Scrapbook: Happily Ever After

Happily Ever After was the title of a love themed scrapbook that I made for a lovely client. The color theme was derived from the beautiful Bo Bunny Love & Lace collection (That is the collection I used along with another one), while the layouts were similar to the Wedding Themed scrapbook shared earlier.

Scrapbooks are more like interactive books, if you ask me, and so I try to add some fun elements in all scrapbooks that I make.
For this one I added cute detachable coupons to each page, along with the usual tags, mats, flipbooks. 
Pictures of the pages follow:

I love the above pocket! The Altenew vintage roses stamps tie in beautifully with Love Lace. 

For orders and queries please email favorsmore@gmail.com [thats my business email]

Have a great day and happy happy crafting.

Layers of Colors

Sharing today, an easy way to create simple backgrounds by using one stencil, and as many colors are you wish!

Our challenge theme for February is Love, so the stencil I've used is Staggered Hearts by MFT.

So, I started off by placing my stencil on water color paper, and inking the hearts with Picked Raspberry (my new hot favorite), and Seedless Preserves. Once done, I shifted the stencil down to create overlapping hearts in a darker color, as seen in the image below.

Gathered Twigs was the next color I chose.


Gathered twigs being the darkest color, comes through as the most dominating color, while Seedless Preserves and Picked Raspberry appear as shadows. Note: The heavier you ink the top layer, the more opaque the front layer appears. I loved how the background looked at this point, but wanted to add some more color, to fill the white spaces.

 I bumped the stencil to the left, and added some Mustard Seed. It looked pretty complete at this stage.

I wanted to keep this card really simple, so stamped the sentiment (from MFT Love You More) on vellum, secured it to the background, and layered the finished piece on Kraft card.

Now to add some more interest to the hearts, I wet my paint brush, and randomly added some strokes to each heart, causing the distress ink to lighten, and adding more dimension. Close Up below

Lastly, I covered around five hearts with Glossy Accents, just to make them pop a bit.

and that's all folks!
Happy Crafting!

High on Love!

And its playtime!
Sharing with you today, this cute little card which I made using supplies from AC's February kit.

 

The cardstock is from My Minds Eye, with beautiful designs on both sides.

So coming to how I made the card. I started with a piece of white water color paper (Canson), layered it with the MFT Love stencil, and secured both onto my craft sheet, as seen in the picture below.

Using the blending tool, I then inked the background using Picked Raspberry, and Worn lipstick distress inks, from Tim Holtz, Rangers. Next, I stamped the cute hedgehog (Love Flight by Penny Black) onto a fresh piece of watercolor paper, so I could color it in.

As I had planned to color the image with watercolors, I used the archival black ink to stamp, so that it does not bleed while coloring.

The colored image was cut out  using scissors, and I was all set to put the card together.
For the base I used a blank, hot pink card and envelope set, which I received as a gift from Artful Crafting with one of my orders. I layered the base with a piece of MME My Story, and the inked "Love" layer created earlier. Next I added the "xoxo" tab, and frill, from the Doodle Bug Sweet Heart stickers, followed by the colored hedgehog.

And that's all folks!
Now please hop over and link up your project to Challenge 10: Love.

Happy Crafting!

The Color Story

Most of us have a difficult time, when deciding the color combination for a project. "Does this match?" is the one question we ask ourselves repeatedly. So, to make things a little easy, I chose to share a couple of useful infographics, and a tutorial on the color theory as part of my last #craftykickstart16 post.

I'll start with the Tutorial, posted by Crafty Cardmakers in 2009! (yes, that long ago). It is a short, yet extremely informative post where they start by explaining common terms like Tone, Tint, Shade, followed by the 6 color schemes, and conclude with the color wheel, showing a range of tints and shades. (Reference image below linked from Crafty Cardmakers)

Next, is this graphic found on tugunicorn.blogspot.com. It starts with the wheel, and goes on to explain the different effects one can create using certain color combinations. Very useful as a reference.

Last, but not the least is this very comprehensive infographic by Kissmetrics. Though it is focused towards color combinations in web design, we as crafters can take a lot of useful pointers from it.

I hope this information helps you in choosing the right colors, in a shorter time.

This is my last post for #craftykickstart16, so be on the lookout for Amina, Amna, and Jaihan's post. We had a lot of fun interacting with all of you, and sharing all that we could in this time. We will, inshallah, continue to share and inspire, but not at the same pace. Hoping all of you are charged, and ready to participate in the Artful Crafting Monthly Challenges, which will resume from February inshallah.

Happy Crafting!
xoxo

  

Creativity Is Your Strength

Yesterday, I was so engrossed in all the #craftykickstart16 posts shared by Amna, Amina, and Jaihan, that I totally forgot about my post, oops!

This week I wanted to share the "Our Story" album / scrapbook / memory book that I had worked on last year (a month back to be exact). Some of you might have already seen the cover, but I am sharing the complete version here.

The reason for sharing this scrapbook as part of #craftkickstart16, is to let all those fabulous creative people out there know, that your creativity is your biggest strength. Sometimes if you don't find supplies for something you are working on, don't panic, and do not give up. YOU, by the Grace of the Almighty, can create anything and everything you need for a project, that is what I strongly believe. This scrapbook was one such project.

Our Story was meant for documenting special moments of a soon to be married couple, and the colors requested were Gold, Off-white and Deep Red.

As most of you know, Artful Crafting saves the day, thanks to the wide range of products available at the webstore, but in this case there was no cardstock available in the requested colors. So, I began searching through the FB based craft stores, but no luck there either. Next, I began sifting through supplies posted on our craft community pages, and didn't find anything.

At this point, I knew what I had to do. With a few gold foil, and offwhite sheets already in my stash I began planning the layouts, and how I would like the pages to look. I decided to gold emboss the offwhite cardstock, and compliment the layers with foil washi tape, which I ordered from Artful Crafting. With some mixed media techniques, color bloom sprays, and washi tape I was able to complete this beautiful scrapbook.



As per the client:

Never forget that "Creativity is your strength!"
Happy Crafting!
xoxo

Scalloped Petal Flower

Can't believe that January is nearly over, and we have only 11 days of CraftyKickstart16 left! Today I am sharing a super easy tutorial on how you can make the above scalloped petal flower. It is easy to make, and is simple yet very unique.

You will need:
4 scalloped squares, (2 large, 1 medium, and 1 small)
Glue
Stamens
Ink

5 scalloped square

I die cut the scalloped squares seen above, in 3 different sizes. You basically need 2 large scalloped squares, 1 medium scalloped square, and 1 small scalloped square.

Inked Edges

Next you need to ink the edges using a color which is a shade darker than the cardstock. Ink all the edges, of all the 4 scalloped squares.

The Folds

Once the edges have been inked, take on scalloped square and fold it in half. Then take the folded piece, and fold it in half again, so basically you've creased the square in quarters. Repeat this with all the four scalloped squares.

It is now time to give the quarters a petal shape.

Angled cuts

Unfold the quarter to half, and snip off the folded edges as seen in the above picture.  
Note: Do not cut all the way to the center. You must leave an approximate 0.5" space in the center, this will keep all the 4 petals intact, else they will fall apart.

Cutting the other edges

Unfold and refold to shape the other two sides, in the same fashion. The above picture shows how it should look at this stage. Repeat these steps for all the other pieces.

The shaped petals

The scalloped squares, should look like petals now; something similar to the above picture. The petals are now ready to be shaped as shown in the video below.

Note: The largest two will be shaped from the wrong side, while the remaining 2 pieces will be shaped right side up.

 

This is how they look after being shaped

To form the flower, the layers of petals need to be stacked and glued together, as shown in the video above.
Once glued together, I added some stamens to the center, and the flower was ready! [I didn't add stamens to the black one, but this one seemed incomplete without them.]

The final look

The top view.

That's all folks!
Happy Crafting!

Essential Tools

I am back with my 3rd post for craftykickstart16!

Today I am sharing 3 of my favorite basic tools (other than scissors), and highlighting the importance of using the right tools. In my opinion these tools are a must for every paper crafter.
[Before I start, I just want to add that there are alternatives for practically every tool, BUT if you want to save time, and minimize effort, invest in the right tools]

1. Scoreboard
This is a must have, and if you are a paper crafter, this is your best friend! In ancient times, I would score the cardstock using a ruler, and an ink-less ballpoint pen; yes, it did get the job done, but it took me twice the time and effort. This is highly recommended if, you want to score straight lines in a matter of seconds.

I use the Martha Stewart Scoring tool, and it works great for me. It is true that sometimes, when you are going really fast, you might jump the line because the groves are only 1/8th of an inch apart, but I don't mind that much. I love the fact that there are groves every 1/8th inch, because that allows me to score multiple times, without having to move the cardstock around.

2. Trimmer
Buy it! Your wrists will thank you! Using the paper knife may serve the purpose, but when you use it frequently you realize the pressure it puts on your wrists, and your fingers. The trimmer is your savior. Go get it!

I've worked with Fiskars and Tonic, and between the two, I prefer Tonic simply because the blades last longer. Most trimmers come with a scoring tool, Tonic does too, but I prefer using a scoreboard especially when I am working with cardstock that is longer than 12".

3. Craft Sheet
If you like to keep your desk/table clean, and damage free, do invest in a craft sheet. It is worth the investment.

I use the Ranger Inkessential non-stick craft sheet. I like to keep my table clean, so before I owned a craftsheet I would use large plastic mats, and though they served the purpose, cleaning them wasn't very easy especially when I had to remove UHU or permanent ink from them. The rangers craft sheet is very easy to clean, one wipe does it all; I also realized that it makes inking with the blending tool a lot easier, for some reason the ink seems to just flow easily onto the cardstock when you are inking the edges, with the cardstock placed on the mat.

These are my top 3 essential tools, and in this post I've only highlighted what I like about them. If you would like to read more about their features, just click the hyperlinks in the post.

Happy Crafting!