5 Tips for your scrapbooking works!

Hi everyone!

Myry again and today I'm going to give you some tips when you using chipboards in your scrapbooking compositions.

First tip: make two groups when you gonna choose what chipboards to use for your project: one with thematic chipboards (for example, baby theme's chipboards) and other with chipoards that you can use in any project no matter the theme). Fortunately Gypsy Soul Laser Cut can help you with that: they've a wide range of "neutral" chipboards! 

Second tip: divide the different types of "neutral" chipboard into smaller groups. I usually make 4 groups: nature, frames, borders and corners, and "potpourri" (that is everything else).

 

 

(if you want to see all these chipboards in detail -and many more- take a look here).

Third tip: You might think that some chipboards are just one piece, but you only need scissors to sort out that! For example, this is one of my favourites: Leafy Swirl, beautiful plant panel.

Now contemplate the power of the scissors! The most useful nonsense I learned last year!

Fourth tip: Maintenance! Clean the edges before doing anything else. If you are concerned about color gray, you can always use colors, even paint it a cream color to make it look like a common chipboard.

Fifth tip: It doesn't matter the "theme" of your work, it matters where you place your supplies!

A piece of branch can be very versatile!

Don't be afraid to use little chipboards. Corners can go well in almost any place!

And let's not forget the frames, they can get us out of any trouble!

I don't know why but butterflies look good in any project!

I encourage you to use your neutral chipboards in all your projects!

Gypsy Soul Laser Cuts items used:

Leafy Swirl

Butterflies & Dragonflies

Feathery Flourishes Miniatures

Other items used:

Scissors

Rag

Cream acrylic paint

Giving dimension to handcrafted cards by Betsy Skagen

It is SaturYAY! The perfect day for rebuilding my stash of handcrafted greeting cards. One way I make my cards stand out from those purchased at a store is by adding dimension with layers.

Gypsy Soul's embellishments are perfect for this because many are small and light enough to still fit in a regular mailing envelope.

I wanted to share with you the basics of how to make these handcrafted cards so you can create some of your own. 

Begin by giving all your embellishments a coat of gesso and let dry. 

Paint the embellishments with acrylic paint and dry with heat gun.

Next cover each embellishment with embossing ink and clear embossing powder. Use a heat gun to set the embossing powder. 

Cut 4.25 x 5.5 inch rectangles of background paper. I used a variety of gelli prints that I made in an earlier craft session.

Layer images, ephemera, rub-ons, message and the embellishments on the card. 

Finish your card by adhering your creation to a blank 4.25 x 5.5 card that you previously made or purchased. 

Great Stuff

Five Petal Flowers with Flourishes

Feathery Flourishes Miniatures

Flourish Miniatures

Mini Flourishes Bella

Petal Corners

Leafy Corners

Vintage images

7gypsies rub-ons

Acrylic paint

Blank cards

Decorative paper

Embossing powder

Clear embossing ink

Pre-printed messages

Assorted ephemera

Tool Caddy with Alicia Barry

If you could see my desk right now,  you would know just how badly I need this Gypsy Soul Laser Cuts tool caddy to get me organised. The things on my desk all have a place, but there are a handful of items that I use every single day, that are too useful to put away after a project. They are the things I need at hand all of the time. This caddy is perfect for this as it is small enough to be close by without getting in the way of my work, but big enough to hold the essentials...in fact it holds a surprising number of items right in arms reach.

I began by coating everything in gesso. This gave me nice white edges on the narrow, visible surfaces. It also gives a nice finished look to the inside of the project.  Never just assume that those parts can't be seen. Always finish off every face.

Next, I traced the sides onto card stock, cut and glued in place. You can just glue on first, the cut, but I find it hard to get a nice clean edge that way using scissors. If you do prefer this method, use a craft knife to trim. Sometimes on projects like this, I like to sand the edges once glued to ensure a nice close finish on the edges.

Once the visible sides are all covered in paper, go ahead and assemble as shown. From there it was onto embellishing. I used some fussy cut florals as my base. Even though I knew I would cover a good amount of them,  I wanted to have the leafy foliage visible. I had some die cut off cuts that I tucked into my main cluster, then adhered some gauze tucked under the edges of the cluster. To finish off and add an elegant touch, I coated Feathery Flourishes Mini in gold acrylic paint, and adhered to each side of the cluster.

You can see that I mirrored the cluster with a second one on the diagonal corner of the project, along wth a tied ribbon bow. This is a slightly smaller cluster, to compliment the large cluster without competing with it for attention.

GSL Supplies used:

Tool Caddy

Feathery Flourishes Mini

A Fairy Garden Craft Caddy

Happy Sunday everyone and welcome to our blog today.  It's Teresa here with a fun project to help get your crafty room organized for the new year.  I made one of these a while back and filled it to the brim with my craft tools so I thought I would get out some brand new papers from Graphic 45 and create a fun new one to fill.

Believe it or not purple is one of my favorite colors and this paper set has all of them. Purple, pink, aqua and blue so it was the perfect choice for my Craft Caddy.  I added Embossed Medallions and lots of flowers and flourished feathers to it to make the perfect Fairy Garden on the front and back.  Join me for a short tutorial on how I did it :)

First glue together your Craft Caddy and let it dry like I did above.  I use purple paint to coat the caddy both inside and out and let that dry too.  I also got out some chipboard medallions, die cuts for leaves and lots of flowers to go with my papers.  

After the paint is dried you can start to cut pieces of the patterned Fairy paper to cover the sides and the bottom of your caddy like i did above.  

While it is drying you can start on the medallions.

For the new flourish medallions i inked them in a light pink ink and then coated them really well with Aged Rose Embossing enamel from Stampendous.  It's a really fun powder with lots of texture and this is how they come out after you heat emboss them.

When they are cool you can glue them to the front of your Craft Caddy.

And to finish you can add a few of the cute cut outs that come in the collection along with lots and lots of pretty flowers and ribbons.  I even added chipboard feathers that i simple chalk inked and slid them under the flowers for more chippy texture.  It was super fun to make and i hope you will try one too.  Check out the supply list below to get started!  Thanks again for stopping by!!

Supply List:

GSLC Craft/Tool Caddy 

GSLC New Flourish Medallion Set

GSLC New Feathery Flourish Minatures

Graphic 45 Fairy Dust Collection

Scrapbook Adhesives by 3L

Glue dots

paper trimmer and scissors

purple acrylic paint and a paint brush