Scrap N Grow

Posts Tagged ‘Adhesives’

Good morning blog readers.  How is your week thus far?  Mine has been extra busy as my fiance has been out of town for work.  Today’s project is going to be presented over 2 days due to the size and complexity of the project. I spent my free time yesterday taking and editing photos and composing my list of supplies used. Today’s featured project is a Toy Box and Mini Album.  I made this toy box mini album for a girlfriend who is expecting her first baby.

Toy Box Exterior

Opening View of Toy Box

My mini album was initially inspired by a past project that Kathy Orta of Paper Phenomenon shared with her viewers.  I have included a link to her website here. Kathy Orta  is a very talented designer and is well known for her amazing mini albums. Furthermore, she also sell tutorials for most of her mini albums via a secure website.  Her tutorials are very clear, concise, and include several step by step photos. I purchased Kathy’s Toy Box tutorial; however, I was a bit intimidated by the construction of making the toy box.  I instead decided to use a pre-made unfinished toy box that I purchased at Joann’s.  Because I used a store bought box, I had to resize my mini album as well as get extra creative in order to add a shadowbox to mine. After having completed my project and comparing mine to Kathy’s inspiration Toy Box mini album, the only resemblance between the two is that each projects encompasses a toy box, shadowbox, and a mini album component.  The design of my project is therefore an original design that I improvised along the way.  Sorry for the fine print explanation, but I do want to ensure credits are given when and where appropriate.

Toy Box:

As I stated earlier, I purchased an unfinished toy box at JoAnn’s.  I lightly sanded the box before I used Espresso Color Wash spray to color the box inside and out.  I sprayed 2 coats and used nearly 2 bottles to adequately color the box.  Indie the box, I lined the bottom with patterned paper from the paper collection, Crate Paper Toy Box collection.  Once adhered, I applied Walnut Stain Distress ink to the box’s corners and edges for a vintage look.

Toy Box Interior Bottom View

I created a shabow box using Tim Holtz’s configuration  boxes.  I have several of his boxes and used left over boxes from a previous project.  I selected my desired sizes and cut to fit a thick piece of chipboard and adhered the boxes to the chipboard.  I colored the boxes using the same color wash that I used on the exterior of the box.  Afterwards, I selected desired papers and cut each to size and adhered to each of the boxes.  I then adhered a miniature bear to one of the boxes using Craft 6000 adhesive.   I elected to leave most boxes undecorated so that the recipient can add her own personalized trinkets.

Close Up of Shadow Box Inside Toy Box

Throughout the mini album, I used Crate Paper’s Toy Box collection.  The collection has a 6X6 and a 12X12 paper line as well as chipboard and sticker embellishments.  I did also add in a few other decorative papers from other collections that coordinated with the theme.

Toy Box Mini Album Cover

Because I used a pre-made toy box, I had to customize the size and shape of my mini album to fit inside the box.  The mini album is hefty in size and thickness.  I made my own binding and covers for the album. The binding is dark brown leather and the binding uses 4 large book binders from Tim Holtz’s Ideaology line.  The albums closure uses a brad and a hair binder and is accented with an Industrial Chic Jewelry component that I purchased at Michael’s.

Side View of Toy Box Mini Album Binding

Top View of Toy Box Mini Album Binding

I told you that the album was a biggie.  Now let’s take a look inside. In all, there are 14  2 page spreads in the album.  Each spread has a minimum of 1 interactive element.  This definitely added to the bulkiness of the album.

Title Page.  I chose to spell out Child’s Play using Scrabble letters.  I inked the edges of each tile using Walnut Stain Distress Ink.

Toy Box Mini Album Title Page

Spread One

Toy Box Mini Album Spread One

I embellished the left hand page using several embellishments for the collection.  The dog puzzle piece is a stray piece of a puzzle that I own.  Behind the boy’s life band are 2 removable tags that the recipient can place photos or journal on.

Toy Box Mini Album Spread One Embellishments Close Up

The opposite page features an interactive element.  I used a Sizzix A2 Card w/Flap Die to house pictures of journaling. The insert has room for a photo on the front, back and two more inside. I used a Velcro hook and loop fastener for the flap closure.

Toy Box Mini Album Close Up of A2 Card Flap Enclosure

Spread Two.  It’s all about a Barrel O Fun!  I die cut the barrel using my Cricut and the Old West Cricut cartridge. I inked the edges of the die cut using Walnut Stain Distress Ink.  The monkey’s are actual pieces from the Barrel O’ Monkeys game.  I lightly sanded them, applied a coat of Gesso before painting them with acrylic  paint.  I painted them a dark brown. I adhered them using E6000 adhesive.  I kept the opposite page simple.  A photo mat and a tag that can be pulled out from behind the mat.

Toy Box Mini Album Spread Two

Soread Three.  This was a super fun set of pages that I went a bit overboard on.

Toy Box Mini Album Spread Three

The left hand page tank was die cut using the Stand And Salute Cricut Cartridge and my Cricut machine. I used pop dots to add dimension to the tank’s tracks.  The dirt is full of texture.  It is a product called Elements made by Art Glitter Inc.  I used Flower Soft Glue to adhere the product and let dry for several hours to ensure good adhesion. The opposite page is actually a card that open’s and has a pop up feature.  The card’s front cover includes a photo mat and is embellished with a painted chipboard tag that I added Tim Holtz Ideology chain to to simulate a military dog tag.  I embossed the word boy using my Melody Ross embossing dies.

Toy Box Mini Album Close Up of Card Front

Inside the card is a pop up feature.  The pop up was created by using a Sizzix pop up die.  I used Zig Zag.  I adhered chipboard elements from the Toy Box collection to simulate a mini scene and added a journaling spot and additional dirt for added texture.

Toy Box Mini Album Pop Up Card Interior

Spread Four.

Toy Box Mini Album Spread Four

This spread features a dinosaur theme.  The dinosaurs and the mountains were die cut using my Cricut and the Dinosaur Tracks Cricut cartridge. The die cut’s edges were again inked using Walnut Stain Distress Ink.  Behind the adventurous band is a removable journaling card that is stamped with a notebook image from Impression Obsession.

Toy Box Mini Album Dinosaur Scene Close Up

Toy Box Mini Album Close Up

Spread five will be featured in my next post. I will continue this post tomorrow to help minimize the length of my posts.  As many of you know who blog, it takes several hours to compose a post that is jam packed with photos.  I will share the remaining pages in my next post.  I hope that you like what I have shared thus far. Please feel free to leave a comment or ask a question. Thank you so much and have a great day!

Michelle

Happy Memorial Day. I would first like to thank those of you who are currently serving our beautiful country. I would also like to take a moment to remember those who have fallen in the line of duty.  Words can not merely express my gratitude and thanks for all servicemen and women who are currently serving or have served our country.

Next, I would like to apologize for my absenteeism this past weekend as I had fully intended to post throughout the weekend.  I did enjoy our one nice day on Friday before heavy storms and monsoon like rains drenched our area throughout the entire weekend. Several times our power flickered and internet was intermittent at times.  Storms + complex project + not enough hours in each day = no blog post over the past weekend.  I sincerely apologize and will try and play catch up this week for you.

This afternoon I finally completed my envisioned bouquet of peonies minus the stem’s leaves.  This project was definitely a never ending whirlwind!!! It consumed nearly every free non stormy moment throughout the long holiday weekend. My original vision for this project was to create a bouquet of life like peonies.  Earlier this spring I had purchased several of the McGill paper blossom punches and thought that I would use them to make some peonies.

I started by printing off the peony instructions from McGill’s website.  I then proceeded to select paper and punch the desired number of required shapes.  As I was punching the shapes, I thought to myself that the shapes seem pretty small, but I proceeded anyway and completed the assembly for 7 peonies.  They turned out fine but are indeed very small and lacked a life like sized blossom. I am going to save these for later use on a scrapbook layout, card, or home decor type project.  The completed McGill peonies are pictured below.

Peonies Created Using McGill Paper Blossom Punches

The McGill peonies while nice were not what I had originally envisioned, for I desired big, luscious, full blooms like their live counterparts.  So I instead decided to use my Cricut and the Giant Flowers Cricut Cartridge. A Cricut die cutting machine allows a user to cut my desired shape(s) at any specified size. My luscious, full sized blooms are pictured below.

I elected to cut my flower parts at 3 inches.  The book recommends much larger but with having previous experience using this cartridge, I knew I could successfully cut my shapes much smaller.  I followed the book’s instructions and cut desired shapes in white card stock to assemble a test flower.  I do this typically to figure out the quirks of assembly and for determination of size before using my quality card stock. I am so glad I did as I was very disappointed in the test flower.  In my opinion, the flower was sparse and had a hug hole in the center.  Perhaps, if someone were to use this as a centerpiece or even to place a candle in the center then this would be sufficient but not for a luscious life like blossom that I envisioned. I now knew that I needed to cut mass quantities of each flower part in order to potentially achieve my desired flower.  To do this I  used my Gypsy and placed mass quanities onto a 12X24 mat and cut out shapes once more.

I listed my cuts below:

4 Peony centers (not the recommended 2)

8 peony leaf 1 (not the recommended 6)

8 peony leaf 2 (not the recommended 4)

12 of peony leaf 4 (not the recommended 4).

I also cut 2 of peony layer 4 in lieu of the recommended 1. These are for the center stamens.

I chose 2 different colors of pink card stock  and cut enough parts so that I would be able to make 5 of one color and 4 of the other color. Odd numbers are more visually pleasing to the eye. I will warn you that if you decide to make these yourself, please purchase enough card stock.  After all parts were cut, I used Worn Lipstick Distress ink and my blending tool and inked the edges on both sides of each flower part.  Afterwards, I used my McGill molding mat and accompanying tools to mold the flower parts.  I then used Inkessentials Glossy Accents to glue each flower part prior to the final assembly. This step was labor intensive and downright tedious, but makes a huge difference in the final flower.

Regarding the final assembly, I rolled and offset glued consecutively all 4 peony centers ensuring that I did leave a large enough central opening for my stamens to fit. If you need too, glue these together first, I just estimated.  Next, I adhered 8 peony leaf 1 parts and again offset these with each layer. I adhered these at the height of the score marks on the peony centers.  I continued to adhere the remaining leaf parts offset for each row while I held the flower firmly in my hand upside down the entire time to ensure that the adhesive and flower stayed firmly together.

I would also like to share with you and hope to save you the frustration that I encountered using various adhesives. I started out using Crafter’s Ultimate glue and this did work, but I felt took too long to dry before I could proceed to adhere additional flower parts.  I then tried Inkessentials Glossy Accents. This worked better but still required additional time to dry in between each flower part.  I then decided to try hot glue.  While this seemed to work well intially, I became very frustrated as while I was adhering my final petal layers on my flower, I could see that the hot glue previously used cooled clumpy like and that my flower parts were not adhered well. I could see that large clumps of flower parts were barely adhered and were not intact.  At this point I was very frustrated!  So much so that I had to just walk away and take a break.  The next day, I reassembled the flower and the others using Inkessentials Glossy Accents.  I used 2 sets of locking tweezers to adhere 2 parts at a time and let sit to completely dry each time, typically 3-5 minutes.  This was very time consuming!!!!!!! In order to pass time,  I surfed the internet and chatted on message boards. In all, it took me the better part of late Saturday, Sunday, and a few hours this morning to complete the final assembly of these 9 peonies.

For the stems, I had to think outside the box a bit.  These flower heads have some distinct weight to them. I decided to use double thickness floral wire and wrapped the wire with green floral tape.  I used hot glue successfully to adhere the stems to the flower heads. I still need to cut out leave,s but really wanted to post these for you instead of making you wait yet a few more days.  To help conceal the naked stems, I placed the blossoms inside a cute watering can purse I received awhile back for a gift. I then photographed them for you outside in between the bouts of rain.

All in all, I think this project demanded the most time to complete of the projects I have posted thus far. I am pleased with the results and am eager to cut the leaves out.  What do you think about today’s flowers? Which do you prefer?  I would so love for you to leave me a comment telling me your thoughts or ask any questions.

Thank you for stopping by and for taking the time to read this lengthy blog post.  I am in the process of starting to compose my studio gallery organization and will begin to post about that later this week. I also plan to create the poppy next on the Giant Flowers Cricut cartridge as well as complete my Compendium of Curiosities II challenge yet this week.

Thank you again for stopping by.  Have a great night!

Michelle

Good morning blog friends.  Today is day 2 of my vacation. The weather forecast for today is 80 and sunny.  I have plans to spend the day outside staining our deck’s floor as I prepped our deck floor yesterday for staining today.  Last night, I relished in having play time in my studio and completed Tim’s Tags of 2012 for May. This year in place of his 12 tags of Christmas, he instead showcases one tag per month and started with February, he has said “he owes us January”. His tags while beautiful, are really a great learning experience as they are chocked full of old and new techniques utilizing supplies from his various product lines.  This month’s tag is none the exception.

May Tag Inspired By Tim Holtz Tags of 2012

Each month, I typically try and follow his tag to a tee to ensure I try out and learn each technique presented, but this month, I added my own twist.  I instead decided to create two tags, his version and my variation. Click here to be taken to Tim’s post regarding today’s featured tag. Tag 1 was Tim’s tag and tag 2, my variation.  I worked on each tag side by side and step by step with some notable variations.

For my variation, tag 2, I elected to use Tim’s Sewing Room Alterations die for the dress form and his Bird Cage die for the lower portion of the dress form.  This idea was inspired by the dress form stamp he used in his tag.  I die cut the dress form out of Claudine Hellmuth’s sticky back canvas and painted it with Pitch Black Adirondack Paint Dabber and embossed it with Tim’s Damask embossing folder from Sizzix. The lower portion of the dress form was cut from grunge board and painted black just as I had painted the dress form.

I also decided to place my measuring tape towards the top portion of the tag and added a fun pair of Studio 490 Art Part scissors. I painted the scissors with silver Adirondack Paint Dabber and used my Crop A Dile punch to create a hole for the scissor’s blades junction and inserted a silver brad fastener for added detail.  At this point, I have to admit that my variation was making me giddy happy. So much so, that I kind of started to abandon tag 1, Tim’s tag. Sorry Tim, no offense, but I loved the depth and all the extra stuff on my variation.

Moving on, I placed several pop dots on the backside of the dress form parts and the measuring tape and adhered them.  I tucked in the scissors and place a small drop of Glossy Accents for hold.  I then attached a Ideaology Accoutrement button with a Ideaology mini pin to the dyed crinkle ribbon. I also chose to add another Studio 490 Art Part, a piece of scallop trim.  I painted the scallop trim with Claudine Hellmuth’s Studio Paint, Traditional Tan, and afterwards highlighted areas with Frayed Burlap Distress Ink.  Lastly, I embellished the trim with some Martha Stewart Pearls in my stash.

I had difficulty locating an appropriate sized spool as Tim had used.  The ones I found were the closet match.  I think they are a tad large, but I thought they would still work.. To cut the spool in half, I used my fiancé’s vice grip and hacksaw. It took more muscle and effort than I thought it would. Afterwards, I sanded the backside of the spool, and inked the front side of the spool with a bit of Frayed Burlap Distress Ink so that the spool was not so stark and new looking.  I then wrapped some thread around the spool and inserted a threaded needle for added detail.

Regarding the flowers, I could only find Prima flowers without stems. Because they were similar in size, I decided to purchase them and add my own stems using a fine gauge floral wire.  I used my needle tool to create a hole in the bottom of each flower, applied a small dollop of Glossy Accents, inserted wire and set aside each flower to dry.  I then busted out my Melting Pot for the very FIRST time.  For some reason, I have always been a bit intimidated by it for some unknown reason. I used it without any problems, but did learn that I should have held the flowers until they cooled so that I did not end up with a dollop of UTEE on my flower.  OOPS!!..lesson learned.  No biggie, I turned the flowers accordingly and wrapped them into a cluster and attached them to the spool with hot glue.  Afterwards, I attached the spool to the tag with additional hot glue to ensure that the heavy spool would adhere to the tag.

Lastly, like Tim did, I made an oval tag using a sewing image from his paper stash and attached the cash key tag to the hanger using a small jump ring.  Overall, I really like how my variation of his tag turned out.

I have to confess, that in the end, I did not adhere the embellishments to tag 1, and I kind of abandoned tag 1 altogether. I felt really bad, but I really preferred the dimension that I created with my variation.  Making the tags were fun, I learned a lot, and overcame my intimidations toward the Ranger Melting Pot.  Thank you for stopping by today. Behind the scenes, I am in the process of working on my Compendium of Curiosities week 6 entry and will be back later this week to show you what I came up with. Have a great day everyone! See you soon!

Michelle

Welcome to week 5 of Compendium of Curiosities II challenge hosted by the lovely Linda Ledbetter over at Studio L3.  This week’s challenge is being sponsored by Simon Says Stamp. The technique for this week can be found on page 48 of Compendium of Curiosities Volume II and is called Shattered Stains.

Compendium of Curiosities II Challenge Entry Week 5

To begin, I applied the new Squeezed Lemonade Distress Ink to the left side of a manila tag. Accidentally, my tag picked up a tinge of the Postmark Red Dylusions spray that I used previously on my non stick craft sheet. OOPs!  It ended up being a happy accident though as it intensified the yellow to emulate a warm sunny look. I then took another tag and applied Symphony tissue tape horizontally across the tag covering the entire surface and die cut the word Journey along the left side of the tag using Tim’s mover and shapers die. Afterwards, I used the new Peacock Feathers Distress ink to apply to color to the background.  Next, I used foam tape and adhered the two tags together so that the yellow tag shadowed the word journey underneath. I feel the foam tape provided added depth and dimension.

Next, I used a scrap piece of cardboard and die cut “grass” using Tim’s on the edge Twigs die.  Afterwards, I carefully peeled the top paper layer away to expose the corrugated appearance.  I felt that the vertical lines emulated grass.  I then painted the grass with Adirondack Lettuce paint dabber and sprayed Sour Apple Perfect Pearl’s mist afterwards for added shimmer.  Next, I chose to add some flowers in the grass using assorted flowers from Tim’s Ideaology line.  I adhered these flowers to the grass stems using Glossy Accents.

Moving on, the butterflies which were die cut and colored following the Shattered Stains technique in Tim’s book. I embellished each butterfly with a Ideaology Game Spinner colored with Pitch Black alcohol ink.  I shaped butterflies and adhered to tag using a back pop dot.

Lastly, I dyed Stampin Up’s Vanilla seam binding ribbon using Peeled Paint Distress Stain and threaded the tag’s hole for a nice finish.  This tag came together pretty quickly to my amazement.  It was a fun technique and really pushed me to use what I had in my stash already.

Thanks for stopping by.  I hope that you will come back again soon.

Michelle

Happy Easter! I have a fun project to share with you today…decorated ostrich eggs. A generous client of mine recently gifted me a few dozen ostrich eggs after she found out that I was a mixed media artist. I have to admit that ostrich eggs are a totally new concept to me. For up until I received these eggs, I had never seen one in person, nor realized how large, and how hard the egg shell is.
Throughout my client’s dental appointment, she told me that she used to paint the exterior of the eggs and gift them to her family and friends. She also carved into others and created miniature scenes for the various holidays. Her ideas kick started my brainstorming of potential ideas.  While I had some initial thoughts regarding potential projects, I decided to perform a Google image search for ostrich eggs and was completely blown away from several of the returned results. There are some very talented egg artisans out there. While several eggs were decoratively painted, there were several more that were intricately sculpted. I thought the idea to paint the outer shell was an ideal place to start.

Ostrich Easter Eggs

So today is my first project ever created using an ostrich egg. I wanted to keep it relatively simple. Because the outer shell of the egg is quite slippery and feels almost glass like, I started by using some medium grit sandpaper to roughen up the outer surface so that paint would adhere. I then applied 2 coats of Gesso art medium to prime the egg for paint. Afterwards, I applied 2 coats of Claudine Hellmuth’s Studio Paint to each eggs. Next, I cut out my desired images using my Cricut expression and the Damask Cricut cartridge. I thought I would experiment to determine which material would best adhere to the egg’s surface. So in each corner of my mat, I placed a different surface: a piece of Cricut vinyl, a piece of heavy weight decorative cardstock, a piece of lightweight decorative paper, and in the last corner, a plain piece of smooth white card stock. All surfaces cut well at 5 inches. I chose to use the purple vinyl image for my yellow egg. It adhered well and easily. For the blue egg, I initially fussed with the heavy weight decorative cardstock and this proved to be quite fussy and was to stiff to bend to the contour of the egg, so I set that aside and picked up the lightweight decorative card stock. This worked well, I applied the decorative cutout without any problem using a thin coat of matte Mod Podge and let dry. And lastly, for the green egg, I really wanted to paint on it but did not wish to take the labor intensive time to trace the image onto the egg and then paint. The image is quite intricate and would be time restrictive. Instead, I decided to paint the smooth white card stock with a complementary color using again Claudine Hellmuth’s Studio paint. This painted well. Afterwards, I decided to try a different adhesive and used Americana’s Decoupage Medium. This was a lighter weight medium compared to Mod Podge and I felt as though I had to fuss more to ensure the decorative cut was burnished well onto the egg, but it did adhere well. Overall, I am egg-cited and pleased with my initial egg-periment and have generated some new ideas for other projects.

Supplies Used: Ostrich Eggs, Claudine Hellmuth Studio Paint, Cricut Die cutting Machine, Damask Cricut Cartridge, Provocraft Vinyl, Decorative Paper, Decoupage, and Mod Podge

If you wish to create your own egg masterpiece..leave me a comment and I will draw 2 names on Friday April 13, 2012.

 
Thank you again for visiting and have a Happy Easter.

Michelle