Pretty Paws Scrapbook Layout

Posted on April 10, 2015 by Angelika

Pretty Paws

Tiger was a polydactyl cat. It means that he had thumbs! He had the prettiest, sweetest little paws. I definitely needed a whole page dedicated to them.

I had printed all the photos for the album when I started this project, so I had to work with the size/cropping that I already had. I used Studio to take a basic paw shape and make it all wonky so that it would show the whole picture. I used the PixScan mat to know exactly what size and shape to make all the paws (yeah, I know I could just use the scanner, but unfortunately, my scanner doesn’t work with Studio).

I had printed out 10 one inch close ups of his paws and one big one of him sitting with his paws crossed all pretty.

I HAD to journal about this. I made sure it would fit to the shape by doing the journaling in Studio. After I cut the paw frame out of brown cardstock, I traced the paws on the pictures lightly in pencil and cut them slightly bigger. I propped the frame up of lots of little bits of double sided foam tape. If I had thought to do it before adding the foam tape, I would have done a little bit of stitching on the cardstock around the edges for a bit of texture, but I didn’t think of it until it was too late.

I cut the “pretty” out of gold foil, and a couple of extra gold paws for accents. I did them as a compound shape in the circle so that I wouldn’t have to worry about losing or gluing down all those little bitty toes. The “paws” I cut out of recycled chipboard. I made sure to use the knife tool on the letters so that I wouldn’t lose the insides of the letters.

For the shiny paw strip, I used a piece of double sided tape to pick up the paws that were left when I cut out the background. I then poured loose gold glitter on the tape and then removed the backing and stuck it down. I brushed on a layer of mod podge to keep the glitter in place (and to make the paws shiny and make the whole thing stand out.

I used orange paw patterned paper recycled from an Iams cat food bag for a bit of paw-ception, as I had one last paw to fill.

Please enjoy my freebie pretty paw cut file with the wonky paws and words, which you may download from below, or from the freebie page of this blog :)

xoxo
-A

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You & Me…& Qi Scrapbook Layout

Posted on April 5, 2015 by Angelika

You & Me …& Qi

I wanted to take a break from the 8×8 album I was making for Tiger, and do a page for my 12×12 Dylan and Angelika book.
I painted the photo using this awesome and super easy tutorial from Grow Creative. It has been lying in a pile of papers ever since, as I’m lazy and didn’t feel like framing it. I had no idea what to do with it until I saw this post by faith hope washi, where she used a watercolor picture as the background for a page, and immediately I thought of this painting.

Earlier that day, I had been playing around with gold and white embossing powders on kraft paper, and so I had a lof of ready made embellishments. I also had the other photo from our little portrait session already printed so I had nothing to stop me from making this page.

It was a bit of a challenge to make the red/orangey photo not clash with pinky/purples of the watercolor, but I managed to bring it all together with the background paper from Craft Smith Typecraft paper pad, which is an awesome paper pack of patterns printed entirely on kraft paper. This pattern has red and orange to match the photo and pink and purple to match the watercolor, as well as kraft to bring in the embellishments I wanted to use.

I used my ampersand stamp and two coats of gold and glitter gold embossing powder to make that. From there, the title came naturally… you & me. And of course the most important one…. & Qi. I used gold glitter alphas from an awesome little sticker sheet from the dollar store. They were French alphas too, so they had a lot of accents that can be used for other things. And they had a mix of fonts and sizes all on the same sheet, which I used to create the whimsical feel.

I used lots of gold and purple embellies to bring everything together, as well as purple stitching.

I cut a gold dollar store doily to cover up my join at the top and bottom. Since I have a Portrait, it means I can’t put my 12×12 papers through it, but it forces me to be extra creative sometimes. I just cut the paper in half and put both sides through to get the scallop border. I then cut some of the inside out that would be covered up by the painting for scraps (isn’t that what scrapbooking is all about?) and covered up the join. I was also playing around with a new design that I drew and that I cut a whole bunch of, the white paper flowers, which you can download below, or in the freebies section of this blog. I was envisioning something with a lot more of those all along the sides, but it ended up looking like too much so I just stuck with three.

Have a happy and creative long weekend!

xoxo
-A

Designs Used:

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Somebunny loves you Easter Card

Posted on April 3, 2015 by Angelika

Somebunny Loves You

Somebunny loves puns… that would be us! I knew I had to make an Easter card for my sweetie just to use that pun. I also wanted to do a cotton-tail bunny.

So cute!!!
I got a free trial of Royale from Picmonkey.com and used a cutimals overlay for my bunny design.

Except that I wanted the cotton tail to be at the back. So I loaded this up into Studio, traced all the parts, and used the point editor to remove the tail.

I cut the bunny from white cardstock (twice, for the front and back of the card). The words and pink on the bunny was from pink patterned paper, and black cardstock eyes.

TIP:  cut another bunny using all the cut lines out of copy paper to make a kind of stencil so you know exactly where to put all the elements.

I used a sketch pen to write LOVES YOU on the card before scoring and folding it. I glued down the buns and the SOMEBUNNY.

Lastly, I balled up a tiny piece of cotton and used white glue to glue it to the back of the card. A simple, quick little card :)

Happy Easter everyone!

Fonts Used:
–Always Here
-Impact

xoxo
-A

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What’s In a Name Layout

Posted on March 31, 2015 by Angelika

Tiger: What’s in a Name?

This layout is about where Tiger’s name came from. See I’m working on my journaling. This entire page was inspired by that dandelion image, which I actually “lifted” from a bottle of wine.

Gorgeous! It actually reminded me, that when we first for Tiger, he was called Oduvanchick. That name was quite a mouthful though! Which got me to thinking, I should make a page about his name!
To copy the design, I imported the picture into Illustrator, and used it as a guide to draw many long Y shaped lines coming from a center point.

I then saved it as a .png and imported it into Studio to print and cut it in a circle. I also print and cut the journaling on the same page, as well as the What’s in a NAME? title that I transferred over with clear tape (a technique that I will talk about in a later post, keep an eye out).

The background was inspired by this post:
 http://blog.silhouetteamerica.com/2015/03/make-your-own-patterned-paper-tutorial

I used the same technique with the Tall N Bubbly font, and played around with the internal/external offset to get the look I wanted. After the Silhouette sketched it out, I colored in the letters with peach and orange watercolors. I’ve been loving the watercolor trend, it’s so much fun! I chose a wide photo and bunched all my layering on the bottom to let as much of the background shine through.

I cut the orance paw print from a bag of Iams cat food! And the pink and brown paw print was the backing to a sticker sheet. I love being crafty/thrifty, and finding unique patterns and papers in unexpected places.

I then embellished using staples and gold foil, which I cut in a zigzag, and used the triangles that came out of the zigzag to create visual triangles on my page.

Lastly, I added a title which I cut from my Silhouette, and some stitching. You’ll notice in that picture on the right side, there is no string! Just holes! I messed up with my sewing machine and the thread had to come out. There are two options when that happens: you can re-sew by hand using the holes the machine left or you can leave it be… the holes can work for the project and look nice anyways and you can pretend you did that on purpose.

Fonts Used:
–Tall N Bubbly

xoxo
-A

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Pinwheel Spring Easter Cards

Posted on March 27, 2015 by Angelika

Spring is in the Air

Happy Easter! I was going to make a tutorial for these cards, but my camera batteries died. And art waits for no charger…. So I will just write out what I did. It’s pretty easy :)


I made two because the first one I accidentally cut one of the pinwheel papers too small. Also, I wanted an excuse to use my Silhouette for the project, as this was mostly a cut by hand card.

For the big one, I made the background by drawing clouds with a Versamark marker and then embossing with clear embossing powder. One by one.

It was a bit time consuming but I was really happy with the results.

Look at how shiny it is! It also gives it a bit of texture.

For the little one, I ran the blue cardstock under a silver sketch pen.

To get the thickness, I did a 0.005 offset internally 5 times on each cloud. It also looks nice and shiny.

The pinwheels are super easy, just cut two squares of patterned paper (one if you’ve got double sided pattern paper and like both sides) and glue them back to back. Remember that the diagonal line of the square is how big the pinwheel going to be.

Cut down along the diagonal, leaving about half an inch in the center. Ink all the edges if desired. Then take one side from each corner and glue it into the middle. Add a decoration like a button, brad, enamel dot or paper cutout in the middle to cover up the glueing. I suggest hot glue for this.

I used a piece of foam tape to attach the pinwheel to a white scalloped cardstock circle (that you can’t see from this side) and attached the whole thing to one side of the fold in card.

I see a lot of cards that have a lot of the decorations going off the side of the card and it makes me really uncomfortable… sure it looks pretty, but won’t it get all squished/bent? The fold in card shape let me experiment with that concept without it actually going off the card when everything is folded. You can see in the picture though that the corners are already getting a tiny bit bent…

Designs Used:
–Echo Park Clouds
Fonts Used:
–Always Here

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A Little Purrito Scrapbook Layout

Posted on March 24, 2015 by Angelika

A Little Purrito

This is the matching page to my Purrfectly Adorable layout.
They go side by side in my book.

I did the exact same thing for this, layering purple washi tape, papers and embellishments.

I used the same stamps, but with purple inks to decorate another tag. And I made the same silver flower, but larger, using a silver brad to attach it.

Most people only think to pair purple with gold, but greyish/dusty purples look amazing with silver.

I shadow lined the letters with a thin purple Sharpie to make them stand out a little more.

Designs Used:
–flower and leaf sketch
Fonts Used:
–Learning Curve

xoxo
-A

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Fancy Materials on a Budget Series Part 1- Vellum

Posted on March 11, 2015 by Angelika

I admit I can be cheap sometimes. And impatient/lazy. I don’t want to bus out to Michael’s to pick up supplies, or wait for them to be shipped from the states. So I sometimes have to McGyver my crafts. And I’ve come up with some creative alternatives to certain materials. I’m going to talk here about my substitute for vellum, and stay tuned for chipboard and metallics in part 2 and 3 of this series.

I love vellum. It gives a soft look, it can tone down a busy pattern, it is great for layering but allowing a pattern to peek through. I make my “vellum” from parchment paper.

PROS:
-looks like vellum
-can be cut by silhouette,
-cheap
-rips easily for a torn edge look

CONS:
-not printer friendly (unless you tape it to copy paper, but even then it’s iffy, the ink pools…)
-rips easily
-doesn’t actually stick to the cutting mat (you have to use a piece big enough to fit under the rollers or tape it down with masking tape), which makes it not good for a detailed cut with more than one piece (the cut out bit ends up moving around because it’s not stuck down)
-sometimes doesn’t stick well to things (looks really good stitched down though)

Cut settings: vellum


There is a solution to the problem of cutting compound shapes with parchment… it works fine if you cut the inside bits first. To do this, release the compound path, and select the inside shape. Make the line a different color, then when you get to the cut window, select advanced cut. Arrange the colors so the inside one is first. You don’t need to put pauses, it will just cut in order.

When I was writing this, I thought, does it have to be parchment paper? Why not wax paper or freezer paper? It’s what I use because it’s what I have in my kitchen, so thought I’d do some research on what the different types of kitchen paper actually are:

-wax paper: waxed on both sides
-freezer paper: waxed or plastic coated on one side
-parchment paper: no wax coating

Well there you have it. I’ve never tried waxed or freezer paper so I can’t really comment, but apparently freezer paper makes a great stencil:

http://www.silhouetteschoolblog.com/2014/01/freezer-paper-stencil-silhouette.html

I’ve used it in many of my layouts:

I cut clouds with my silhouette, then stitched them down.

Here I ripped a piece and layered it under the letters to make the background less busy under the title.

Do you have any secret alternatives to fancy products?

xoxo
-A

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Umbrella Cat Layout

Posted on March 4, 2015 by Angelika

Umbrella Cat

Such a sweet picture of Tiger under an umbrella…

This was a super fun layout to create. I love all the colors and patterns on the umbrella, and the clouds were easy to cut and stitch with my Silhouette and parchment paper.  I’m not very wordy when it comes to scrapbooking and I like to let the photo and layout and title do the talking for me.


That is why I rarely include journaling, thought that it something that I want to work on. For this layout, even a title seemed unnecessary, and I really couldn’t think of one.

I put the love one, which I cut from gold paper, but that didn’t seem title-y enough. I just wanted something shiny to break the area between umbrellas. The memories tag  also didn’t seem like a good title. I finally settled on adding the Pretty Kitty from my cat kit. Because he was one.

I added rhinestone rain ( I also like how the background pattern looks rainy, I totally didn’t notice until it was all put together). I kept other embellishments to a minimum because there was so much else going on. Remind me again why I chose to do an 8×8 album? Cause cats are tiny humans and get tiny books?

For the actual umbrella, I used an existing design for the outline, and then took each individual segment and made it smaller with point editing for the outline look.

The love was a unique design that I did by drawing it out with a permanent marker and then taking a photo and tracing it in Illustrator, and then trying Inkscape for the first time to save it as a .dxf file, which Studio opens. And then fixing it point by point. Of course I could have just done it all in Studio, but I wanted to try it out. Wayyy too much work…

Designs Used:
–Love (free)
–Umbrella

xoxo
-A

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Bloglovin’

Posted on March 1, 2015 by Angelika

Hello!

Follow my blog with Bloglovin

Give me some love ;)

xoxo
-A

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Purrfectly Adorable Layout

Posted on February 24, 2015 by Angelika

Purrfectly Adorable

I wanted to do a fairly monochrome look for this photo from when Tiger was a kitten. It is such a sweet photo, we wrapped carpet around a paint can as a quick DIY scratching post, and he discovered a better use for it as a fort.

He has loved rolls of carpet ever since and no roll was safe. Keep an eye out for the matching page I will make to show him as an adult inside a carpet purrito roll.

I salvaged all of my grey-blue-green scraps and washi tape and layered them down the side of the background. I used staples and light blue stitching to hold it all together and add texture.

I ran out of blue paper when making the backing so I made my own with a some stamps and light blue ink.

Lastly I used a silver sketch pen to draw and cut a little flower.

For the title, I used silver foil that was glued onto blue cardstock and then cut with my Silhouette. I used a thin blue Sharpie to shadow line the letters. I also cut some stars and hearts from the same (less waste if you put them in the spaces between the tall letters).

Designs Used:
–flower and leaf sketch
Fonts Used:
–Learning Curve

xoxo
-A

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