Tuesday’s Tip x 2

Today we have two tips AND two cards to share with you! Here’s our first card:

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To ink this solid Chrysanthemum stamp from A Muse I took my green Colorbox chalk in and dabbed it on the stem and the leaf – because the cats eyes inks are so small, you can easily add ink to smaller areas. For the top of the flower I used orange Colorbox chalk ink and dabbed it on the flower, then went in with red chalk ink and added colour to the edges of the flower. When adding multiple colours to a stamp the ink can dry before you make it to the paper, in order to moisten the ink simply breathe onto the inked up stamp.

Here’s our next card inspired by yesterday’s Inspiration Challenge…

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To create this card, I used a mini post-it-note to cover up the block of white space in the lower right hand corner and then stamped right over the post-it with the Solid Zinnia stamp from A Muse. I used a variety of yellow and orange inks to create the background of the card and added a few red gemstones – gotta have the bling. Forgive my crooked stamping – I was in a hurry today, but I’ll teach you how to avoid that with the Stamp-a-ma-jig Stamp Positioner in my A Muse Cute Critters Class on the 20th.

Have a beautiful day!

Olympic Inspiration

Check out Janna’s layout inspired by the colours on the Olympic website…

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How fantastic does that green paper look with the picture? The green really makes the blues in the photo pop and all the colours work together for a fun, playful mood. I like how Janna drew inspiration not just from the colours, but from the circular motif repeated throughout  the Olympic logos. 

Tuesday’s Tip: Janna used the Golly Gee Big Letter stamps from Gel-a-tins for her title, stamping them on patterned paper before cutting them out and applying a layer of glossy accents to achieve that epoxy look. Glossy Accents is not just for creating the epoxy look seen on her letters – it’s also a FAN TASTIC adhesive. Janna used Glossy accents to adhere the clear buttons which accent the bullet points for her journaling.

Tip + Basic Grey Arrival

We’re back today with a tip and another card to share with you inspired by yesterday’s challenge…

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TIP: For this card I only inked up the top part of the Flourish frame stamp, omitting the rest to make a cute corner accent.  I used the Ladybug Memento Dew Drop ink for this – the smaller ink pads, and the dew drop shapes in particular, are ideal for inking specific parts of a stamp – using this technique you might just look at your stamps in a whole new way!

NEW PRODUCT ALERT

Three of the New Basic Grey Collections have hit the shelves here at The Paperie this morning. We have a selection of product from Eerie, Eskimo Kisses, and Indian Summer in stock now and at the rate it’s going it won’t last long! Stop by to check it out before it’s all gone!

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A-Muse-a-Palooza Winners

Hello Everyone! It’s back to business as usual at The Paperie after our exciting week-long stamping extravaganza. We had so much fun participating in A-Muse-a-Palooza for the first time, and we hope that those of you who attended any of the make’n'takes or card classes last week had as much fun as we did! Now it’s time to annouce some winners!

The GRAND PRIZE winner of the A-Muse-a-Palooza goodie bag was…

FAYE LEWIS! Congratulations Faye!

The CARD CONTEST winner, receiving $50 in Paperie Gift Certificates was …

WENDY SKINNER!  Check out her card!

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There are so many perfect little touches and details here, we just loved everything about this card. It truly reminded us of driving through the rocky mountains on a wintery night. Wendy used her Tim Holtz Distress inks and Ink Blending tool to create a beautiful rustic scene for the mountains and the sky but the thing we loved the most was her use of Liquid Pearls to create that icy snowcapped look on her mountains.  

Check out the rest of the qualifying entries!

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Tuesday’s Tidbits – Applique Applications

LIQUID APPLIQUE

White liquid applique is our favourite among all of the colours – there are just so many things you can use it for…

• clouds
• cake frosting
• ice cream
• marshmallows
• snow drifts
• snowballs
• snow caps on trees, mountains, etc
• snow caps on letters in your scrapbook!
• Santa’s beard
• bunnies, sheep, etc
• popcorn

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And that’s just plain! You can sprinkle clear prisma glitter on the liquid applique before using your heat gun to puff it up, this will make your snow or cupcake frosting sparkle – you can even use microbeads for sprinkles on your ice cream or cupcakes!

 

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To completely alter the colour of your liquid applique you can use your markers or use your watercolour brush and some ink to paint it once it’s been heated and dried. ”Butter” your popcorn with a yellow marker or paint your tree top with green ink (as seen in the card below). 

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The liquid applique will start to turn a little brown if you overheat it… use this to your advantage for “overdone” marshmallows, chocolate ice cream, pussy willows, etc!

Have you used your liquid applique for something that’s not on our list? We’d love to add it – just leave us a comment! 

Tuesday’s Tidbits – Seek & You Shall Find

Yes, it’s true – tons and tons of Hero Arts inspiration is at your fingertips!

The thing that I love most about the Hero Arts Flickr Group is definitely the endless inspiration and ideas. There are so many talented members in that group and so many of them have been kind enough to tag their contest entries with stamp names and item numbers. Do you know what that means? It means that you can find at least one sample for pretty much every Hero Arts stamp on the market right now by performing a simple search! And I’ll tell you how!

Go to the Hero Arts Flickr Group: http://www.flickr.com/groups/heroarts and in the upper right-hand corner you’ll see a search engine that says “Search this group’s pool”. You can then type in the name or item number of a stamp and if anyone has made a project using the stamp in question (and tagged it), the search results will show thumbnails of the cards or layouts! Sometimes it will be just one, sometimes you’ll see 150 or more! I find it’s best to search by item number, but if you’re going to use the name of a stamp be sure to use quotation marks around the name (ie: “scalloped borders” or CL288).

We will be featuring the Hero Arts Thank You Flourishes in our upcoming Hero Arts Stamp Studio Workshop on June 22 – everyone gets to go home with that particular stamp set! We will also highlight the Scalloped Borders. Just look at all of the wonderful creations that feature these two stamp sets on the Hero Arts Flickr site!

Thank You Flourishes … (click links) …  Scalloped Borders

You can also search within certain people’s photostreams to find cards they’ve made featuring specific stamps. I’ll use Lucy as an example since she was featured on the Hero Arts Blog this past Monday and I find her work to be so beautiful and classic. Lucy’s inspiring photostream can be seen here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/30551735@N05/ and the search engine is in the upper righthand corner. If you wanted to quickly search through her 199 photos to find the cards she’s made using the Hero Arts Playful Animals (CL155) you can type in the item number or the name and VOILA! 17 beautiful creations that are guarenteed to inspire you! Now check out ALL 177 results you’ll get when you search the whole Flickr site: http://www.flickr.com/search/?q=cl155&w=all

Lots to look at, hope you have fun exploring the Flickr Site – and I hope you all start joining up and submitting your own work!

We’ve added a “Search” feature to The Paperie Blog today! In the top right corner of the sidebar you’ll see a little search engine beneath the Browse headline. Whether we mentioned Copic, Spica, Hero Arts, contests, cards, layouts, Vicki Boutin – anything – you can find out! By typing in the keyword in our Blog search engine you will be directed to all of our Blog entries containing that keyword.

Quick Update – April 2009

Hello Everyone – a quick update to let you know that the Blog will be on hiatus again this week as we are extra busy preparing for our big weekend. We’ll be heading out to the Wilds in Salmonier for our annual Spring Scrapbook Retreat and although the Store will remain open, our Workshop tools (including the AccuCut machine, etc) will be unavailable, as we are bringing them out to the Retreat.

Hopefully we’ll be back this time next week with more updates!

TIP: We posted this tip as a caption for one of our pictures a few weeks ago and thought we’d post it again in case you missed it… if you have frayed or ragged edges on your ribbon, all you need to do is simply take a lighter to the ribbon and that will seal the edge. No more fraying!  Don’t forget to be careful!

Tuesday’s Tidbits – Bazzill Match-ups!

We have an exciting Tidbit for you this Tuesday – Bazzill has a fantastic feature on their website where you can check and see what specific colours of Bazzill Cardstock match up with some of the new collections hitting the stores this spring!

Check them out at:

http://www.bazzillbasics.com/matchmaker/

We have recently ordered many of the coordinating cardstocks for the My Mind’s Eye Penny Lane collection, as well as the matching colours for the incoming Basic Grey Lime Rickey and Wisteria collections. Watch for these new collections and the matching Bazzill to hit The Paperie in the next few weeks!

The Paperie’s Anniversary Celebration!

Did you miss our newsletter today? We are celebrating our 5th Anniversary on Saturday, May 2nd! Can you believe it’s been FIVE YEARS already?!

Drop by and say “HI” on Saturday, May 2nd, 2009 and enjoy an anniversary cupcake! Our valued customers can also have the opportunity to WIN a gift basket full of paper crafting goodies and Paperie Gift Certificates. Retail value of the basket is over $200! In keeping with the theme of our 5th Anniversary, we will enter your name into the draw for every $5.00 (before taxes) that you spend on that day!
 
Winner will be announced on The Paperie Blog on Monday, May 4th!

Invite a friend to join us!

Do you know someone who has always wanted to start scrapbooking or to create beautiful handmade cards? Maybe they don’t know where to start or maybe they feel like they just don’t have the time. 
 
Encourage them to stop by during our Anniversary Event and see how easy it is to Stay and Play with us! For only $5, they can create a 12×12 layout that they can take home with them to share with family and friends. We guarantee that they will have fun, and see how truly quick and easy it is to get started.
 
One of our lucky newcomers will WIN a FREE one-year Paperie Privilege Membership that entitles them to 50% Off Paperie classes, special Pre-Order discounts, Members Only Promotions and Double Stamp Days on their Frequent Buyer Card!

 Closed for Inventory this Friday

Please Note!  The Paperie will be closed this Friday, April 17th from
10am-7pm due to INVENTORY. Our Crop Night will go ahead as scheduled at 7pm on Friday for those registered. We apologize for any inconvenience that this may cause and thank you for your understanding.

Tuesday’s Tidbit – Sorting Ribbons, etc.

In keeping with our Organizational theme from yesterday, I thought I would share a few more of my favourite tricks for organizing my ribbon and buttons.

Have you ever seen the clear plastic containers that Ferrero Rocher chocolates come in? Well I have seen a lot of them – they were actually piling up after one particularly indulgent Christmas… then I discovered that they are perfect for storing things like ribbon and buttons!

Using my Crop-a-dile, I punched holes approximately one inch apart on the sides of my largest candy container. Then I put my scraps of ribbon inside, one at a time, and pulled each piece out through its own hole so just enough was poking through to grab and cut off what I needed. At first glance it looks like a jumble of ribbons inside a clear container, but I haven’t experienced a single tangle yet with this system! Gotta love that Crop-a-dile!!

For my buttons, I actually use the rectangular shaped clear plastic “Embellishment Essentials” from Cropper Hopper inside of my smaller candy containers to separate the buttons by colour. This system also works great for a ton of other little bits and pieces that are easy to misplace, like gemstones and paper flowers.

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Don’t forget to enter yesterday’s GIVE-AWAY, we will select one random winner from all local commenters on yesterday’s post to win an American Crafts Prize pack - just share your favourite organizational tip with us.

Tuesday’s Tidbits

For this week’s Tuesday’s Tidbit we have another example of using a Scalloped Border. We made the card below in a Hero Arts class at CHA this past January and since displaying it in the store for the last month the card has received oodles of comments.

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We just love the way the white ink shows up on the Kraft notecard, it gives such a soft and dainty look and combines beautifully with the other elements of the design. Every detail of this card is well thought out, from the stamped scalloped border which was carefully cut out to the peek of the felt flower beneath the heart. The strip of Basic Grey patterned paper looks like it was destined for this card, and just goes to show that you can find a use for every little scrap of leftover paper!

Another Tip: Don’t forget that if your patterned paper isn’t double sided, chances are that it will be white on the back so you can always stamp an image on the white part and use it on a card!

Tuesday’s Tidbits – Paperie Picks

Today we have a Paperie Pick for you, and it will come as no surprise to many of you who have attended classes here at the Paperie – Meghan has chosen VersaColor Pinecone Ink cubes.

These versatile little cubes of ink are not only fantastic for stamping a nice dark brown image, but they add the perfect finishing touch to a card or layout by simply rubbing the ink along the edge of the paper, as seen in our card below. This technique is called “inking the edges” and it’s a great way to add dimension to a project and is also ideal for antiquing a heritage page.

Tidbit: Did you know that you can also emboss VersaColor Ink cubes? They are a slow-drying pigment ink and emboss beautifully with clear or sparkly embossing powders. Choose from their selection of 76 colours to get the perfect match everytime you emboss.

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Tip: Emboss an image using just VersaMark and clear embossing powder for a glossy watermark effect. Add some gemstones for a soft, elegant touch.

Featured on this card is the Hero Arts Pop Stems and Happy Everything Messages, Pinecone Ink, VersaMark, Clear Embossing Powder, Linen Distressed Stickles and Hero Arts gemstones. Also used was Oasis Green Bazzill and Kraft cardstock. This card is the perfect pick-me up for a good friend, mother, father, etc. or switch out the sentiment for a Wedding, Birthday or Thank You Card.

Tuesday’s Tidbits – Stamping Tip

When using a small acrylic stamp on a larger acrylic block, place another unused (clean) stamp on the block (one on each end). This will prevent rocking the stamp you have inked and give even pressure when stamping your image.

Check out the cards we made in this week’s Birthday Card Class.

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Cupcake detail

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Flocking Detail

Tuesday’s Tip

During our classes, we often give and receive little tips that make our lives a little easier. Here are three of our favourite tips to pass along during our card making classes:

1) Don’t be afraid to cut up your clear acrylic stamps. We often cut apart our sentiments (ie: Happy Birthday) so we can use them separately, stagger them, or line them up side by side. You can even mix and match sentiments with half the hassle of partially inking each word.

2) When planning to use an image on a punched out shape, always stamp the image first (near enough to the edge for the punch to reach) and then use the punch upside down to center the image and punch it out.

3) Always take your ink to your stamp, and never “mash” your stamp into your ink pad. Turning your stamp upside down and applying your ink to the rubber image will ensure that you cover the whole surface of the stamp and will lessen the chances of getting ink smeared all over your wood blocks. Cleaning your stamp in between inkings when you’re mass producing cards is also a good idea for producing a crisp image every time.

Tuesday’s Tip – Stamping on Pattern Paper

Today’s Tip is short but sweet and we have two examples to illustrate the tip. When you’re making a scrapbook page or a card using pattern papers, have a look at your desk when you’re finished. What can be used and what can be thrown away? If you have any pattern paper scraps big enough to stamp on, grab a few of your favourite stamps and stamp some images on the leftover scraps - store them in a container or envelope, and they’ll be at your fingertips next time you need to make a quick card. Sort by theme for easy reference!

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See how we stamped the Elephant & Baby (by A Muse) on white and blue polka dot paper, and then cut it out? When you have fine details, like the baby’s curl & the elephant’s tail, it’s also a good idea to stamp the image on the piece of paper where you’ll be adhering your image. Also used here was the A Muse Congratulations SD.

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For the second card, we stamped the Three Stitched Hearts on Basic Grey paper and cut out. Then stamped the bunny (Hero Arts Happy Day Animals) on Kraft Cardstock, coloured with a white pencil and cut out to fit in the heart. A tiny heart was stamped repeatedly across the bottom with Frost White Colorbox Pigment ink and some buttons were sewn on to the heart before it was adhered to the card. The Happy Birthday sentiment is from the Hero Arts Birthday Messages stamp set. Some ribbon finished off this card.

Tuesday’s Tip – Using Ribbon

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Today’s tip features 20 ways to use ribbon, in case you missed our class in August we showed a few great ways to use up leftover bits of ribbon. Here are more tips to utilize another addictive embellishment that tends to pile up…

1 - Tie through buttons
2 - Make a border using a variety of or single color & patterns
3 - Use alphabet stickers on it
4 - Attach vellum to your page with a knot of ribbon
5 - Stamp words on it
6 - Use with pre-made products to give it your personal touch
7 - Tie through eyelets or punched holes along the edge of a project
8 - Attach to metal embellishments like paper clips, spirals, photo anchors, jump rings or safety pins
9 - Make a knot or a bow to glue anywhere on project
10 - Hang tags from it
11 - Use for photo corners
12 - Tie around chipboard embellishments or large monograms
13 - Use to tie something closed like a mini-album, tag book, journal or card
14 - Make loops or tabs for opening or pulling out hidden journaling
15 - Attach a label holder with it
16 - Use as stems for floral embellishments
17 - Apply rub-on letters to it
18 - Stitch bits of ribbon onto your page in a shape like a heart or circle
19 - Alter colour of ribbon with Copic Markers to match any project
20 - Tie around journaling blocks