Archive for the ‘Paper Crafts’ Category
Add Craft Punches To Your Cardmaking & Scrapbooking Supplies
If you haven’t added an assortment of craft punches (or at least one or two) to your cardmaking and scrapbooking supplies, you might want to consider doing so. There are a lot of really neat punches available, and these punches are so much fun to use. You can find many, many uses for them. Punch out a design on your scrapbook page or card for effect and then use the shape you punched out elsewhere. Make fancy edges and corners on your papers , cards and envelopes. The possibilities go on and on.
When you consider all the designs and subjects that are available, it seems as if you can get nearly any style or design of punch you desire. I’ve just purchased a double-edged one that cuts out a piece of paper that looks just like a piece of lace. It makes a really beautiful embellishment.
Paper crafting has become extremely popular in recent months. Scrapbooking is a perfect way to show off family photos and chronicle family history. In addition, other fun paper crafts are making your own greeting cards, making hand-made papers, quilling, and origami.
Often, paper crafts enthusiasts begin with scrapbooking, but when the ‘working with paper bug’ hits them, then they branch out to making their own greeting cards. Handmade cards are very unique and original and are sure to please anyone, regardless of whether the receiver is interested in paper crafts or not.
If you are looking for a neat craft with beautiful results, I would suggest that you try paper quilling or paper filigree, as it is also called. This once-popular craft is making a resurgence in the art and craft world, and you can readily see why when you view all the beautiful items that can be created from plain strips of paper, a couple of tools and glue.
This is one of those crafts in which you do not have to invest a large amount of money to get started. Yet you can create beautiful cards and other items that look expensive and professionally made.
Candy Card
With Valentine’s Day just around the corner and St. Patrick’s Day and Easter not far behind, you just might want to start your cardmaking projects now. I’m sure that you know that everyone appreciates a handmade greeting card.
When I was in grade school (and I’m sure it isn’t any different now), I always thought it great to give and receive a Valentine with candy attached to it. I’m just wondering – - Do you think an adult might also enjoy receiving a candy card?
I may be telling my age, but when my boys were born, mothers as a rule didn’t consider making a scrapbook, at least in the sense of the ones made today. We bought what was called simply a ‘baby book.’ The contents were pretty much pre-written, and we (mothers) just filled in the spaces with our answers or remarks and added a photo or two.
There was a space to paste a photo of the baby at birth and blank lines to fill in the date and time of birth, weight and length of the baby at birth, plus various other pertinent information. Of course, we always included a footprint and a lock of hair. If I remember correctly, a record of shots and immunizations was listed in this book along with various happenings over the first few years of life.
It is fun to go back and browse through our children’s baby books and although we have a number of photos scattered around the house which were taken throughout the years, how nice it would be to have it all arranged in an orderly scrapbook. (Now that sounds like a great project, but at this stage in life, it’s one that I probably won’t get to.)
If your children have taken an interest in arts and crafts, scrapbooking is an enjoyable activity that you can share with them. This is also one of those activities that they can perhaps ask their friends and playmates to participate in. If you plan properly, this could just be a means of keeping them occupied for an extended period of time.
A few suggestions to help you keep down the cost of your supplies are:
* Let them cut out pictures from old magazines.
* Gather up old photos that you no longer want or need and let them scrapbook with them.
* Make photo copies of your pictures for them to scrap.
* Kids always love using stickers. Often these can be bought very inexpensively.
* Check your scrapbooking supplies for leftovers and odds and ends. Kids are good at finding uses for unused pieces you will probably not use.
Oftentimes selecting a gift for a friend or family member can turn into a very tedious process. Trying to decide what type of present might be appropriate and appreciated can be difficult. Even though we may be familiar with someone’s likes and dislikes, we still often do not know what they may already have.
Have you ever considered that a personal scrapbook might be the ideal gift? If you have access to photos of the person you are getting a gift for, a scrapbook would be something truly one of its kind.
One year at Christmas, my daughter-in-law gathered together photos of her family members and created scrapbooks for each of them. Certainly a gift of this nature would be loved, appreciated, and enjoyed for many years to come.
Add A Die Cut Machine To Your Scrapbooking Supplies
A die cut machine is a really neat addition to your scrapbooking and card making supplies. This fun tool allows you to cut out intricate shapes, designs, letters, frames, and more with ease and without scissors.
There are a number of styles of die cut machines available on the market, and they vary greatly in price and how they perform. Some of them are manually operated, others are electronic, and some of them require a computer to operate them. It is a matter of personal choice as to what you choose and how much you are willing to pay.
Regardless of which you choose, be prepared to spend more money after your initial purchase, as all of them (as far as I am aware) require additional cartridges, templates, dies, or software. Even if you purchase a die cut package which includes the machine and additional supplies, you more than likely will be tempted to buy more.
If you do not have one and decide to purchase one, be ready to have fun and create some neat projects!
Scrapbooking has become so popular in recent years that supplies to create fabulous scrapbooks are readily available in abundant supply nearly everywhere we look. It would seem as if embellishments are available for absolutely any subject or topic we could imagine. The problem then arises – Where do we keep all this ’stuff?’
If you are serious about your hobby/craft and have looked around much, then you’ve seen the really neat scrapbook totes on the market, and you probably even have one. The totes come in a great variety of styles and are a really practical and convenient way to store and carry all your supplies from place to place. If you haven’t invested in one, now just may be the perfect time to do so.
In the past, scrapbooking consisted of buying a plain album and attaching photos or post cards with photo corners (which were usually, if not always, black) to plain ugly pages. That was about it! Any information included with the photos was generally, as I recall, written on the back of the photos. All one had to do was slip the pictures out of the photo corners to read the back sides.
Those days are, thankfully, far behind us. Scrapbooking has come a long way since then. There are scrapbook pages of so many colors, designs and themes that I imagine one could spend hours browsing them all. Crafts stores have aisle after aisle of neat embellishments of everything one can imagine along with tools to enhance your scrapbook pages.
All one has to do is browse through all the supplies available to get the creative juices flowing. Even a beginner should have no trouble finding ideas to get started.