Digital Word Cuts

I wasn't too sure what to call these, but this month I've been challenged to recreate the look of the stencil style title pieces in these paper crafting kits digitally.

From kits by Scraptastic (sold out)

It's actually really simple to do.

For the words on top of the journal space:

1. Choose a bold font (I've used Elementary SF Black)
2. Type your word(s)
3. Draw a rounded rectangle
4. Place the rectangle so it slightly overlaps the bottom of the words.
5. Add them together to form a single shape template.

• In Craft Artist or DSA: Select the words and rectangle, right click, Join, Add.
• In Photoplus, Photoshop and PSP: Select the layers containing the words and rectangle, then merge the selected layers.

For the words inside the journal space:

1. Draw a rounded rectangle
2. Choose a bold font (I've used one called Stencil)
3. Type your word(s) on top of the rectangle
4. Cut the words out of the rectangle to form a single shape template.

• In Craft Artist or DSA: Select the words and rectangle, right click, Join, Subtract.
• In Photoplus, Photoshop and PSP: Select the words using the section wand, then go to the rectangle layer and press the delete key. Hide or remove the layer with the words.

Using these templates you just made.

• You can crop your papers to them.

Example uses items from the Scrap Orchard Enjoy Life packs.

• If you make the rectangle large enough you can crop your photos to them.
• You can use them as masks.
• You can use them as stencils (in Craft Artist Professional).

Have fun, and I'd love to see anything you make.

Blessings to you all from Angela

Kids Craft - Colour Chaser Travel Game

Having a little stash of travel games handy is a sanity saver for any parent on a long journey. This is a quick and simple game you can make with the kids.

To make the game

• Cut pieces of white card stock to business card size (about 60 x 95mm)
• Scribble 5 coloured rectangles on the card in car/lorry colours.
• Repeat with a different selection/order of colours on the other cards.
• To give extra durability to the cards laminate them (optional)
• Punch a hole in the top corner of each card
• Thread the cards onto a jump ring or other easy to open clasp/tie

To play the game

• Open the jump ring and give each child a card
• Starting at the top they look for a car/lorry/van etc the colour of the first space.
• They go down the card in order
• The first to the end wins.

If you make your own travel games, I'd love to hear about them, and it would be fun to have you write a guest post to share with us all how you make them.

Blessings from Angela

Making Word Stickers with Digital Stamps

Word-art stickers and labels etc are a great addition to many paper crafting projects and they are very easy to make so they can colour match with whatever we are crafting. Last week I made a new batch using lots of digital stamps I've picked up over the years from a designer called Meljen's Designs and a sheet of sticky labels from the stationer's shop. Label sheets come in various sizes. This time I used a sheet of small labels.

I use a word processor for making these sticker sheets because the template for the labels is already programmed into the software, I just have to find the right one. Somewhere on the packaging there will be a number that identifies the template to use.

I'm using MS Word 2010 here, the interface may be different to what you are using but the process is the same with most word processors.

• Open a blank document.
• Goto Mailing - Envelopes and Labels.
• Select Label options and find your label template id from the list.

• OK the label options.
• Click the button to open a new document.

• Insert your digital stamps using the Insert Picture functionality (Instructions for MS Word here)
• Place your label sheet in the printer and then print.

• Leave the ink to dry for at least 10 mins.
• Colour your stickers with your favourite crayons or alcohol based markers and you are ready to go.

There's a few gaps on my sheet since I took this photo.

Happy stamping and colouring, blessings to you all from Angela.

Music Canvas Project with Princess TJ Part 2

When I asked TJ what she wanted to do after her canvas base was dry she said "draw our flute". Now that's a bit complex for such a  small canvas, but we agreed that painting the mouth piece section with it going over the edge will be sufficient.

  

My step by step photos of TJ doing this painting didn't come out, so I've done a demo in my art journal to show you how to paint the mouth piece of a flute.

1. Draw two straight parallel lines.

2. Join the end with a slightly curved line.

3. Draw a rounded rectangle for the mouthpiece

4. Paint the image with a medium-grey acrylic paint.

 5. Mix a little black with the grey and paint in the shadows.

7. Blend by going over the area with a wet brush.

8. Mix a little of the grey with some white and paint the highlights.

9. Blend with a wet brush.

10. We have a silvery thin paint that came with a child's painting set and coated the image with it to give a metallic sheen to the flute.

If you have a go we'd both love to see what you create,

Blessings to you all from Angela and Princess TJ.

Music Canvas Project with Princess TJ Part 1

I painted some small canvases recently and my daughter, TJ, wanted to have a go too. So I taught her a few techniques and she wowed me with her creative ideas. I'm going to have to try some of those ideas out myself soon. I took step by step photos to share the techniques with you, and she is very happy to share her creative process with you too. She used Acrylic Paints on a 5x7 canvas.

Today I'm going to show you how she prepared the base of her painting.

First she coated the canvas with bright pink paint.
Next she thinned some purple paint with water and brushed it over two areas of her canvas
Then she used a tissue to "rag off" some of the wet purple paint.

Once the purple paint was dry TJ chose some stencils from my stash and sponged blue paint through them. We don't have any sponges but find the children's craft pompoms really useful for this technique. Both stencils are from The Crafter's Workshop and the first one was designed by Julie of Balzer Designs. When sponging make sure you don't put too much paint on the "sponge".

To finish the base TJ placed some very watery paint on one corner and tipped the canvas to allow the paint to drip. She moved the canvas around while the paint dripped to make a wiggly line.

This was left to dry and few days of playing with toys etc before she picked it up again to add her focal image. Be sure to come back for Part 2 in a few days.

Blessings to you all from Angela and Princess TJ.

Creating Repeating Patterns in Craft Artist.

Sometimes when I’m digital scrapbooking or hybrid crafting (using my printed digital supplies in traditional paper crafting) I want to use a patterned paper that isn’t included in my stash. Often I’m inspired by an embellishment or stamp in the kit and use it to create a repeating pattern from to add to a paper. Sometimes I use custom shapes cropped to one of the papers in the kit for polka dot patterns etc.

Items used in these examples are from the Scrap Art Studio Color Play 9 Collection.

There are a number of ways to create repeating patterns in Craft Artist and Digital Scrapbook Artist each with their own pros and cons, however only one of those methods is included in the free cut down version Craft Artist Compact. Today I’m going to show you how to create your patterns using that method. This method is the slowest, but you have more control over the results.

For this tutorial I’m going to create the anchor pattern using Courtney’s Anchor Sticker and one of Giny’s Linen Papers from Color Play 9.

· Place a background paper in the background layer.
· Place the anchor sticker on the next layer and resize it to about ½ inch tall.
· Move the anchor to the top left corner.

· Copy the anchor and paste it so you have 14 anchors in a row along the top of the paper. Don’t worry about getting them even; we’ll do that in a moment.
· Place the 14th anchor in the top right corner.

· Select all the anchors.
· Click on the align tab at the bottom right-hand corner of Craft Artist.

· Click Align Vertical Centre.

· Click Horizontal Distribute.

· Group the anchors together.

· Copy this group and paste the copies down the page.
· Align the rows of anchors using Align Horizontal Centre and Vertical Distribute.

· Select and copy all the anchors.
· Create a new layer.
· Paste a copy of the anchors on this new layer.
· Move them so they lie in-between the other anchors on the page.

· Delete any anchors overlapping the edges (you will need to ungroup the rows to do that).

Finally, to ensure the pattern is fully centred on your page.
· Select everything on layer 1.
· Group together.
· Align centrally on the page using Align Vertical Centre and Align Horizontal Centre.
· Repeat with layer 2.

Have fun turning the plain papers in your stash into patterned papers using embellishments and/or custom shapes.

Blessings to you all from Angela

Laminated Place Mats

We got a new, bigger kitchen table. It's a lot bigger than we anticipated so the old table cloth is far too small. I quickly put together some place mats to use instead. They are very easy to make.

These ones are hybrid. one of the benefits of doing them like this is I can run off as many duplicates as I like quiet quickly.

My Supplies:

• The Music In Me by Green Eyed Lady Designs
• Sheets of coloured paper that go with the kitchen curtains (Size A4)
• Laminator Sheets and Laminator.

I set-up my software page to the size of my paper (metric A4). I used the white textured/brush printed papers for the base and layered up stamps and paper elements to create a collage. As the finished piece will be sandwiched between the laminator sheets I made the drop shadows very slight and small.

I printed them out onto coloured papers. If I ever change my curtains I could reprint these on different paper to match. Once the ink was dry I laminated them.

To make it more fun for the children, they have all made their own place mat using traditional paper crafting with colouring pages, digital stamps, stickers and collage etc. After the paint/ink/glue had finished drying I laminated them so they can proudly use their masterpieces at every meal time.