Here in my home town is Balloon Fiesta.  All balloonists from around the world come together for a week of the most fantastic ballooning.  We have open space and box winds.  This means that they can actually take off and land in the same place.

Picture this, waking up in the morning and looking out the window and the skies are filled with the most colorful balloons in all different shapes and sizes.  You just have to go and get your camera even though it does not do it justice.

Now that you have just seen the widest range of colors, you have no choice but go and get creative. I know that I will.

Make it a Great Day and don’t forget to leave time to Craft!

Tags: Balloon Fiesta

The buzz in the stamping world is Watercolors.  That’s right good old watercolor paints.There are sooo many cool ways to use watercolors with your rubber stamps.  Just remember to use waterproof/permanent ink like StazOn or if you don’t have that make sure that you emboss the ink that you have so that it doesn’t bleed all through your image when you are coloring with your watercolors.  Also watercolors work best with watercolor paper.  This paper holds its shape when wet and will not get all lumpy and bumpy.  Try to find a smooth watercolor paper, just because your stamp image will look better.

If you are going to make a greeting card, a great idea would be to stamp your image on a piece of watercolor paper, and also paint on that piece of paper, but when you are finished, cut it out and layer it onto the cover of your card.  This look will be so professional and if you put a border around it your image it will look like a beautiful framed painting.

I can’t believe how many different types of watercolors are on the market now days.  We have the good old fashion kind, the dry “circles” in a long case that you just put a wet brush on to get the color, or there some that are in tubes and are wet already you just brush them on, some come in jars, pencils, and even crayons.

Watercolors are the easiest way to create shading, just by blending more ink and less water or visa versa. If you have too much water on your paper all you need to do is blot the excess with a paper towel.

Have a Great Day and don’t forget to leave time to Craft!

Tags: Greeting Cards, Rubber Stamping, Watercolor Paints, Watercolor Paper

Some of you may be saying, “But it’s only September” exactly, and time is closing in on the holidays.  Have you been to the stores lately?  Christmas stuff is arriving.  I went to a local craft store and they are playing Christmas music already.I have been a little pre-occupied the last couple of months with things going on in “my world”, I usually start my cards in August, so I am behind already.So the first thing that  I have to figure out first of all what kind of card that I will be making.  In that process I have to see if I need to purchase new rubber stamps, papers, holiday embellishments.  Personally, each year I try to outdo myself.  (I don’t put pressure on myself now do I?) But this year I have a really cool idea that I have never done before.  I have always concentrated on the outside design of the card and just add a little saying on the inside, but this year I am going to reverse that.  I have been designing samples on paper, but nothing has come to making of a card yet.  As soon as I have something, I will share it with you.

All of my Custom Christmas Cards are made with Rubber stamps, embossing powders, embossing markers, ink pads and the best quality papers.  I hand cut every piece of paper and apply it to the card with some kind of adhesive, depending on the look that I want.  This is my passion and I hope that it is yours too! - Take pride in what you do, and you will see how good you feel.

Here are a few samples of years past Christmas Cards

Have a Great Day and don’t forget to leave time to Craft!

Tags: Custom Christmas Cards, Custom Greeting Cards

Have you just thought of the most fabulous idea for your Scrapbooking page?  It might have been the colors on an advertisement in a magazine that started your idea, or a sign that you saw driving in a car.  Whatever sparked you idea there is just a couple of things to do to make sure that your Scrapbook page turns out just as you pictured it to be.First you decided the theme of your Scrapbook.  Then it is time to gather all the materials that your will need.

Let’s start with your color scheme and work around that.  You will need to get your paper.  Start with the main color that you want and then add all of the accent colors around your main color.

You can add accent colors with additional papers, and all types of embellishments such as:  Silk flowers, brads, eyelets, stickers, ribbons and the list can go on and on.

For example:  If you are making a Wedding Scrapbook you would gather together some white, elegant paper, maybe some lace ribbon, some white flower 3D stickers and then use the color of your bridesmaids dresses as the accent color to bring the  whole theme together.

Or

If you are making a Birthday Scrapbook for your son who loves fire trucks, you would get some Red Paper and some sticker letters in the shape of a fire water hose or firemen’s boots.  You get the idea.

Now that you have all the materials that you will need it is time to put your Scrapbook Page layout together.  Before you start cutting and gluing things all over your paper, you should start by just laying each item on the page before you permanently put them on the page.  This will save you a lot of heartache later when you find that your layout isn’t what you thought or it is not fitting on the page.  Once everything is in place, then you can permanently adhere to the paper, using a glue stick, glue dots, tape runner etc.

*Tip:  Make your Scrapbook in chronological order. 

Example:  If you have one Scrapbook of yearly vacations, either start with current year first then go backwards from there, or visa versa.  Don’t skip a year unless you didn’t take a vacation that year.  It will be so much nicer to look at a book that is not jumping all over the place from year to year.

Making a scrapbook can be one of the most satisfying things that you can do for yourself and others who you will be sharing it with.  You will be preserving your memories in a beautiful, decorative fashion, and can let others see the photo stories that mean so much to you.

Make it a Great Day and don’t forget to leave time to Craft!

Tags: Preserving memories, scrapbook, Scrapbook Idea, Scrapbook Page layout, Scrapbooking

If you are looking for an inexpensive way to share your photos with family and friends, check into Online Digital Scrapbooking. This fun alternative to your standard paper bound album is easily shared across the internet. As this addictive hobby grows in popularity every day, more and more online digital Scrapbooking sites pop up to indulge your creative needs. With Online Digital Scrapbooking you can upload your digital photos to a site and arrange them in a customized slide show and then invite all of your friends to view it. You can add special tags to each photo to identify who is in the picture or you can even add decorative frames to pictures to make them unique.

Many Online Digital Scrapbooking sites offer users the ability to order physical prints of the pictures you have uploaded to their website. Other websites will enable you to add your photos to certain merchandise like coasters, magnets, mugs, t-shirts, or a blanket. You can use your pictures to create a small scrapbook page of your favorite photos and then turn it into a greeting card or poster for the wall.

As digital photography continues gaining momentum as the preferred choice to capture photos, the option to create a scrapbook online is more appealing. You no longer have to spend a fortune to develop a whole roll of film of which you will end up using not even half of them, or using your own printer and using alot of photo paper, then spend more money on paper and embellishments. That is not to say that all of that isn’t beautiful, all I’m saying is that it gets expensive. Now all you have to do is upload from your digital camera your favorite photos to the Online Scrapbooking site of your choice and let the creativity begin. Most sites have a wide variety of styles and sizes for you to choose from so you can customize your scrapbook exactly how you like it.

What is so cool about Online Digital Scrapbooking you can include so many different things. Here a just a few ideas:

When creating a page in your Online Digital Scrapbook to commemorate a special event that you attended, such as a birthday party, theater play, concert, county fair, or sporting event, you can scan the invitation, ticket stub, program, stat sheets, and upload to your scrapbooking site to include on the page.

If you are making a scrapbook for a baby consider scanning into the computer his/her hospital ID bracelet, hospital bill, doctor visit notes showing weight, height at a particular age or even his or her foot print.

If you or any of your family members like to draw pictures, scan some of their artwork and add it to a scrapbook.

You can also scan a newspaper/magazine article of an event that you attended or have maybe even written and then add it to the pages of your Online Scrapbook.

My husband and I just got done re-modeling our kitchen and we wanted to show our family who live 2000 miles away how fantastic it looks. We uploaded photos from our digital camera to our computer then to an online photo service, created a scrapbook and just emailed them the link to view our Kitchen Scrapbook. We got to share with them our new kitchen in minutes, instead of printing 4 sets of photos to send to every family.

The possibilities are endless of what you can do with Online Digital Scrapbooking. Let your creative side go WILD!

The great thing about Online Digital Scrapbooking is that once you have finished your Scrapbooking Masterpiece you can share it with friends and family members all around the globe via the internet. It is also great to know that if You or whoever is viewing your Online Digital Scrapbook can also order print copies of your Scrapbook to share with people who do not have a computer.

Make it a Great Day and don’t forget to leave time to Craft!

Tags: online digital scrapbooking, scrapbook, Scrapbooking

Scrapbooking is a great way to preserve memories. You don’t want to lose the sight of your main goal and that is to tell a story of a special landmark in you or your family’s life, to share with your friends and family with pride and confidence. Most people forget to journal in their scrapbooks and without journaling it is just a photo album. The reason why journalizing is important is so that you can express to others who are looking at you scrapbook your thoughts, the names of people in the picture and Why this event has made such an impact on your life that you want to share with others.Think of your Scrapbook pages as your very own story book and then give it a name. There are so many ways to TITLE your pages, from big bold letters to handwritten letters, just make sure it does not overwhelm the most important elements of the page and that is the pictures.

If your picture is of a special person in your life or a place that you love to go, don’t forget to journal that somewhere on that page. You do this for a lot of reasons but the main reason is so that whoever is looking at the scrapbook page will feel connected to who you are with and also where you were when this event took place. You want family and friends to feel like they were there with you.

My husband and friends say that I make up words and I usually have a “weird saying” from each trip that we take. My favorite was “Too Tatootey” you had to be there to understand anyway, I make sure that I put down my “saying” somewhere in that Scrapbook and all of those who know me will get a good laugh when they read it. Make your Scrapbook Personal. So many people are Scrapbooking making there pages look like someone else’s, where the fact is that this is a story of what happened in your life not there’s. Just Make it your own and you will see how easy scrapbooking becomes when you are You, and that is the best person/scrapbooker to be.

Even though you may have laughed your butt off when the picture was taken, if you don’t write things down, in years you will forget what touched your funny bone. It is so important to jot down a few words on a piece of paper and save it with your photographs if you think that you won’t get the chance to create your pages right away.

Occasionally you may forget your camera, or run out of film or disc space, or maybe even not be allowed to use a camera at an important event. No worries, you can still Journal that part of your life by using your Scrapbook to document that event. You can use all types of embellishments to capture what you were experiencing at that time that your camera was not. Your words will make the picture.

For those who have a fear of using their handwriting to journal you don’t have to worry. There are stickers, rub-ons, die cuts to help you overcome your fear, however, I recommend using your handwriting at least once in each Scrapbook you create, just so a sample of your handwriting will be with your family and friends forever.

Have a Great Day and don’t forget to leave time to Craft!

Tags: scrapbook, scrapbook journaling, Scrapbooking

For generations, we have all used greeting cards to convey our love, affection and concern for friends, family members, colleagues, and all whom we hold close to our heart. This habit has given rise to multi million dollar industries whose only job day after day, year after year is only to produce greeting cards, and today there are several of them around the world.

Birthdays, Christmas, friendship day, Mother’s day, Valentine’s Day etc. are just representative examples of the occasions when we use these cards. Marketers use the sales data from greeting card manufacturers to study and analyze various trends using specialized statistical tools.

E Cards have become the Craz

Electronic cards or E-cards have not lagged behind in this field, and millions of e-greeting cards are offered on the internet and most of them are free too. Other than the physical greeting cards used for various occasions, several people use attractively designed blank cards to write their own message for a variety of reasons. The boss can write a “thank you” card for his colleague, “get well” cards for those who are ill and recovering, are just some examples.

The Funny Greeting Card

Apart from all the above, there is a class of greeting cards known as funny greeting cards. These cards have funny caricatures or messages on them and are intended to be funny with the recipients too. But, rare though, there can be occasions when somebody can use these cards to insult others.

Whatever be the cause, the internet too offers a large variety of funny greeting cards. The advantage with the e-cards is that most of them can be customized to suit individual taste. You can add your own notes, pictures, scribbles or even animations to the e-card. Free download offered by many of the web sites offering funny greeting cards make it even more attractive.

As discussed earlier, the physical greeting card industry produces a mind boggling number of cards every year on a variety of medium i.e., paper, cloth, plastic, vinyl and similar material. The E-cards on the other hand does not require any of these mediums and can move around the world in pretty quick time too.

The Cost of Traditional Greeting Cards

During festival occasions even if you send a few hundred cards, it would still not dent a hole in your purse. The funny greeting cards act as a great tool to keep in touch with your near and dear ones at all times, by just clicking a few buttons. When you customize these cards, do make sure to use the right kind of jokes or messages which the recipients can appreciate. The message for your aunt and girlfriend cannot be the same. They need to be different.

Sending the funny greeting card, particularly the e-card is also very easy. After selecting the card you intend sending, customize with all the details you want and then provide the information that the web site is seeking. On the appointed date and time, your card will be electronically delivered to the addressee. When you receive an e-card, either you can click on the url itself or paste the url on your browser to follow the instructions.

Have a Great Day and don’t forget to leave time to Craft!

Some other ways that some people will search for funny greeting cards are:
funny greeting cards printable free
funny e greeting cards
funny photo greeting cards
funny online greeting cards

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Tags: e-cards, funny e cards, funny e greeting cards, funny greeting cards, funny greeting cards printable free

A digital scrapbook is more like an autobiography in some sense. In an autobiography, you concentrate more on your personal life and achievements while in the case of a scrap book it can take in the whole of your family. It can contain photographs of family, baby, short notes, little incidents etc. Further, the scrap booking exercise can involve all the members of your family to make pages. In turn, this will allow each member to express his/her individual style and personalities.

Free Scrapbook layouts

To derive more fun out of your scrapbook creation/craft, you should have scrapbook layouts/kit to give you guidance in laying out your pages. Where then do you find these layouts? Friends can be one source and a good source too. Because when you use a friend’s scrap book layout, you are also using his ingenuity, skill and ideas to formulate your own layout/pattern. You can draw inspiration from your friend’s scrap book layout and discuss with him for more idea to add to your patterns. For example, you may have some specific pictures which need some ideas and themes to create an ideal layout. Your friends can really surprise you when they come up with bright ideas.

Online resources available for scrapbook layouts are endless and they are free too in most cases. Several web sites even offer you elements, layouts, ideas etc. for scrapbooking. Once you browse through web sites, your own ideas can blossom to add value to your scrap book and since no money is involved in acquiring this knowledge, you can use the money for other things too.

If you are still confused on how to proceed, just open any popular search engine like Google, or Yahoo and type in “free scrapbooking layout” and hit enter. A mind boggling number of website will come up and you can filter through the best ones.

While finding free layouts is easy, there is nothing like creating your own layout. Let your imagination run wild to give expression to your individuality and personality. Your layout created by you from scratch will have its own unique character.

Doing it right

Scrapbooking is a fun activity, and there is hardly anything as doing it right. So you need not be afraid as there is no “right” way for laying out scrapbook pages. Treat your scrap book simply as an extension of your life. Your own creativity to make your scrap book pages will be the best in the final analysis and only if for any reason you are unable to devote the time and effort, you should resort to the ready made layouts.

Remember your scrap book pages carry information about your family and yourself and friends. Therefore the more individual characteristics it can carry, the better. While several women have taken to scrapbooking as a hobby/craft, the men have not lagged behind except for the fact they have pursued this not merely as a hobby but also means of making some additional income. Start your scrapbook today and enjoy.

Using some of the free scrapbooking layouts, you are able to help others create their portfolio and you can get paid for the idea and your expertise. There are not many supplies that are needed with this either. You will need some paper, ink, some different fonts for text if and when you would want to print it out. You can also save these on CD’s and send to other people to view and enjoy. Start today to save your memories for tomorrow.

Have a Great Day and don’t forget to leave time to Craft!

There are other ways that some people will search for free scrapbooking layouts and they are some of these:
scrapbooking layout design ideas
scrapbooking layout
scrapbooking layout idea
scrapbooking layout gallery

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Another article of interest is: Correcting Scrapbooking screwups

Tags: free scrapbooking layouts, scrapbookiing layout idea, scrapbooking layout, scrapbooking layout design ideas

Scrapbookers in their effort to embellish their craft are turning to rubber stamping embossing as a great tool. And, on the other side of things, more and more stampers are taking up scrapbooking as an additional hobby. Most hobbies have several things in common, don’t they? Have you ever visited a stamping store? If yes, you would be amazed by the choices and possibilities. We will now look at some of the tips on what to buy (craft supplies) to make beginning with this wonderful hobby as much fun as possible. Some of the items you will need are going to be free, because you have them laying around the house. Some of the other product you are going to have to purchase.

Rubber Stamping and Embossing, Items You Will Need

The most essential tools required for these crafts are a good paper cutter or trimmer, a good pair of scissors and a good supply of card stock. Decorative scissors too can be a very useful tool, particularly when you are looking at greeting cards or similar stamped projects. The circle and oval cutters seem to be on their way out at least from this segment of the business. Templates and the X-acto knife are the preferred replacement for these cutters now. Similarly a paper crimper is something that you may not need because most of the card stock is sold as “pre-crimper”. Another useful tool can be make up sponges to help you apply dye-based ink on to an image for a soft look. A hammer will come in handy for working with eyelets , while a variety of pliers will be useful for working with wire. To store your tools and afford easy portability, you can think of a tool box too. A mouse pad or a desktop blotter under your card stock before stamping will provide the necessary cushion for you to stamp against.

Then you will need a top quality permanent dye-based inkpad in black. The pads should allow you to color in with markers, should be fast drying and versatile. A reinker to keep your pad juicy at all times will be a top necessity. A reinker will also help you to prolong the life of your pad. If you are careful not to allow your pad to get dry, it will remain juicy and juicy pads tend to last longer.

Don’t forget your heat gun

A heat gun and a variety of rubber stamping embossing powders are the next items in the list. To melt your embossing powders you will need the heat gun. The embossed stamps provide the raised finish and an archival quality. A clear embossing powder can be preferred over most pigment inks. When using metallic inks, using a metallic colored embossing powder will be advantageous. If clear embossing powder is used over metallic inks, the sparkle will be lost. Detail embossing powder will be handy for use in very detailed stamps, particularly because they melt to a finer line.

When you are doing embossing in your scrapbook, remember to always emboss your layouts before you attach your pictures to either side of your page. Your photographs can be damaged since the temperature of the heat gun is very high. The ideal way will be to emboss and then allow the page to cool before you put your pictures in.

When it is all said and done

In conclusion, don’t throw away scraps of paper. Stampers can find great value from the scraps of paper which can be converted into many designs. Your mistakes today can be the making of your greatest blessing tomorrow. A piece of work which you did not like today could pop up as excellent piece in a different setting tomorrow. Dare to experiment, don’t be intimidated by fancy projects and know that simple tamped cards and projects can be equally lovely. Rubber stamping embossing can give your project that extra flair that you always look for.

Have a Great Day and don’t forget to leave time to Craft!

Other ways that people will search for information on rubber stamping embossing are:
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Tags: Rubber Stamping, rubber stamping cards ideas, rubber stamping craft supplies, rubber stamping crafts, rubber stamping embossing

Continued From Yesterday:

** Don’t Over Buy - Use what you have. Try to resist the urge to buy new papers, punches and embellishments until you’ve used the craft supplies you have. I know this is really hard to do. I can open up a store with all the papers and embellishments that I have. Take a look at your inventory before you go shopping, this will save your wallet of unnecessary items and you might just find something you forgot you had. How cool is that it’s like going shopping in your own craft room.

** Shop Online. You’ll save a lot of time running back and forth to your local craft store if you decide to shop online  for your craft supplies. Everything you need can be shipped right to your doorstep and sometimes you save money on the product and also the sales tax. Come on people we all like to save money so we can buy more.

** What to do with things you just don’t use anymore. If you have something you haven’t used in a year or more, such as craft scissors or stickers, paper, donate them to a local church or daycare facility. Some times even senior centers are looking for crafty items. This is a good way to give back to your community.

** Multitask. Looking for a few minutes here or there to catch up on your Scrapbooking or Card making? Take and make phone calls in the same room that you designated for your Craft Room for Scrapbooking or Card making. Then, while you’re on the phone with your friends or family, you can crop, frame or mount at the same time. Or, instead of making punches when you need them, make a bunch of punches at once while you’re watching television, or are on the telephone, or when you’re waiting for a pot of water to boil because where I live that takes awhile. This will save time later because your punches will be ready when you need them.

** Clean up scraps. Always keep a wastebasket near your workstation, all the scraps that you’re not planning on using can be tossed immediately. Don’t leave trash on your work surface.

** Put it away. Always have a place for your supplies, and when you’re finished using them, take a few moments to put everything away. You should be able to start fresh with a clear mind and a clear surface. Plus I am a clean freak.

** Spare time. Those spare minutes that we all have can be put to good use. Have to wait at the doctor’s office for your appointment? Sketch out a quick layout idea. Waiting for the wash cycle to finish? Sort some photos or gather supplies for tomorrow’s Scrapbooking or Card making project.

** Write it down. I am known as the list person, everyone always busts me about it, but I rarely forget anything. So don’t ever leave your home without a small notebook in hand. You’re bound to come up with a thought or cute caption for your scrapbook. Inspiration is everywhere, but if you don’t write down your ideas, they may disappear forever. You may also want to keep a small pad and a pen near your bedside, in case you have a bright idea in the middle of the night. It is amazing what your brain can think of in the weee hours of the morning.

Have a Great Day and don’t forget to leave time to Craft!

Organize Craft Supplies Part 1

Organize Scrapbooking Room Part 2

Tags: craft room, craft scissors, organizing craft supplies, Scrapbooking