Creative Xpress Blog

Creative Express Supply List:

Cricut: Expression, Design Studio, and Deep Cut Blade
Cricut Cartridges: Designer’s Calendar, From My Kitchen, Tags, Bags, Boxes, & More
Ranger Distress Inks: Tea Dye and Old Paper
Tattered Angels Glimmer Mists: Bubblegum, Coffee Shop, and Pearl
Bo Bunny Chocolate Double Dot Ribbon
Basic Grey: Indian Summer Paper Collection and Notch and Dye Set
Bazzill Fourz Cardstock: Pink, Brown, White
We R Memory Keepers Large Warm Metal Grommets
Making Memories: Liquid Glue, Tool Kit II, Great Escape Pins
Therm O Web Zots (small single dots)

Other Supplies:
Chipboard (I like using the back of old desk top calendars), sandpaper, ball chain, large album rings

Introduction:
I originally planned this journal to take with me on my recent trip to England. I planned to fill the journal with pages taken out of a composition book and then handwrite about each day of my trip…however; my husband surprised me with a little Net book computer that had a wonderful travel journal template already installed. I was able to print each of my daily pages in a size that would fit my already finished journal cover. The computer program was a great time saver because I could add my photos to it too. Once I printed each page, my journaling and photos were already there and everything was ready to be added to my book!

Instructions

Cover:
1. To begin the chipboard cover for this journal, open up Design Studio and select the suitcase image from the Designer’s Calendar. Stretch this image so that it is 7 x 11. Don’t worry if the luggage tag extends over the mat because this will get cut off. Cut two of these out of chipboard using the Deep Cut blade. Set the blade to #6 and use a slow speed to cut.

2. Change the deep cut blade back to your normal blade and cut four more luggage images out of cardstock and patterned paper. Remember to flip your paper over for two of the images. After you have cut these shapes, sand the edges of the patterned paper and ink the edges of the cardstock with Tea Dye Distress Ink.

3. Cover your chipboard with patterned paper on one side and cardstock on the other. Be sure to match up the front and back before you adhere your paper…there is a difference in the luggage shape.

4. Next, cut out the word vacation using the Designer’s Calendar. To figure out what shape works best I added the word on top of my luggage image in Design Studio and then stretched it to a size that I thought looked good. I then copied the word to a new page and was ready to cut. I like using the technique a lot in DS because you can easily see what sizes will work for your project. Cut the word out of patterned paper and then sand the edges.

5. I placed some ribbon on my journal covers and then added some old photos of London that I had. I adhered the word Vacation over the top of these things and then added some stickers from the Basic Grey paper collection. I tied a ribbon knot and placed it over the title and then stuck a pin through the knot.

6. The holes for the Album rings were made 1 ½ inches from the edge and ½ inch from either side of the ribbon.

7. The luggage tag was cut from the Tags, Bags, Boxes, & More cartridge. I hand wrote my data on the tag and added it to the handle of my luggage with a ball chain.

8. I also added a small triangle of cardstock to the inside of my cover to create a pocket page for any little mementos.

Daily Divider Pages:

1. The daily divider pages were cut using the From My Kitchen cartridge. I again used my DS technique of placing an object inside of another to figure out a good size. I went back to my journal cover and placed the recipe cards inside of it, then stretched them to a size that would fit inside the cover. Copy these to a new page. On that new page, flip one of the cards so that you have two different end shapes and one center shape. You may want to open up another page for the center card and copy it twice…this way you may cut multiple images out of the same paper. Cut as many dividers as you need. I was gone for a week and I also wrote about getting ready for my trip so I needed 9 divider pages.

2. Use the DS technique again, this time using the recipe cards as your guide, figure out the size of the weekday words, calendar grids, X’s, numbers, and the word December from Designer’s Calendar and place each of these on another new page. If you wish to cut these from different colored cardstock, copy each to different pages. Be sure to save your work in a file. You may not be able to finish this all in one day!

3. I wanted to add a little distress to these dividers so I sprayed each of the calendar grids with a mixture of glimmer mists. I used 3 different colors to get the effect I wanted. While I was waiting for these grids to dry, I inked the edges of all my other items with the Tea Dye Distress Ink. After everything had dried, I assembled them onto the dividers. I made a different divider for each day and showed what day it was on the calendar with an X and then a number over the top. I rounded the bottom corner of each divider using the Basic Grey Notch and Die set.

4. To punch the album ring holes on these dividers, I placed one on the journal cover and marked where the holes should be. I punched the holes in one and then used this as a template for the rest of my dividers.

Journal Pages:

1. I used my computer for all of my pages. I custom set the page size to 5 ½ x 9. This is the size that will fit in the journal. I cut white cardstock in that size and then just printed each page.

2. When I went to punch holes in the pages, I found that they were quite close to the edge. I decided to reinforce each page by running a 1 inch strip of paper down the back and adding grommets to each hole.

3. I thought the white pages looked a little stark so I distressed each page by inking them with Old Paper Distress Ink. I added each page to the proper part of my journal and drew a deep breath. I was finished and had a wonderful album to remember my trip!

When using a shape cartridge that’s secondary feature has a font but the overlay just shows shapes.  It is a lot easier to use an overlay from a font cartridge to type out your letters.  This short cut will definitely save you time instead of flipping through the book searching for what shape matches what letter.

As scrapbookers and crafters, we are sometimes challenged with how we can make our pages and projects more interesting to the eye… how to make them stand out in a crowd perhaps!  I have found that using diecuts is one such way to do so, however diecuts themselves can be very flat and yes, at times boring.  Which then results in yet another challenge… how to dress up those non-dimensional and unappealing diecuts to make them more exciting and bring more attention to our projects?

Here I’d like to show you how to breathe some life into your diecuts with some easy tips and techniques for shading, embossing and transforming flat diecuts into brilliantly textured accents! 

There are many supplies that can be used, but there are a handful that have been tried and true for me when I like to transform my dicuts.  The following list is what I used  for embellishing and enhancing my diecuts in my most recent CreativeXpress design team project, “Maryland Blue Crabs” scrapbook layout:

• Of course, a diecut machine to cut out accents.  I used the Cricut Expression machine with Cricut cartridges.
• A variety of inks for shading.  I used ColorBox Cat’s Eye inks by Clearsnap.
• A variety of ink sprays for color boosting and enhancing.  I Love using Glimmer Mist sprays by Tattered Angels.
• Desired embossing machine and texture folders/plates for creating dimension and texture.  My preference used her was the Cuttlebug machine and embossing folder.
• Any other embellishing supplies to accent and create details to your diecuts.  I used Kaiser Craft Pearl Strips, and cut cut the pearls off the strip one at a time to add as eyes for the crab diecuts. 

Here I will show you step-by-step how I transformed my plain white crab diecut into a crab with character! 

The first step I do is to create some shading to my diecut to provide a more dimensional look.  I like to do this with inks by rubbing the edge of the inkpad along the ares of the diecut where I want to shade to create an appearance of a more rounded surface.  Here I first shaded with the Robin’s Egg Blue ink…

You can then go in with another ink color if desired and layer with it to create more depth.  Here I layered with a light sand color from ColorBox inks called, Dune…

Next, I like to enhance the ink colors on my diecut further to give more intensity.  I have found that spray inks such as Glimmer Mist from Tattered Angels do just the trick!  To boost the colors of my crab diecuts here I have applied a combination of the Riptide and Marshmallow mists to enhance the blue-sand colored inks and to add a great shimmery appearance to the surfaces as well…

Now comes the fun part of adding texture to the diecuts to give them a more, “sophisticated” look… to give the cuts personality and character!  What I did here was to look back and study my actual photos that I have of the Maryland blue crabs so that I could get a better idea of the crab’s texture.  I then looked through my collection of Cuttlebug folders to determine which texture would be best for the crab diecuts.  I decided that the “MESH” texture would be the most appropriate for achieving the dimension and texture I was wanting for my crab diecuts…

Finally, all that’s left is to add final embellishing details, and for this step you can do as little or as much as you want… be as creative as you want!  For these diecuts, all that was really left for me to do was to add emphasis to the crabs’ eyes.  I cut out the extra layers for the eyes with blue cardstock using the Cricut and then finished with tiny pearl accents.  Another perfect way of adding extra dimension to diecuts is to adhere them to your projects using a double-sided foam adhesive tape as I have also done here.  Now my plain-Jane white cardstock crabs have turned into marvelous Maryland blue crab critters in just a few simple embellishing steps! 

I do hope that you have enjoyed this tutorial and perhaps next time you too will be inspired to take your diecuts to another level of color and dimension!                                                                Andrea