stamp pad. Generously sprinkle silver embossing powder over the stamped image over a large piece of scrap paper. Optional, before stamping, use a sachet of baby powder and cornstarch, or the EK success powder brush tool and generously dab powder over the front of the cardstock to prevent flyaway embossing powder. This helps to build a very sharp embossed image since embossing powder tends to stick to the cardstock in non-stamped areas. I always forget this step haha but you should do it because it’s good for you!
Using a prewarmed heat tool, hold the cardstock with tweezers (to avoid burning fingers!) and blast the image with the heat tool to melt the embossing powder. Set aside to cool for a few seconds.
3. Using green stickles, fill in areas of the stamped image where you feel it needs a little extra bling! I selected the snowman’s scarf and the little bird’s hat. Set aside to dry at least 30 min. Then using a tape runner, mount this stamped image on to the red printed cardstock rectangle to make a red frame.
Optional – apply 2-3 rhinestones in a line but apply them so that they’re asymmetrically distributed. Asymmetry will make the card look unique and stand out.
4. While your stickles are drying, assemble the embellishments for your card. Using your tape runner, tape the small red strip to the large green strip of paper (as shown) above.
5. Apply all the different pieces to your embossed card. Start with the Green and red banner, place it about 1/3 of the way from the bottom using your tape runner on the back of the banner. Do not attempt to run your tape runner across the embossed front of the card as it will deflate your embossed image. Then using foam adhesives, mount the image of the embossed and stickled snowman to give the card an extra level of dimension. Using your corner rounder, round the corners of the card. Finally, pat yourself on the back for a job well done!
And that’s it! Thanks for tuning in this week for this fast and easy Christmas card tutorial! I will try to post a new tutorial once a week and since we’re fast approaching the holiday season, I’ll be focusing on Christmas card tutorials! Many of my scrapbooking friends have already finished or are nearly finished their Christmas cards this year so for those of you who haven’t started, my tutorials will make holiday card making a breeze.
Please be sure to SHARE your creations and comment below if you have any questions 🙂
My tutorial on how to make a vintage style Christmas card!
The 3 photos above show the one that I created last year and sent to one of my friends but since this was such an awesome and lovely card, I wanted to make a bunch more this year too and give them away to other friends as well. It works quite well if you’re looking for a Christmas card to give to one of you guy friends because it’s not too girly haha!
This card has a postcard theme and I specifically bought this stamp from Michaels because I love the look of postcards. For this tutorial, it will take some time to complete but the steps are easy and the final product is beautiful!
I’ve added an extra layer of vintaging to the tutorial by making a crackle effect! I think it looks soooo lovely with the extra details. Whoever receives this card is going to feel truly blessed this Christmas season by all the work you put into this card.
The supplies you’ll need:
1. One 5 1/4 x 3 3/4 inch manilla/cream cardstock
2. On 4 x 5 1/2 inch cream card and envelope (I’m using the Recollections brand of card/envelope)
3. Red and Green Stickles or other glitter glue
4. Fast-drying Tacky Glue (Scotch)
5. ATG gun/tape runner
6. foam dots
7. Archival black ink (StazOn Jet Black)
8. Distress Ink – Vintage Photo and Walnut Stain with foam daubers
9. Red stamp pad – colorbox in red
10. Silver “Merry Christmas” stickers
11. Postcard Stamp – Stampendous Snow Postcard
12. Tim Holtz French Market Acrylic stamp set – postage stamp piece
13. Acrylic Block – Martha Stewart (the one with foam feet)
14. Ranger Crackle Paint in Rock Candy
Instructions:
1. Place your inset cardstock piece on a craft mat and tack it down with washi tape to avoid dislodging it when stamping.
2. Ink up the postcard stamp with black archival ink and line up the stamp using the guides of the craft mat.
3. Using Scissors or a paper distressing tool, distress the edges of the cardstock.
4. Ink up the foam dauber with Vintage Photo and rub around the edges of the cardstock being careful not to distress the centre of the image too much. I think I may have overdone the centre a bit but you won’t make that mistake! Then ink up a foam dauber with Walnut Stain and distress the edges of the cardstock to make the image pop.
5. Using Rock Candy Crackle Paint and generously layer the cardstock with a layer of the paint. Be careful as some of the vintage photo distress ink will transfer to your paint brush, but only a little bit. Let it dry for about 30 minutes. If you’d like to speed up the drying time, once it’s started to dry and you can clearly see crackles, the bottle says you can use a heat tool to speed it up. Just don’t use your heat tool right off the bat, then you won’t get any crackling. I just let it dry by itself and work on other parts of the project in the meantime. After the crackle paint has COMPLETELY dried (very important this!) put a big text book or dictionary over top of it and let it flatten out since the wet medium has made it crinkle and warp. Let that sit at least an hour to overnight.
6. Ink up the French Market postage stamp acrylic stamp piece with your red stamp pad of choice. I’m using a red colorbox pigment ink. Don’t use distress inks here as the fine details of the stamp will become blurred by the wetness of the distress ink. Then stamp it on some scrap cream cardstock and cut around the edges leaving just a little bit of a border.
7. Use foam dots to attach your red stamp to your now dried piece of cardstock with the stamped postcard and crackled image right over the stamp portion of the postcard image. I found that my foam dots didn’t attach so well the distressed crackle paint so I added a few extra dots of tacky glue to really make a good stick. 
8. Use red Stickles to make holly berries over the stamped postcard image and use the green stickles to fill in the holly leaves. Let dry at least 45 minutes to 1 hour. You can see that my cardstock even sitting under a heavy physics textbook, is still a little warped. Once we glue it to our card, it’ll flatten out.
9. Finally, using your tape runner, adhere your cardstock piece to the card. Since we used the wet crackle paint medium on the cardstock, it’ll be a bit wrinkly and won’t lie flat. Mine had edges that came up after sticking it down to the card with my ATG gun. So I used my tacky glue around the raised edges and pressed for a few seconds and wiped away the excess glue with my finger.
And tada~ the final project all done!
I’d love to hear your comments and suggestions to make this card even better and help out others looking for more efficient techniques!
And please share your vintage style Christmas cards too!
I love, I create, I learn
Scrapaperdoll 