Using a Printable Download for a Scrapbook Page

Cants Into Cans printable download Many printable downloads have a quote or a thought that would be appropriate to use on a scrapbook page.  By using one for a page, you are able to use a great deal of space on your page without having to think about it too much. Just think, someone else has done all the design work on the printable!  They have selected the colors, the fonts, the layout, the phrase … ALL of it!   If you like the way the printable looks, you are ready to go!

Have you seen this saying before?  “She turned her can’ts into can’s, and her dreams into plans.” What a powerful reminder of determination!  As many daughters as I have, and as many women as I know, I thought this would be a great one to use for today’s Artful Adventures project!

One of the first things that came to mind, when thinking of what scrapbook page to use this on, was my daughter’s college graduation.  She decided to go back to school and earn her college degree. She did so while working full time.  It was a lot of work, but she did it anyway.  I had just a few pictures that turned out well and I still had never done anything with them.  Actually, instead of looking at the pictures and only feeling happy about her achievement, I would look at them and become irritated about how awful they turned out. The pictures were a reminder to see about a new camera that would take better pictures in low light!

Cants Cans Printable Download Scrapbook PageYou will notice that the page is rather simple.  It includes:

  • 2 Photos
  • 1 Printable digital download
  • Background Cardstock
  • Partial sheet of print paper
  • Journaling strip
  • 3 Brads

Such a little effort to finally have a wonderful memory on a page!

This example uses the printable as it was.  However, this particular one from Stampin’Up! comes with stamp/brushes that can be used in any program and the colors can be changes as you like.  You have the option of using the file as is, or you can change the colors in appropriate software.

Artful Adventures

 

I have one more idea for this weeks’ Artful Adventures in printable digital downloads!  Until next time, Cheers to YOUR creativity!

–Kristie

Heart Punch Shamrocks on March Art Journal Calendar

Artful-Adventures-Kristie-Sloan-Heart-Punch-ShamrocksI always love it when I can show you something and get a project done at the same time!  Today, I’ve got yet another way to use a heart punch or die cut.  We are almost to March this year, and St. Patrick’s Day brings Irish inspired design to many things during the month of March.

These were made from vellum so that they did not completely cover up the background layers.

For this March art journal calendar scrapbook page:

VintageSt.PatricksDay
  • Used a green piece of 12×12″ card stock for the foundation piece.
  • Die cut “March” from a printed paper, and inked the edges of the letters
  • Arranged the vintage greetings and adhered them.
Artful-Adventures-Kristie-Sloan-March-Project-Layout
  • Toned down the greetings with a bit of white craft ink.
Artful-Adventures-Kristie-Sloan-March-Project-Inking
  • Punched hearts from heavy vellum card stock
  • Inked the edges of the hearts
  • Arrange the hearts into shamrocks
  • Adhered just the points with a bit of glitter glue
  • Topped off the center of each shamrock with a bit of Crystal Effects, to make sure they adhered securely.
Artful-Adventures-Kristie-Sloan-Heart-Punch-Shamrocks
  • Drew stems on the shamrocks with a marker.
  • Numbered the petals of the shamrocks to be used as a tiny journal spot for each day.

Artful-Adventures-Kristie-Sloan_March-Art-Journal-Calendar-Scrapbook-Page

Don’t forget to join us over at the Artful Adventures Facebook Group and share your completed items!  There will be “lucky” prizes drawn in March for those who have uploaded something they have created. You never know when those drawings will be held!

Sew Thankful – Sew Loved

Those who know me well, know that there is just not an end to my interest in all things crafty. Sometimes I jump from one thing to another, and that is why scrapbooking and card making became interesting to me. It was like making miniature art projects!  Then when you throw in art journaling, mixed media, doodling, oh my – my head starts to spin with all the excitement of possibilities!  This website will never become a sewing focused place, but I just want to give some love to all my fellow crafters who know how to rock out a sewing machine!  Here’s why:

This month I am participating with over 400 other people in Lain Ehmann’s LayOutADay for February 2013. You can Scrap Happy and participate next time. During LOAD, she gives us a prompt each day, and everyone creates a page and uploads it to a private Flickr gallery. Obviously every prompt elicits an individual response from each person, so there are a multitude of layouts and stories!

Artful Adventures Kristie Sloan LOAD213-09My layout for today was from thoughts I had about being crafty from a young age.  With so much talk these days about actually stitching on scrapbook pages and cards with a sewing machine, it reminded me of how much sewing I have done in the past.

My grandmother learned to sew on a Singer treadle machine which I still own.  If you walked into the room when she was sewing, you could hear it practically singing, and it was going so fast you would think it was an electric machine!  Even after she had an electric machine, she often would rather use the treadle, especially for quilting.  It became hard to find the belts and she eventually just used an electric all the time.

My mother also knew how to sew and she made most of the things she and I wore. She wanted me to learn to sew, but instead of really trying to teach me herself, she had me join 4H and we learned some basic sewing skills. I think I made the obligatory apron. Hmmm…. I didn’t think it was all that hard!

By the time I started eighth grade, I was making all my clothes, except outer wear, sweaters, and jeans.  I really enjoyed selecting my own fabric and patterns, and not wearing what my mom picked.  Let’s just say we don’t really have the same taste!

Between my mom and grandmothers, they enjoyed sewing, quilting, embroidery, smocking, needlepoint, knitting, crochet….  It was no wonder I felt that these needle crafts were awesome!

After marrying and having three girls, I did a lot of sewing until three things happened:

  1. I had better luck being able to try something on and knowing if fit and looked good, and just buying it.
  2. The girls decided it wasn’t cool to wear “homemade” clothes.  They wanted to shop at stores with trendy clothes.  It would almost kill me to buy things for them made with such cheap fabric and poor workmanship.
  3. Family who couldn’t/wouldn’t sew wanted to take advantage of my skills, and have me do all kinds of alterations for them, or things I didn’t even like doing for myself.

The love of sewing was lost.

Lately, my oldest granddaughter has been so happy to have me mend some of her favorite pants, and I’ve seen so many beautiful quilts, stitching on paper projects, cute aprons, that I’m starting to get the itch to do some sewing again.  I’m thinking I may start with a cute apron.  I feel like I am coming full circle. Thank you grandmas, mom, and 4H!

In case you are interested, check out this Free Webinar coming up on 2/13, “Get Your Stitch On with Jennifer Larson” –  Sewing on Scrapbook Pages.

Scraplifting is Not a Crime

In today’s episode, let’s look at a way to really save time in your scrapbooking efforts, and that’s by “scraplifting” or using templates or sketches!

You don’t have to always reinvent the wheel with every page you make.  If you see a layout you like, use the basic layout on your own page!  Using your own colors, papers, embellishments and photos will make it your own!  (If you post your page in an online gallery it’s nice to credit who inspired you.)

Templates can really speed a page along, especially if you are digital scrapping.  Page maps/scrap maps are like a blueprint to follow to create a page.  Remember that you can get a totally different look simply by rotating or flipping a template or page map!  Sometimes the orientation of the original is not a good fit with your pictures or other elements of your page.  By rotating or flipping the design, it may better fit your needs.  So, go ahead and scraplift or get a head start using a template or a sketch someone else has put together!

Here’s an example of taking an idea, rotating it to the right 90 degrees, and then flipping it horizontally so that the title could be on the left and leave journaling on the right.  You can see the original design was slightly changed to meet the needs of the new page.  The patterned paper was removed and instead of completely coming up with a design from scratch, we have a new page that will be completely different!  It’s interesting to see that by rotating and flipping it, the two embellishment represented by the circles, have ended up in the same positions around the photo, the top left and bottom right!

Halloween Scrapbook Double Layout, Buttons & Bows, Take 2

This Halloween page uses the same layout on the left page that I showed you in yesterday’s post.  However this layout was done so each of the grandkids could have copies.  Having to have pages for more than one person of the same events is another great reason to do a digital layout!  Thought I would show you a double page layout so you could see the finished layout.

You can see that this actually covers two different years. By the time I got to the page on the right, I had decided the little black bows reminded me of bats, so I just added them onto the page with that intent.  Also, the white button is a “moon.”

Just take it a layout at a time!  Have you run across some favorite pictures from years ago that you want to get on pages?