Taggy Blanket

I was talking to Jozlyn recently as she was holding Kellan who was busy tucking into the tag on blanket. Joz said he was totally into the tags and could find them with particular skill- I said that they actually made a baby toy blanket with heaps of ribbons around the edge acting as tags- she was interested and went looking- before she had a chance to buy one I knocked one up at home- I thought it may be a little fiddly but it's not so much....

I haven't provided measurements as you can do whatever you want size wise....

1. Loop the ribbons and pin them to the 'good side of one piece of fabric so that the rough ends line up with the edges.

2. Place the second piece of fabric 'good' side down (so the good sides are facing) one your ribbon pinned piece and then pin them together.

3. Choose a spot on a side where you have a decent gap between two ribbons and then stitch around leaving that spot open.

4. Pull the blanket through the unstitched section being careful not to impale yourself on the pins.

5. Remove the pins and ensure the corners are all pushed through.

6. Top stitch around the whole blanket to finish it off and close up the hole.


As you can see I used a satin on one side and fleece on the other and a mix of satin and a more woven textured ribbon- some fat and some thinner- I wanted Kellan and his tounge and gums to have some different feelings from the 'tags' and also the skinny ribbons are a bit harder to manipulate.

The look of sadness on Kieran's face when it saw it was classic- he thought I had butchered one of his cushions!

I had some fabric left over so made a couple of smaller taggy's as well- that way Joz has something when the big one is so gooby it needs to go in the wash. (I had intended on attaching a plastic toy ring to the triangle one so it could be attached to a pushchair or car seat but I totally forgot until after I had sewed it up. :-) )

I could see these being a go-to baby gift- easy to make personalised, quick to make and cheap- and a great way to use up ribbon brought with poor judgement for scrapbooking (duh!).
♥

Lotsa Letters?

At scrapbook camp (way back in April!) I went through all my supplies finding the various different sets of letters that I had and went through a process where I checked which of my semi-planned pages they would work with and if I could make a decent title with them. At the end of this I did a few things with the left overs;

• Separated out any; G, L, K, S, M, R or W's these are our family initials and may be used as monograms or such like on pages.
• Tried to spell words which if I thought they may be useful I bagged up and put aside hopefully for future use.
• Tried to spell rude words- which I used on a LO about leftover letters.
• Threw them away if I just didn't like them any more (and had no vowels etc leftover).
• Offered them to others if they were still useful but just my thing.
• Or kept them altogether in one bag for any ransom letters (or ransom titles) I may want to make in the future.

I managed to use and purge a whole bunch and it felt great! In my pile of papers I came across a list of other ideas for left over letters.

• Make letters into cool shapes and designs.
• Make a lace paper type background.
• Cut apart, combine, or turn one letter to make another; d to a, d to p, q to b, u to n, n to u, h to r, k to h, z to N, Q to O, A to V, l+c make b or d and so on.
• repaint letters that are different colours but same type for a unified look.
  
• Use as a background or mask.
• Use as monograms on cards or LO's
  
• Use beyond scrapbooking- can you make funky magnets, keyrings, mobile phone tags, badge or broach- maybe even earrings? Personalise a pencil case or zipper pull as a gift for a child.
• Stick a bunch of thicker letter stickers on a block to make a funky background stamp.
  
• Use smaller letters as the first letter in your journalling.
• Use as a border.
• Make an alphabet book.
  
• Use the negative as a frame or fill it with beads or glitter.
• Sell full sets or almost full sets that you know you just won't use- be realistic.
  
• Give them away to fellow scrappers, kids, kindys or preschools.
• Throw them away. Seriously- you are not saving money if you keep some thing you brought in a sale, 5- 3 even only 1 year ago, as part of a bulk purchase, on impulse, because it was cheap or cute, or while on leave from your senses- you are just wasting space- if you haven't used it yet chances are you aren't going to. So I repeat THROW IT AWAY.

Got any other ideas?

♥

Water Nymph

I recently brought small atomiser bottles for my radiant rain (it comes with a dobber). Unfortunately it isn't working as well as I had hoped (I think the mica powder is clogging the sprayer) but I still had a good time playing with them on these flowers and buttons.

I ended up having to drop the radiant rain on the craft sheet and rubbing the flowers on it. This created big drops of the radiant rain which I also dipped my fabric covered brads into it as well.

Then I added some distress stickles for a little extra sparkle.

And then I added them all to this layout (with some rather old pictures of Merenia)...

♥

How to.... Using Die Cut paper as a mask.

I'm no expert at all when it comes to scrapbooking and I didn't even much like the final result on this page but I figure the details might provide some inspiration or knowledge for someone then cool!



I started out this LO with an idea to scraplift this footy page from a magazine. I originally thought I could use Kaiser felt to replicate the stars. And then I thought I could stamp the stars and cut them out and stick them behind the photos. But in the end I went with using a 12 x12 die cut sheet to create my background (I picked it up at the Warehouse ans it was still perfectly useable when I was done- and had an added funky texture from the paint.). I used Adirondack Snow Cap paint dabber but you could easily use any thickish acrylic paint with a normal or foam brush.


The first step is to stick your mask in place with some low tack adhesive. I used masking tape.

Next use the dabber or brush to apply the paint in a dabbing motion. If you pounce rather than swipe or brush on the you will be less likely to rip, or shift the mask or to get bleeding under it.

Continue until you have covered the area you intend. Then carefully lift two corners of the mask to check your results. If you leave a couple of areas still taped down you can easily replace the mask on the card if you change your mind (like I did) or want to do a second coat of paint.
I decided I wanted the whole piece of card covered so laid my mask back down and continued to dab my paint down out to the edges.



I used a piece of scrap paper under the edges to keep my table clean. Lifting the tape of the corners one by one so it didn’t shift too much.

Here’s the completed page mask on and then mask removed, You can see I have left a space for my title. At this point I left it for the paint to dry.


Here are two of the options I have for storing my foam stamps. The folder on the left utilises trading card holders which you can get at most stationary stores. It is easy to see what you have and to find what you want but takes up a lot of space and sometimes the stamps try to escape their pockets. The other option is just a zip lock bag which takes up less space but you really need to dump all the stamps out to find them!


With so many teachers having such a passion for presentation skills this technique should be taught to all kids!
When you are making a title write the whole thing down on scrap paper making sure to mark the spaces as well. Starting at the start and end of the line number the first and last letters with the number 1 and the 2nd and 2nd last with number 2 and so on till you meet the middle. Make sure to assign the gaps a number as if they were letters also. If you have an uneven number then that letter will be your midpoint. If not then the point between the highest numbers will be, in between the o and c on my title. If you have a couple of ‘i’s or ‘l’s on one side you may want to fudge your centre a little more to the opposite side because those letters are so skinny they don’t quite take up the space of a regular letter- W can work the opposite way.

I laid out all the stamps for my title and I could see that it was going to be a tight fit for the available space so I decided to stamp a sample first.
I also like to have all my stamps laid out as I am less likely to make a spelling mistake that way.

A centre finder ruler is a fantastic tool to have when it comes to doing titles! I placed mine on my sample card with the 0 right in the centre because I knew my title would span almost my whole page.


Then I started stamping from the right of centre of my LO- the ‘C’ in Stockley which I figured out above. I like to get down close to my LO and look side on to ensure I am placing my stamps correctly. I find if I eyeball it from above that I over estimate the gap.


I stamped the right hand side of my title and then went back to the centre and worked right to left to stamp the left hand side.

By comparing my sample to the space on my LO I could see it was going to be very tight. So as I was using a ransom type set I swapped some letters out for skinnier ones.
I could also see that I needed to shift my center left a little as I had more space on the left hand side.


Then I stamped my title onto the LO using the same snow cap paint as I used for my background.

I am not fussy about measuring my mats and such for LO’s preferring a quick and easy eyeball method. This hasn’t always worked out so I was pleased to find this ruler which I believe is used for quilters really cheap at my local emporium. I can set it for the depth I want my mat edges to be and go for it!

I stick my photos down and then use the ruler to line up the card in my trimmer as well.


I messed around with a bunch of different placements for my photos till I came up with something I was happy with….

I felt like my title was a bit floaty in that space so I carefully laid down the mask and painted in closer to get it a little more grounded. After that the title lost it’s punch and seemed to blend into the back ground so I added the Fired Brick Stickles to give it a bit of ‘ooomph’ and match my mat/journaling cardstock.
I added a journaling block and another small piece of cardstock on the opposite side to my photos to balance up the LO a bit and draw some more attention to my photos. Not my best LO but an effective use of the masking technique.

♥