Altered Art Journal

A number of years ago, I took an altered art journal class. I've since lost the journal (or given it away), but I remember how much fun it was to make. I have wanted to make another one for a while now, and my Cuttlebug Challenge on Crop Stop this week got me working on some altered art, which got me thinking. I thought, why not use a MOSD Hip 2 Be Squared album and make another journal? And that's exactly what I did! Check it out!

I used two shades of green alcohol inks to color the front acrylic cover. Then I added my altered art piece to the cover. Each of the 6 Hip 2 Be Squared chipboard pages is a "chapter" heading. I then added 5-6 blank 6x6 sheets of heavy cardstock between each "chapter" for my journaling and artsy musings. I bound the whole thing with my Bind-it-All tool.

This is one of the chapter headings - Sketches. Each chapter heading has an altered tag art attached. This is the one I made for the Crop Stop Challenge see how I used the Cuttlebug Embossing Folder on the Grunge Board hinge?!

Here is another chapter tag. This time I stamped on the Grunge Board butterfly. Very cool, right? Below are a few more chapter headings.

Below are a few of the journal pages. Besides being a place to journal, these pages are for trying out different art techniques. It's a place to play and be creative.

I hope you enjoyed looking at my altered journal. Have a great weekend!

- Gloria

Friday Sneakie Peekie!

Well, it's Friday already! Have you enjoyed the sneak peeks this week? Are you excited about all the new MOSD products?! Well, the DT sure is! We've been loving working with the new stuff. I mean, who doesn't love new stuff?!

My peek today is another take on the new shaped pages. Instead of making an album out of my pages, I made this banner.

I covered each shaped page with printed paper, and then attached a glitter letter and some other goodies. (Would you believe these letters were SILVER when I started out? I painted them with green alcohol ink!)

Each panel is attached to the next panel with large eyelets. I also punched some flowers from printed paper and misted them with glimmer mist, then shaped them to give them dimension.

This is a frosted bird from Maya Road. I added an eye with black Stickles.

Isn't this Making Memories paper cute?!

My favorite part of this banner is this handmade flower. I cut a scalloped circle out of paper, using a Nestabilities die, and then sprayed it with glimmer mist. While it was still wet, I wadded it up and shaped it. When it was dry it had some nice dimension. (I got this idea from Leah Fung's blog.)

This butterfly is an Autumn Leaves stamp. I stamped it twice, then cut both images out. I sprayed them with glimmer mist also, and scrunched them up. (I used Staz-On ink so that the ink would not bleed or run when it got wet.) I attached the two butterflies together with pop-dots to give dimension.

I hope you liked my sneak peek!

- Gloria

Vintage, Part 2

For those of you who did not get to see Vintage, Part 1, go and visit Friday's blog post. For those of you who are wondering what I am doing posting on a Saturday, never fear! I am not taking over the blog by force...I'm just filling in. We'll be back to our regular post schedule after CHA! And for those of you who have been waiting to see what I did with the other half of the Big Boy cover....here it is!



This vintage stamp is called "Picking Flowers with Mom" and is made by The Stamping Ground. The Happy Valentine's Day stamp is Close to My Heart. I cut the scalloped circle with a Nestabilities die, and then ran it through the Big Shot using the Cuttlebug Divine Swirl Embossing Folder. Then I rubbed some cranberry alcohol ink and some old paper distress ink over it, crumpled it up, and attached it to the project.

Hope you enjoyed my trek into Vintage! See you on Friday for my CHA Sneak Peek!

- Gloria

The True Meaning of Christmas

The girls at Faith Sisters had a 9-day challenge going on in October. You were to make a page about each of the Christmas symbols, based on a story they had posted. I finally got around to printing the story and making my project, using a MOSD album, of course!


I used a MOSD Cover to Cover Tabbed Album, which has two clear covers and six tabbed chipboard pages. I did have to trace two extra pages from some scrap chipboard in order to finish my album. But, I had some chipboard left over from an Expressions Build-a-Book project, so I was in good shape!

I painted the edges of my covers with Cranberry alcohol ink (Tim Holtz) and white acrylic paint (Tim Holtz paint dabber). The star is Cosmo Cricket naked chipboard that I sprayed with "Gloria Glimmer Mist." (To see a tutorial on how to make your own glimmer mist, go here.) I also used a red MOSD Twirly Gig Stick-On and cut some circles with my Spellbinders Nestabilities dies.

The rest of the book contains the printed story from Faith Sisters (I used the Ali's Handwriting font downloaded for free from the CK site). I used a lot of different papers again for this project. For each Christmas symbol, I tried to find an embellishment or a stock photo to match.

Here is the inside of the front cover.

And a close-up shot of page 1.

And here are the rest of the pages.

And the back cover. Do you love that Bo Bunny Christmas tag?! I stamped the Christmas phrase on it with cranberry ink.

And a top view:

I hope you enjoyed your Christmas Holiday (or other celebration) this past week. This is my last post for 2008, so I will see you again in 2009! Have a Happy and Blessed New Year!

- Gloria

(side note - the two photos I used in this project were downloaded from the Getty Images site.)

Snow Flake Vintage Mask Card How To...

I had so much fun making this card--seriously. The StickOn's weren't designed to do this but with a little effort they make gorgeous masked images. I promise it was still Tuesday when I started writing this tutorial out, LOL.

To make this Card you'll need:

Snowflake StickOn's from MOSD--check our Retailer link to find out where you can pick some up
Cardstock for Base of Card
Creme non textured cardstock
Patterned paper--this patterned paper came from the awesome Chatterbox Limited Edition kit being sold at Sams Club.
Shipping Tag--mine came from Staples in a pack of 50 for less than 4.00
Alcohol ink Cranberry
Alcohol Ink Pearl Mixative
Alcohol Ink blending solution
rub and Blend foam tool From Ranger/Tim Holtz
Paper Edge Distresser--Tim Holtz makes one, Making Memories and Heidi Swapp all have different versions of this tool.
a Script or other background stamp--mine is from Inkadinkadoo-a Dawn Houser design but it's an older stamp, so I'm not sure if it's still being produced.
Vintage Photo Distress Ink by Tim Holtz
Black Ink--I use Archival Ink by Ranger
Chipboard decorations (hearts and button)--again mine came from the fantastic Chatterbox Limited Edition Christmas kit being sold at Sams Club
Chipboard Button or Real Button
Sticker this one is from Melissa Frances
Stickles In Red
Radiant Rain in Hot Cinnamon
crochet trim and ric rak--my crochet trim is vintage and was given to me by a friend (thanks Alicia!) but I know that they make newer versions of the same stuff now
Adhesive
Tweezers
Ok to get started-

You're going to chose a snowflake Stick On and place in the lower right corner of your tag. Cut out from the sheet and then apply the transfer paper to the front of the Stick On in the normal fashion---now take the stick on and touch it to your jeans/pants a few times--the point is to take away some of the sticking power of the StickOn--I did this about 5 or 6 times--DO NOT press it completely down on your clothing or it will stick! Just touch it lightly quite a few times to some sort of fiber/cloth surface. Now place it on the shipping tag in the lower right corner--let part of it hang off the edge of the shipping tag. Now lightly rub down on the Stick On--do not use the normal pressure--you just want it to release from the backing paper onto the tag--not be a permanant decoration.

Next Take your foam and blend tool and load it up with a few placed drops of alcohol ink in Cranberry--I'm breaking Tim's rules about not using alcohol inks on anything except for non porous surfaces (i.e glass, metal, glossy cardstock,etc). Make sure you have a cutting mat or protected work surface underneath the tag area (trust me, experience talking here) Ok now rub the alcohol ink over the tag and the StickOn. Keep reapplying the alcohol ink to acheive the color you're looking for. Next add drops of pearl mixative (shake that stuff really really well before you use it) and a few drops of blending solution on the foam and blend tool. Rub all over the project or just in places--that's entirely up to you. Just make sure you cover over the StickOn Snowflake really well. Now let it dry. Don't touch it. Just let it dry.

While drying, go ahead and cut your cardstock base for the card--mine measures 5x7 closed. Then cut your patterned paper for the front of the card--I left a 1/4" border of Cardstock showing behind the patterned paper. Before you adhere the patterned paper we're going to shabby it up a little--take your paper edge distresser and rough up the edges all the way around. Next take a new piece of blending foam on your tool and rub it in the Distress Ink Vintage Photo--rub across the rouged up edges and swirl around on your patterned paper if you'd like. It gives a true soft vintage feel to the card. Adhere the pattern paper to the card stock base when you're finished doing the "shabby" to it.

By this time the alcohol ink should be dry. The first step is to pull of the Stick On Snowflake--start with the edge that you left hanging off and pull gently. It may break but you'll be able to lightly scrape the rest of the Snowflake StickOn off with your fingernail or with tweezers. You'll have a gorgeous pattern of the snowflake showing thru the alcohol ink background.

Next take your script stamp or other background stamp and ink it up with a black ink--stamp over the entire tag. Let dry.

Once the tag is dry--take your paper distresser to the edges of it--once you've roughed it all up--take the vintage photo Distress Ink again and darken the edges--rubbing into the area where the alcohol ink is and over the snowflake area. It's a gorgeous vintage effect. Next break out that bottle of red stickles and apply to the edges of the shipping tag--just follow the roughed up edge and apply a fine to medium coat of Stickles to it. Set it aside to dry.

Once the stickles are dry it's time to embellish with a sticker of your choice--this one is from the Melissa Frances Winter Sticker label set and I love the Vintage feel of her products. I can't leave well enough alone so I roughed up the edges of the sticker and then did the blending foam with the Distress Ink in Vintage photo to it too. I noticed I had to apply more adhesive to the back of the sticker--for some reason the alcohol ink lets the regular sticker adhesive lift off the tag. (just a helpful tip, experience talking) or if you'd like you could add a chipboard piece to the tag---whatever you like! Then you can add the vintage trim and ric rack to the button and the tag is finished up!

Promise we're getting close to finishing it up now!
Take your creme cardstock and cut it 4x6---pick out a few of the Stick On Snowflakes and place them in the lower right corner--you can see from my pic above how I placed mine--you're going to do the same process to them as you did before to remove some of the sticky power. Now we're going to rough it up just like before--rough the edges up, then using the blending foam and the Distress Ink in Vintage Photo rub the edges and the ENTIRE cardstock area--especially on/over the snowflake Stick On's. Let Dry.Now peel off the Snowflake Stick On's--the same way you did above. Then take your bottle of Radiant Rain Cinnamon Red and Shake, Shake, Shake it--get all the pearl stuff mixed up really well--then take your script stamp (or other background stamp) and swipe lightly over it--DON'T PRESS DOWN HARD--seriously, experience talking here and you'll end up at the kitchen sinking washing off the stamp and starting over. Ok so now that you have the stamp ready--you're going to stamp over the entire creme cardstock area. Let dry (you can speed up the drying with a heat gun)

It's time to assemble the card--you'll take the creme cardstock and place it on an angle (see the example above for placement picture)and adhere. Next you'll place the tag on the creme cardstock in the opposite angle (again sorry if that makes no sense but a picture is worth a thousand words so you can see the example at the top)
and you've got yourself a Gorgeous one of a kind Vintage Christmas Card to send out to your loved ones! Stamp a sentiment inside, use a rubon or your own handwriting!

I know it seems like alot of steps but they go very quickly since you can start the next step while the other steps are drying. They would make fantastic gift tags on the pressies under your tree if you just wanted to to do the tag--it would be a fantastic way to do a Scrapbook layout for the snow season and Holiday season--the possibilities are endless--and remember the Stick on's are available in LOTS of different designs so you're not limited to only snowflakes--just click on the link at the right to take a look at all the StickOn examples we have listed here on the blog!

Itty bitty gift ideas :)

Just wanted to share some more Snowflake StickOn Fun! This would make a great gift if you're just looking for a fun way to say Merry Christmas and I'm thinking of you. I'm making these for my daughters therapists as part of their Christmas gifts.

Snowflake Card and Mini Chinese Take out Goodie Box
remember you can always click on the image to have a larger view of the project)

To make this you'll need
Patterned Paper
Cardstock
Stickles
Embossing Glitter
Snowflake Stick on's
Sentiment Stamp
Ink to match
Embossing Ink (if you choose to emboss instead of stickles)
Embossing Heat Gun

First I cut my card to measure 5x7 and folded the cardstock.
Next I cut my patterned paper to fit the front of the card, with about 1/4" border.
Then you're going to want to cut or punch a scallop circle. To cut my scallop circle I used my QK Silhouette Cutter, but I know EK Success makes a very large scallop circle punch that would work great for this card. I embossed the scallop edge area with embossing ink and then used Snowflake embosssing powder--it's a fantastic embossing powder that has white and sparkles combined to make a perfect frosty look.
The center cardstock is actually a heavy weight double sided paper--I layered the snowflake Stickon's onto the scallop area and overlapping into the center of the center. Just be sure to leave enough room to stamp your sentiment in the circle area.
Once I had all the snowflake StickOn's placed and the sentiment stamped, I added Ice Stickles in Coffee Ice to each of the Snowflake Stickon's. Just follow the outline of each sticker and you're all done with the card--just let it dry (if it's like my house, put it somewhere little hands can't get in to the wet glitter :)

While that's drying you'll need to cut out out the mini chinese take out box--you can find the template from a coordinating patterned paper or cardstock. Once you have it cut out, folded and glued then you can apply another snowflake stick on to the front and back side of the box. Once again I traced over them with the Stickles and let dry. Add your goodies inside--they fit hershey's kisses and mini reese cups really well :) then add a great bow to the top and you're all done with another gift!


and now for A BONUS project!! I'm always inspired by Tim Holtz's 12 days of Christmas tags--I'm in AWE of his amazing talent and product so I played around tonight and created this card--using some Snowflake StickOn's as MASKS!!! SO COOL--it's a little tricky but it makes an awesome effect! Plus I got to use the AMAZING Cool Christmas Special Edition Chatterbox Christmas Kit (an early Christmas gift--Thank you Alicia!!!!! You're the BESTEST!) to make this fun card! I'll leave you with the pic of the card for now (it's 2:18 am, so I need to get my booty in bed, but I'll be back in the a.m to post the how to's for it

Thinking outside the album...

Thanksgiving is just around the corner. We're hosting the meal at our house for the first time in several years. I used a MOSD Clearly Cute Petite album to make a couple of easy additions to my holiday table.

To start, I created a wine glass marker with one of the the acrylic covers:



Here's how I did it:

1. Stamp acrylic with a mix of alcohol inks to add color.

2. When dry, apply rub on.

3. Emboss edges of acrylic with gold embossing powder. (Tip: Go for less is more and don't put your heat tool too close! It may take a bit longer, but you won't melt your acrylic!)

4.Add a metal wire ring and some beads, available at M's.


Looking for something to do with the chipboard pages that come with the album? I made a tag to use as a napkin ring:



As you can see, it is easy to add some homemade charm to your holiday table.
Now if I could just find my tablecloth, I'd be all set...

Acrylics and Alcohol inks

Ever wonder how to hide your adhesives on an acrylic album? I think that is a question that haunts all of us. Well, I accidentally stumbled upon a solution...alcohol inks!! I was working on my Clearly Designed Square Album and using some clear glue adhesive that was not so clear. I thought, "Oh no!!!"...then I tried a few dabs of alcohol ink where the boo boo occurred...and viola! The mistake is hidden (or just blends in with the inks!)



Do you have any fun tips for covering up mistakes? Share them here!!

Have a great week...and remember...it's ok to make mistakes! Sometimes the best things have been discovered that way!

~Shannon