Cards are an easy way to make something with all that stuff!  I’ve got a simple one and a slightly more complicated one to share today!

STEP ONE: Fold a strip of cardstock in half to create your card.

STEP TWO: Create a mini collage at the top and bottom edge of the card.

The pink brackety shape is a mask I used to create the journaling card on this layout:

I simply cut the mask in half (well, more like 2/3 and 1/3) to use as the base of my mini collages.

I had one stick pen left over, so I figured I’d just use it up.  I pierced only the mask layer (not the card base) with it.  I decided to use the large rhinestone in order to balance out the centered butterfly at the top of the card.

STEP THREE: Paint the sentiment across the center of the card.

I used watercolors.  You could certainly use up leftover alphas (think about a cool ransom style sentiment!) if you’d rather.

STEP FOUR: Add a border around the card to finish it off.

I often find that when something looks or feels unfinished, a border helps to unify it.  I pulled in the red of the stick pin and continued the “hand painted” look with a border of watercolor paint dashes.  Notice that I went over the top of the mini collages.  This helps to ground them.

And here’s the finished card:

And now for a slightly more complicated card….

STEP ONE: Fold a scrap of cardstock in half to create your card base.

The piece of paper I started with was 10″ long by 7″ tall.

STEP TWO: Use a dry brush to add some color to the front of the card.

STEP THREE: Lay down a collection of paper scraps in a basic rectangle formation.

You’ve already done the hard work of coordinating all the papers (or buying a kit where that’s done for you), so you know all the little scrips and scraps will go together.  Notice that I haven’t adhered any of the scraps yet.  I’ve laid them down to be “auditioned.”  And notice too that I cut around the triangles on the scrap on the right edge for a more lively look.  You could also use a border punch.

STEP FOUR: Build up mini collages.

Think of each scrap as an individual canvas for decoration.  I added paper scraps, rhinestones, flowers, sticker scraps, etc.

The flag coming out of the house was a piece of a border sticker that I cut off when I made this layout:

You can see that the house and the bird were also extra bits I cut for the layout above, but didn’t end up using.  Nothing goes to waste!

I also added tiny details like this popped up triangle:

STEP FIVE: Adhere everything.  But think outside the box.  Here I stapled the bits and pieces together:

Note on the finished card below that I stapled them together and then adhered the entire thing to the front of the card.

This way the staples don’t show on the inside of the card.  You could stitch parts down or use brads or something else creative!  Here’s what it looks like with everything adhered:

STEP SIX: Add the sentiment.  I drew my sentiment on the leftover selvedge edge from a piece of patterned paper.

I cut it out and erased the pencil lines.

All that is left is to adhere the sentiment to the card and voila!  My card is done:

I hope you feel inspired to use up the scrips and scraps on your table to create some cute collaged cards!

xo, Julie

Beth Perry Says:
March 9th, 2010 at 11:13 am
I have always loved Leila’s work!

A month ago we sent our sweet friend Leila Bentahar {aka Lilibee Studio} our October 2009 main kit Handmaiden to play with and she is hosting a tutorial all week on her blog showing how she created the project above using the kit. Head on over to see her amazing work & style and make sure you check back at her site this week as we also sent her an additional Handmaiden kit to giveaway to her international readers.

And, for you American girls we are also giving away a Handmaiden October kit today. Just comment by tonight at 9pm pacific and we’ll draw a name to win the October main kit. Please note todays giveaway is for US deliveries only, for our International friends please check back at Leila’s site for your opportunity to win.

Happy Tuesday!

Create the base of your layout in Photoshop by opening a new document of 3600 x 3600px with the resolution at 300.

Locate paper 9 from the Honey Church kit and open this in Photoshop. With your move tool selected, hold down the shift key and drag the paper over to your new document.

TIP: By holding down the shift button whilst dragging any paper or element to another document, places the layer in the center.

Open your second paper which will be paper 7 from the same kit and resize the paper to 3480 x 3480px by right clicking on the top of the document and selecting image size. With your move tool still selected, hold down the shift key and drag the paper over to your new document.

Now open the Honey Church overlay from the kit and resize it to 3485 x 3485px as we did in the previous step. Holding down the shift key again, drag the overlay over to your new document. Now let’s zoom into your document at 100% so we can get a closer look.

As you can see in the above screen shot, the overlay needs to be moved over to the right to line up with the second paper. Use your arrow keys on your keyboard to nudge your overlay to the right of your document to align the overlay with the edge of the top paper.

Let’s add some dimension to the second paper by giving it a drop shadow. Go to your layers palette and double click on layer 3 to bring up the layer style dialog box. As you can see below in the screen shot, I have given you the sizes and color I have used for my drop shadow for the purpose of this tutorial but feel free to play with the settings to achieve a drop shadow to your liking.

This concludes the beginner tutorial on creating a basic digital background. Feel free to add some photos or more digital embellishments from the Honey Church kit to finsh a complete digital layout.

I am going to take this a step further by using more Kenner Road digital goodies such as the flash frames and the bingo cards to customize a frame for my photo to print out and turn this digital background into a hybrid layout. I simply printed out the digital background on a large format printer as well as my layered frame and other pieces I created in Photoshop. I added some Kenner Road paper kit products from Madeleine (February main kit) and Milk & Honey (February embellishment kit) to finish off my layout.

{♥}

Ready to see some more digital eye candy using Kenner Road goodies? Click on the hearts to take a closer look!

{♥}

{♥}

Do you need one more reason why you should give digital scrapping a go? One of the best parts about digital scrapbooking is that if you make a mistake in Photoshop, all you have to do is hit the step backward (Alt+Ctrl+Z) button and the mistake is no more!  Don’t be afraid to play around with your goodies, you may surprise yourself with what you come up with. To show you how versatile the Kenner Road digital goodies can be, I want to share with you my blog banner I created for my blog make over. I simply extracted bits and pieces from all of the products and mixed them together in loads of layers. Seriously, you can’t go wrong!

{♥}

Click on the heart under my blog banner above to have a closer look at how I decorated my blog with all this divine digital vintage goodness. I hope I have tempted you to give digital scrapping a try, it really is so much fun {and without the mess} Don’t forget, if you have any questions or you want to share what you have created, please leave a comment and link us up we would love to see!

Have a creative day and try something new!

Diana

xo

And the store-the-addresses-in-your-cell-phone method
is just too high-tech for me.
So I decided to make my own address book!
And I will show you how I did it (and it is so easy!) using the main December kit with a couple of pieces from December’s embellishment kit…

****
SORRY IT IS NOT HERE ANYMORE
IT IS BEING PUBLISHED
****

Supplies needed:
Main kit – Seven Gables
My Minds Eye – Life Stories journaling sheet
My Minds Eye – white peonies
My Minds Eye – antique flowers
My Mind’s Eye – Life Stories accessories sheet
Bazzill – Kraft
Bazzill – Glass Slipper Bling
7gypsies – Nest sticker sheet
American Crafts – Regards {in honey} Thickers alphabet
1960s antique gold seam binding {1 yard}
1960s walnut seam binding {1 yard}
1960s coconut seam binding {1 yard}

 Embellishment kit – Ramble
7gypsies – gypsy ephemera 

Misc. supplies:
Small red rub-ons (Jenni Bowlin Old School Tiny Alpha Rub-ons are used in example)
Red ribbon
2 binder rings
Crop-a-dile or good hole punch
Corner rounder
½ inch circle punch
Stapler

 Use 7gyspies Ephemera as the front and back covers of your book. The “Parcel Post” & ”American Almanac” cards are used here. Please note: both Ephemera cards measure 4 inches wide. The “Parcel Post” card is 5 inches tall and the “American Almanac” card is 6 inches tall.

1. For the pages of the book, I used a combination of the Kraft & Glass Slipper bling cardstocks and My Mind’s Eye patterned papers. All of the pages are cut so that they are slightly less than 4 inches wide. Then the first half of the pages are 4.5 inches tall and the second half of the pages are 5.25 inches tall. This allows the pages of the book to be a little staggered and it is easier to see the tabs.
2. Use a corner rounder to round the bottom corners of each page.
3. To make the tabs, punch circles and then adhere or staple them to the bottom of the pages. Use alphabet rub-ons on the circle punches to create the sections of your book. There are a total of 16 pages here and the sections are divided like this: A, B, C-D, E-F, G-H, I-J-K, L, M-N, O-P, Q-R, S, T, U-V, W-X, Y-Z, and a blank page.
4. Use a hole punch or Crop-a-dile to punch 2 holes in the top of the book. Use binder rings to keep it all together.

   

5. Embellish one of the binder rings with ribbon & vintage seam binding. Also hang a tag (from the MME Life Stories accessories sheet) from the binder ring & use the Thickers to add one of your initials.

   

6. Lastly, embellish the bottom of the cover with an asterick from the Thickers and a sticker from the 7gypsies  Nest sticker sheet.
    See, easy peasy!
   Now go make one for yourself!
   :)
   gretchen

This year one of my resolutions is to send snail mail. It’s a lost art. I’m sure it will make someone’s day and just thinking on that makes me happy and excited to post these soon!  I encourage you to do the very same thing. I used papers in Kenner Road’s December Main kit to line my envelopes and the postcard paper to write my love notes on. I designed the mailing labels and hope you enjoy this simple and small gift from me to you.  Now you can send your family & friends a little something special too. Happy notes to you xo.

-Debee

Materials & Tools Needed:

Kenner Road Kits Scrap Paper, Bone folder, Paper cutter, Ruler, Glue stick, Envelopes, Sticker Sheets, Printer.

Original Envelope Liner Tutorial by : Martha Stewart Weddings

Step One: Line your Envelope

1. To make an envelope liner, measure the width of your envelope, and subtract 1/4 inch. For the length, fold back the flap of the envelope, and measure from the bottom of envelope to tip of flap, just under the gummed strip. Using a paper cutter, cut a sheet of paper to these dimensions.

2. Slip the paper into the envelope, and fold the corners down just below the glue line, using a bone folder to create sharp creases. Remove the paper from the envelope, and cut off the corners along the folds.

3. Insert liner sheet into envelope, and fold down flap. Lift up the envelope flap, keeping the liner folded. Slip a piece of scrap paper under the liner flap to protect envelope from glue. Run the glue stick over the edges of the back of the liner.

4. Slip out scrap paper. Close down the outer flap over liner, and rub with fingertip to adhere glue to flap.

Now download the Mailing Labels PDF:  { Belladrummer Mailing Labels }

Either print them on a sticker sheet or standard printing paper. Cut out labels and affix to your envelopes.

let’s get started:)

from the kenner road kits:

pattern paper (i used play day from snowdrift)

ribbon ( i used the jolly be golly rainbow ribbon from snow drift)

label sticker ( i used one from the basic grey nook & pantry sticker sheet in timber cove)

from the thirft store ( or maybe from around the house)

old plates; vintage or not so vintage :)

taper candle holders; vintage or not so vintage

*i used a vintage cermaic plate with a crystal candle holder set i received from my wedding…before you gasp, one of the crystal holders had been chipped around the edge where the candle sits recently, so i figured this was the perfect re-use for them :)

you will also need:

a glue gun

glue dots

your trimmer

and a border punch

so now that you have gathered your supplies….let’s create!!!!

step one: trim from your pattern paper, 3 2 inch wide strips of paper. using your border punch, punch both edges of each paper strip

step 2: around the edge of your plate, adhere glue dots.  adhere your paper strips to the glue dots, centering the strips on the edge of the plate and lining up your punched edges where they over lap.

step 3: flip your plate over, so not to mess with my border i just adhered…i flipped my plate over and propped it on a coffee mug. now apply hot glue to the edge of your candle holder that would hold the a taper candle and press it into the centre of the underside of the plate.

step4: when the glue is dry, flip your cake plate back over. adhere your ribbon to the centre of your paper edge and add your paper label.

serve it up with some yummy treats and you are done!!!

super quick, easy, and fabulous!!! don’t forget to share with us any of these cake plates that you make!!!

Today {before i begin explaining the process of how i created my vintage tannenbaum tree} i have a surprise. I saved one last kit to giveaway to one lucky reader, such as yourself. consider it a little treat from me & kenner road to thank you for your continued support and to thank you for coming here so we can share our passion for vintage things & pretty paper.

to win, make sure you post a comment telling us what your favorite tree trimming memory is before midnight on december 6th. i’ll draw a winner on december 7th from all of the comments and post that person’s name here, on the 7th. and, because we’ve had a lot of prizes go unclaimed lately {seriously!!} the winner will have 48 hours to claim the prize or we’ll redraw a new name and the original winner will forfeit the prize. and of course, our international friends are always welcome to enter. ;)

now, to enter to win remember to leave your comment at the end of the post. until then… let’s get to trimming this tree!

Supplies used : tannenbaum kit {alot of these elements are vintage and you can certainly substitute the paper and elements as you choose if you don’t have the kit}. craft wire {i used two sizes – 20 guage copper & 32 guage silver. both of these are widely available in craft stores}.

tools used : scissors, edge distressor, hot glue gun, foam squares, dry adhesive, zip dry {wet adhesive}, butterfly punch, pinking shears.

step 1 : attach your vintage sewing bobbin to the vintage tin with hot glue. just a little is needed.

step 2 : create four tiers of wire tree branches.

i like my branches to look very homespun so perfection has no place on my tree. i simply cut a 2 foot piece of wire and and then created a branch by wrapping the wire together. i also left a small loop {see picture above} in order to create an end that wouldn’t allow my mini ornaments to fall off.

after wrapping the branches i attached each branch by wrapping one end of the wire around the bobbin and then wrapping the other loose end the opposite way. i create four tiers of three branches doing this and had each tier of branches get slightly smaller in length so that the top row was smaller than the bottom.

this is a good look at what your branches will look like before you add your ornaments. isn’t he cute? you’ll notice i added a small piece of the 7gypsies gaffer tape to the bottom to just add a little color. we’ll be adding the bird next :)

step 3 : add your bird tree topper.

i backed my two bird cutouts with the red gaffer tape so that the plain side wouldn’t show when i stacked my birds on top of my tree. then i added a white tab {that i stamped with a kenner road stamp} and applied them to my birds with mini foam squares.

then i put three mini mercury glass beads on the white enamel pin and glued the pin to the top of my bobbin. before gluing i used a kraft knife to push a small hole into the wood so the glue and pin end would have a reservoir to rest in. you will have to hold this in place for a few minutes while the glue dries.

after the glue dries, attach your birds together using mini foam squares in between so that they pop out a bit. then you can slightly bend each tail end and each head for a bit more dimension.

this following picture also shows the ribbon and jute cording wrapped around the pin & bobbin. this will be the very last thing you do AFTER you create all of your ornaments as this is all of your extra ribbon & jute cording and you’ll want to make sure you use what you need to for your ornaments first. i’ll remind you about it again at the end ;)

step 4 : create your ornaments.

for these last steps i’ll give you basic instructions for the ornaments that you might have questions for. most of these are very easy to understand just by seeing the images but, please note i saved every single scrap of paper, tissue, etc as i was creating. i love adding these smaller bits back into other pieces {as you will see} and hope some of these ideas help you see that even the smallest bits & pieces can create beautiful things.

also, i did not back all of these ornaments with the red gaffer tape but you certainly can if you choose to, it does add a finished look and makes the ornaments pleasing for both sides, but there is some intricate cutting required with some of them do to the punch-outs, etc.

punch out the butterfly center and use a 1/16″ hole punch to punch a hole at the top and bottom of the center of the butterfly. thread your enamel pin through one hole at the bottom, thread on two white snowflake beads and thread through other hole. secure the pin with gaffer tape on back and add ribbon.

take your butterfly punch-out from the previous piece and attach to the front of the domino with a mini foam square. wrap a piece of ribbon around each side {attaching with dry adhesive} and tie at top. then add loop for hanging.

fill mini glass bottle with rhinestones and glue button to top for lid and wrap wire around center with long tails at each side. cut out two center squares of large bingo tag and punch 1/16″ holes at the “0″ in “30″ and the “6″ in “60″. thread wire tails through and coil ends into spirals, this will hold the wire in place.  attach garment pin to hang.

punch butterfly out of the two square piece you cut from your previous ornament and staple a mini staple in the center. apply to crown with mini foam square and wrap ribbon around top and loop to hang.

attach wire to key and thread two mercury glass beads and one snowflake bead before creating loop and twisting ends back round wire to close.

attach domino and mini word ticket that has been trimmed and edged with pinking shears. add garment pin to hang.

this one’s my favorite :)

i created a blanket stitch around the milkcap by first creating 1/16″ punched holes and then threading the wire in a simple blanket stitch. it took some patience and a little time but looks so cute. when that was finished i added a row of 5 snowflake beads for some dimension by threading them on wire and then attaching to the back through the punched holes. add some ribbon to the top to hang.

distress edges of large tag. create a small rosette by pleating the crepe paper {about 4′-6″ is all you need} that has been doubled by folding lengthwise in half. attach a button threaded with jute cording to center of rosette and attach garment pin to hang.

pleat a 6″ piece of crepe paper to circle tag and attach with dry adhesive. type or hand write a favorite holiday saying on the manila tag your trim came wrapped on and trim into a simple banner, attach with dry adhesive.

attach top tag to bottom with a mini foam square making sure to line up hanging holes. type another festive word and attach to top of top tag. thread a mercury bead on the flower’s stem and thread through a 1/16″ hole punched at bottom of large tag. coil end of flower stem to keep the bead on. attach garment pin for hanging.

stitch another pleated 6″ strip of crepe paper and trim ends with pinking shears. attach to pear tag and top with another trimmed ticket saying and enamel pin. attach garment pin to hang.

wrap domino with wire and create loop for hanging. apply trimmed ticket remnant to top and attach trimmed crepe paper edges as desired.

attach another piece of crepe paper to skinny tag and trim bottom edge into banner points. add button threaded with ribbon and another festive word saying. hang from ribbon.

create gaffer tape ribbon and add bingo circle and festive typed greeting. hang from garment pin.

wrap bottle with wire and create loop for hanging. add gaffer tape to bottle and jute cording and fill with half of the remaining flower stems.

attach vintage dennison label to tag. thread remaining mercury glass beads and attach to tag by threading through two 1/16″ pu8nched holes on each end, secure in back. slide remaining flowers through and use garment pin to hang.

type “believe” on last vintage dennison label and attach to glass bottle. glue remaining snowflake bead to bottle {glue so snowflake edges poke into bottle} and use garmnet pin to hang.

step 5 : wrap remaining ribbon around top of bobbin and display.

i hope you enjoy this kit just as much as i have adored creating it for you. please remember to leave a comment to enter the giveaway and i hope you have an amazing holiday season filled with good wishes and lots of holiday cheer!

I saw this tutorial for bookends and I immediately thought of scrapbook paper. The colors in this kit were so gorgeous, so I decided to give it a try. This project is so simple you won’t believe it.

Supplies:
2 Concrete Bricks (Home Depot has these for 35 cents.)
Kraft Wrapping Paper
Patterned Paper
Sewing Machine (optional)
Adhesive

1. Wrap the bricks with the kraft much like you would a present. Make sharp creases on all of the edges. See…

2. Cut 14 1 inch x 12 inch strips or enough to cover the height of the brick with a little room left over. I then sewed mine together with a zig zag stitch on my machine – that’s optional.

3. Adhere strips around wrapped brick (they will most likely not meet in the back.) Make sharp creases at the corners.

4. At this point you could embellish the front with words, alphabets or other embellishments. I’m a simple gal so I left them plain.

Install on a shelf – beautiful! If you make them, please link me up I’d love to see!

Hi everyone! I just wanted to pop in today and show a little sneak peek of one of the class projects from our Cautionary Tale class we held this weekend using the September specialty kit. There is still time to join us and create four fun vintage inspired halloween projects by purchasing a class pass that is available through the kenner road etsy shop {here} for only $12.

happy monday!
xo

you can fold it, tear it, scrunch it, mold it, cut it into shapes; the possibilities are endless!

today i’m going to show you just a few fun, easy techniques:

we’re going to make some cute “scrunchy” flowers, and i’ll also show you some examples of bows, a mini bunting banner, and a “spinner”.

let’s start with the flowers:

all you need is a piece of paper cut or torn into about a 1 1/2 strip.

length depends on how big you want your finished flower.

(my longest strip is about 12 in. long)

now, here’s the trick:

take your strip of paper & quickly run it through some water. you want it thoroughly soaked, but not falling apart.

next, scrunch it into a sort of “snake shape” & start spiraling it until it forms a circle.

as you scrunch it together, kind of flatten & shape until it looks the way you want.

the wetness of the paper will make it kind of stick to eachother.

your blob of paper will be somewhat fragile so you can leave it where it is & let it dry naturally,

or you can be impatient like me & use your blow dryer to speed things up. i think holding it in your hand while it dries helps it to stick together:

after it dried, i used watered down glue to coat the top & then sprinkled glitter on top:

after it dried, i added a cute center ;)

voila!

i loved the “water scrunching” technique so much that i made a cute little bow.

i cut a small, rectangular piece of paper with scallop-edged scissors.

(this piece is about 2×3 in. long)

just moisten your piece of paper, lay down flat on your work surface, & cinch in the middle.

tie with a piece of string to secure.

when the paper is moistened, it makes it so much easier to mold it into the shape you want.

how cute would a page be with cute little tiny bows allover?

here are a few more (dry…lol) shapes & ideas for you to try…

a tiny pendant banner strung onto ric-rac:

and a game piece style”spinner”:

this one is about 3 in. in diameter, but you can make them as tiny as your fingers & scissors allow!

for the center, i used one of the tiny jenni bowlin bingo cards that came in a past months embellishment kit.

the “month circles” are rub-ons from last month’s kit ;)

all held together by a simple brad.

i can’t wait to see the creative ideas you all come up with

don’t forget to show us & upload all your inspiring pics into our flickr photo pool.

have a wonderfully weekend & be sure to tune into our gallery reveal on mon, sept 14th!