What’s the Story – Journaling Your Life

Posted on July 8, 2016 by Kristie Sloan

For those of you who enjoy keeping documenting your life and those around you with photos, don’t forget to write the stories, as well! Previously, I’ve written about journaling in memory keeping in this post: The Palest Ink is Better Than the Best Memory

Kristie Sloan with Tracie Claiborne

During a recent “family” reunion with my ScrapHappy group, we were fortunate to have Tracie Claiborne of the ScrapGals Podcast join us in person. Tracie allowed us to be the first participants of a new class she is putting the final touches on, regarding journaling and telling the stories of our lives.

She offered so many ideas to capture memories about not only special events, but to go beyond the surface of a photos and use them to tell so many other stories.

I’ll let you know when the class is available to everyone, you’ll want to be sure and take it; especially if you are someone who usually steers clear of adding anything but pictures to your memory keeping.

I hope you will also look into joining our ScrapHappy group, and perhaps coming to our next reunion!

Cheers to YOUR Artful Adventures!

Art Journal Hybrid Scrapbooking

Posted on March 17, 2016 by Kristie Sloan

Today’s adventure is going to take us into a combination art journaling and memory keeping layout, where we’ll use some photos that are less than picture perfect.

One of my daughters enjoyed attending the St. Patrick’s Day festivities in St. Paul, Minnesota for a number of years, and I would end up with just some fun photos that I would either see on her phone, or maybe on social media. What better way to use imperfect photos than to combine them in an art journal style layout. When the only photo you have is less than perfect, it suddenly becomes the perfect photo!

My friend Joanna Grant has a number of vintage photos that she shares frequently, and I love them for use in mixed media. I printed several St. Patrick’s Day themed vintage greeting or postcards on my inkjet printer, using presentation paper. Presentation paper will usually give you a much better print to work with, without being as heavy or as expensive as photo paper. After printing and cutting the images, I used some Glue N’ Seal to adhere them to my pages in a mixed media journal, using a collage method; gluing over and under the image.

Vintage St. Patrick’s Day prints from inkjet printer applied to layout.

Then I applied some dylusions paint in fresh lime, and lemon zest. Not only did I cover the empty places on the page, but I began to paint over the images.

Apply paint to begin to pull page together and continue building the background.

Then, I applied some plain white tissue paper to a few places, just to give it a bit of texture, and to begin to tone down some of the color. You can see more on applying tissue paper in a previous post.

White tissue paper randomly applied for added texture.

Next, I used the edge of an old plastic gift card and began to add a bit of white gesso over the pages, to begin to tone down some of the background. At this point, it was going to overpower the photos!

Gesso applied to tone down some of the background.

What good Irish layout would be complete without more shamrocks? I went to Cricut.com’s Design Space and found a shamrock image to cut as stencil on my Cricut, then inked on a layer.

Shamrock stencil used for another layer.

Another layer added using a stencil.

Random stenciling.

That looked a bit overpowering, so I added another bit of white gesso.

More gesso applied.

I decided to be done with the background, and added the photos I had printed on my inkjet printer. They, too, were printed on presentation paper. The “St Patrick’s Day” letters were also cut with Cricut. If you wanted to, you could use alpha stickers or hand letter. A squiggly border was drawn around each photo, using a thin marker and a thicker one. Space was left for more journaling. If you look closely, you can see there are even several green “diamonds” added for extra bling!

Photos added to the layout, with a wee bit of journaling.

It turned out messy and I had a great time creating the layout. I probably wouldn’t have normally used these photos, but they certainly embody the crazy times and outfits. Having taken the photo at the end, it looks like there are some places I may go back and work on a wee bit more… and that is the beauty of this kind of project. It’s done when I say it’s done.

What do you say? Do you want to get messy with me?

A few of my friends are bringing you some GREEN ideas today. Next up, check out Alison Day’s five favorite Green Inspired projects.

Until next time…

Cheers to YOUR Artful Adventures!

Charlotte Paper Pack, Springtime Wishes Stamps

Posted on March 14, 2016 by Kristie Sloan

Here is a sneak peek at three of the cards that will part of the new set I’m working on from the Charlotte paper pack. The paper pack will only be available through the end of April. These cards are also part of a new One Sheet Wonder I’m working on, and I will have that up as soon as it is finished.

Charlotte Paper Pack and Springtime Wishes stamp set and Springtime Wishes Thin Cuts.

To tell you the truth, I really struggled with selecting which sheet I was going to use out of the Charlotte pack. I finally decided to use a sheet that neither side would really be the star of the show, and outshine the embellishments I wanted to create. The Springtime Wishes stamp set and Thin Cuts were what I had in mind.

The matting has been done with an additional sheet from the pack, instead of using a sheet of solid color card stock. This way, the sheet I am using also is a double-sided print, and allows me a choice for the matting!

The flowers and leaves were stamped with the Springtime Wishes set, and then I simply sponged some color from the centers out. I just received word that the corresponding Thin Cuts set is sold out. So I’ll take that into consideration as I finish up this set of cards to show you!

Remember that the Buy 2, Get 1 Free Stampaganza is now in full swing at Close To My Heart. Get the details in this post about the Stampaganza event.

Charlotte Paper Pack and coordinates

Springtime Wishes Stamp Set

Springtime Wishes Thin Cuts, sold out.

Until next time…

Cheers to YOUR Artful Adventures,

How to Use Thin Cuts with Stamping

Posted on March 8, 2016 by Kristie Sloan

Have you ever stamped something and wanted to cut it out, but didn’t want to do a bunch of fussy cutting? I’m sure most of us have! Yesterday, I showed you some cards where I used Close to My Heart Thin Cuts to cut some coordinating stamped floral images.

I thought you may like to see exactly how to use them. Take a peek at this video.

Did you notice how she showed the little magnetic sheet to keep them all in place? Well… I was thinking about the magnetic base that is available to use with my Big Shot, and thought this was a good idea to just stamp my images and put them on the little enclosed magnetic sheet to hold my Thin Cuts in place. NOT a good idea! As soon as I lifted my cuts off, and realized I had almost cut through my magnetic sheet, it dawned on me how goofy that was! However, it didn’t cut all the way through, so all is well. I never said I was perfect! Laugh amongst yourselves!

Here are Thin Cuts currently available. Once you click on one, it will also show you the coordinating stamp set.

Until next time…

Cheers to YOUR Artful Adventures

Stamping for All Occasions

Posted on March 7, 2016 by Kristie Sloan

Sentiment stamped when you know what you want!

For some reason, it seems like I never have enough birthday cards! Sometimes it seems like I could just get by with a ‘Happy Birthday’ stamp and leave it at that. Just kidding! You know I couldn’t do that. Yet it brings up the question of selecting greetings if you are trying to make up a batch of cards in advance. How do you decide what and how many to make of your greetings? Actually, you don’t have to make it such a hard decision!

One way to deal with this problem is to go ahead a make a bunch of cards and leave off the greetings! When you find a stamp set that has a lot of different greetings or sentiments they usually tend to be a similar size. That makes it easy to make cards and just leave off the sentiment, and stamp it later! Then all you have to do is have the stamp set easy to find, grab your ink pad and stamp an appropriate sentiment!

Here is an example of using this technique, using a double-sided, printed paper.

Cut the paper to fit the front of the card. Cut a strip 1″ to 1.25″ wide. Make sure your strip is large enough for the sentiment if your stamp set has larger stamps. You could also use the busier side of the paper for your bottom strip, leaving plenty of space to stamp above the dividing line of your papers.
Now you can use both sides of the paper on your card, and coordinate the top and bottom.
An additional strip was added from coordinating paper on one card, and some shimmer trim on the other. I love shimmer trim! It has an adhesive side, and quickly jazzes up a project!
Next, add any other embellishments. The flowers and leaves were made using the Springtime Wishes stamps and Thin Cuts.

Bottom section is left blank, to stamp sentiment on later.

If you want to stop here, you can put your cards away, and keep you stamps and an ink pad handy to stamp an appropriate sentiment as needed.

NOTE: When using this technique, you’ll want to leave the area to stamp as flat as possible. Don’t add layers and layers with paper and adhesive, because you’ll want to make sure you get a good image when you stamp. These cards only have the printed paper on top of the card base. When ready to stamp, open your card out so that you are stamping on as few layers as possible!

The bottom has enough space to stamp a variety of sentiments, as you need them.These flowers have a bit of colored pencil in the centers, as well as a little pearl accent.

Sentiment stamped when you know what you want! Green shimmer trim and little pearl accents finish off the embellishments.

Here are a few great sets you may be interested in because of all the occasions they will cover. Plus, Close to My Heart is having their Stampaganza during the month of March. It’s a buy 2, get 1 free. You all know the rules… the free one can’t cost more than the one’s you purchase. But this would be a great time to stretch your dollar for purchasing some of the larger sets.

Close to My Heart, D1646 – Finding Words

D1525 Casual Expressions, Close to My Heart

C1633 – For Family, Close To My Heart

C1605-Happy to Be friends, Close To My Heart

B1504, Sending Love

This could also be a great time to share stamping with a friend. Make up a few cards and help her get comfortable with basic inking and stamping techniques. Then she could use a set of greetings and an ink pad to take this idea home. What is better than a new crafting buddy? You can’t convert everyone to enjoy your favorite hobbies, but you never know who will find out they enjoy sharing in a fun pastime with you!

Be sure to come back to see another One Sheet Wonder this week! We’ll take one sheet of printed paper to create a stack of cards! Links to products used today are below, for your convenience. But first….

It’s Make it Monday! Alison, over at AlisonDayDesigns.com, is prepping for Easter. Remember it comes kind of early this year, March 27th! Hop on over and see what she’s doing!

Here are some quick links to the main products used on today’s cards:

Kaleidoscope paper pack

Springtime Wishes stamp set

Springtime Wishes Thin Cuts

Green Shimmer Trim

Finding the Words Occasions stamp set

Until next time…

Cheers to YOUR Artful Adventures!