Card Making Basics - The Blank Card

I love to make seasonal cards.  And this year, I will be sharing them with you.  Before I do, I would like to show you how I make blank cards.  They are quite easy to make, and will save a lot of repetition and space if I tell you here and now.  I make a size called A1, which is a party invitation style.  I use this size because if you unfold an A1 card, it is exactly half the size of a 8.5 x 11 inch piece of paper.  Also, blank envelopes can be purchased in groups of 100 at most stores that sell office stationery.  But, they are also easily made out of paper.  But this blog post will focus on making the cards, not the envelopes.  So here we go.

A few years ago I bought a bunch of 8.5 x 11 inch cardstock at a Hobby Lobby sale, and spent a lost weekend cutting them in half.  I left the unfolded and filled this box with the results of that weekend.  As you can see, I have barely put a dent in my store of pre-cut cards.


This is what obsession may look like.

 You can buy cheap cardstock for these card blanks at Wal-Mart, where you can get a pack of 50 sheets for $5.00.  This means 100 cards for $5.00.  They sell Colorbok cardstock.  It is a white centered cardstock.


Yes, it's cheap.  But it shows that it is cheap.

 There are two flaws I see with this cardstock.  One is the way they package it.  They hold the pieces together by adding a little extra cardstock and perforate the edges, so you can tear them out.  This leaves a jagged white edge on one side of the cardstock.  However, this can be overcome by a little ink on the edges if you want to go this way.  I bought a package just to use on this year’s cards to prove that to you.


Leaving a jagged edge on my paper isjust.. it's just wrong!

 The other flaw is their color.  White cardstock is white cardstock.  It looks like bleach.  Colors, however, seem to be washed out.  The first picture below are two different cardstocks of a dark red.  The bottom paper is Bazzill, the top is Colorbok.  In comparison, the Colorbok paper looks brown.  The second picture is black.  This time, the bottom is Colorbok and the top is Bazzill.  The Bazzill paper is much deeper.  And this picture shows a third flaw.  Even with clean hands, every time I handled the black paper, I left finger prints.  Fortunately, I know how to remove those prints.  I will tell you how in another blog.


Hmm... one of these is definitely NOT red.



Yes, they are both black.  But one can be used for forensics.

   















Okay.  Now I take a piece of paper and put it on the cutter, as below.  I cut the paper in half, which means setting it at 5.5 inches.



Make sure your edge is even against the cutter...



... and that your paper is indeed 11 inches tall...



...and you will end up with two 5.5 inch pieces

    
This gives you two pieces of paper. These are basically your card blanks.  Unfolded, of course.


This is how I store them.  You can fold them first with a bone folder if you prefer.

 This is the unfolded card.  You can also cut the paper in half the other way, which makes a taller card. For that, you cut at the 4.25 inches.


Make sure it's straight as before...



...and if your paper is indeed 8.5 inches long...



... you will have two 4.25 inch pieces...



... just like these.  Nice huh?

 Here is the differences in size.  I use the taller cards like an A-frame, with the fold at the top.  But you can use the cards in whatever direction you want to.  Most of the time, I cut my cards the first way.


They are the same size, but a fold makes ALL the difference.

 Of course, if you make cards this dark, you might want some paper on the inside that you can stamp or write on.  For this, I usually use plain white cardstock.  Basically, you use the inside of the card as a matte, and cut the “picture” (aka the white paper) to fit inside it.  Start by cutting the paper in half again, either way.

Here we go again... do I really need to tell you to keep it straight?

Then cut the paper in half the other way.  This gives you four equal pieces.

Don't be tempted to double up.  They like to slip apart, making them uneven

To make it fit within the inside of the card, cut 1/4 inch off of two perpendicular sides.  Most cutters give you a handy guide just below the cutting line.  Line your paper up at the first line below the line, that I am pointing at here.

That's not nail fungus. I got happy with glitter glue.

This makes one side 4 inches, and the other 5 1/4 inches.

I guess I show you these shots...

... for visual confirmation.  Or filler...

This size fits both my regular cut card and the A-frame cut cards.

My regular cut is like a pair of "relaxed cut" jeans.

The a-frame cut is like "boot cut" jeans.  It's all about preference really.

And that is pretty much it.  I cut a ton of these and they last me quite a while.  Halloween cards will be made with these awesome black cards this year.  And as soon as I figure out what I am going to do, I will totally share that with you.

Making a Mountain (Scrapbook Layout)

While trying to come up with ideas for the Utah-based honeymoon album I a making for our recently married niece, I decided to look at pictures on the internet from scenic vistas throughout the state.  I saw one that was just perfectly framed, and it hit me.  it is layers of mountains... I bet I could make a page based on this picture.  The original picture if found at the Bess Realty Group website, believe it or not.
First thing's first.  I collected cardstock from my collection that matched well enough to make the layered colors.  For the sky background and farthest mountains, I used cardstock with white centers, so I could sand them (as I will show a little later).  The rest was from my beloved Bazzill cardstock collection.  And I pulled all my green Ranger Distress inks and a couple of extras (Black Soot, Chipped Sapphire, Weatherd Wood, Crushed Olive, Bundled Sage, Forest Moss, Peeled Paint, Shabby Shutters, and Pine Needless).  The rest of the equipment are: a pair of scissors, a fine knife for detailed cutting, a very thin (#005) marker for light details, and a nail file for sanding.


The sky is easy enough to do.  I could just leave the pretty light blue background plain, but I wanted to put a scant few clouds, like in the picture.  So I tore the top off of the file, to make myself a tiny file, and sanded in a circular motion until I got the shapes I liked.  I also used some Q-tips for painting, but forgot to add them to the picture.  Easy.
         

Next, I traced a mountain range on the gray-blue paper, putting the highest peak on the right page, and lowering the left side so it will fall under the next layer.  I cut this out, using the fine blade to get a couple of cuts a little more rounded.  I inked the edges of the mountains with the Weathered Wood ink to disguise the white center.


Before I get to the distressing of it all, I went ahead and cut out the rest of the layers.  Next up is the blue-green paper.  On the left it rises above the mountain in the background, and on the right it is basically on the same level while the mountain towers above it.  I just freehanded a few mounds, making sure that they were not too high to cut off the mountain, or too low to make the front range look weird.  Then the front, light green layer, starts on the right about halfway down the page and just curves down across both pages, until it is close to the bottom left edge.  I used one piece of paper for both the left and right, to conserve.  I hoard my Bazzill paper almost religiously.


Here is, in my opinion, the coolest part.  I cut two and a half inches off the bottom to reduce bulk, but you can leave it in if you want to.  Then I wadded them up into small balls.  I carefully pulled them back out, and didn't flatten.  I used another piece of the nail file to sand certain areas, easily done by sanding the folds, to resemble little snow trails like in the picture.  To make the mountain shadows, I used Chipped Sapphire and rubbed it where I wanted it with my finger.  This gave it a smudgy look, instead of just inking any folds from the crumbling.  When the ink dries, then I flattened it enough to tape it down onto the background.


For the middle range, notice that there are trees on them.  However, they are so small that I was pretty sure I couldn't draw them.  So, I used the cast off paper from when I cut it and experimented with my greens until I found three that looked good to layer over each other.  I chose (Bundled Sage, Forest Moss, and Pine Needless).  I took the lightest ink, Forest Moss, and just slid it back and forth on the page, to give a layer of color to the matte green background.  Then, I took Bundled Sage and a Q-tip.  I tapped the tip onto the ink pad a few times until it was saturated, and then just made lines in areas where trees might be on both pages.  The darkest ink, Pine Needles, repeated these lines, until I had a mess of lines in groups on this layer.  I let it dry and taped it down onto the page.  It looks cool to me.

The bottom range is brighter, with larger trees. I had planned to make some trees with green mulberry paper, but I was unable to locate any.  Maybe mulberry has fallen out of style.  So, I decided to leave it blank.  This will be where any pictures or journaling my niece wants to do will be added.

The final result is very pretty.  And I proved to myself that I can be creative without a template or someone else's help.  And so can you.  Now, go choose a simple picture and amaze me.

Stress-Relieving Scrapbook Prep

There is a scrapbook trend that has been building for a few years now that I am an avid member of: distressing.  Tim Holtz has cornered the market in my mind, making everything from my favorite inks (Ranger Distress Inks, I have every one they make), to scrapbook tape (that looks like things such as strips of music, ruler tape, you name it) and blank ephemera that is made to be tarnished, dyed, stained, ripped, scratched… pretty much anything you can do to it.  The result of all this destruction is a page or album or work of art that looks worn, well used…. not showroom new and untouched.  I love it!  Now, buying all these things to do the distressing can be expensive, but I have a few methods that I frequently use in scrapbooking that are easy, pretty cheap, and well.. they relieve my stress on those bad days.

First up, the simple art of paper tearing.  There is a class of scrapbookers that think tearing a piece of paper that someone lovingly designed to be perfectly adapted to your needs is a sacrilege.  I say raspberries!  I learned this while working on my very first scrapbook page.  It was a two-page spread for my recently deceased grandparents.  I had a perfect page of assorted flowers… but I had only one.  So, I put the page on the table, face up, and tore it by pulling it diagonally towards me, raggedly down the center.  I put each piece on its own 12x12 sheet of sage green cardstock.  Put a little ink on the white edges with an ink pad (or your finger for a more subtle, smudgy look) and now I had two coordinating pages.  After that, a little vellum and a couple of pictures and my pages were done.  And they still are some of my favorites.  Tear paper and stick down every edge but one, and use them as pockets for tickets or little items you want to keep.  Another trick is to use torn paper strips to make a rough frame or mat look for pictures.  I like to take papers I don’t use (or really don’t like anymore) and pre-tear them into all sorts of sizes and shapes to use at a later date.  And the tearing sounds so delicious.

The second technique is staining.  Tea dye is the most popular type.  Basically, you choose your paper (don’t use cardstock, it is harder to stain) and submerge it in a nice, unsweet tea bath.  Just a few seconds for a light dye, or up to a minute for a dark dye.  Mind you, you need a flat surface to dry these on that has something absorbent to soak up extra liquid and… leave it there.  But, if you don’t want a whole page… that is where the fun begins.  Coffee and colas are also great stains (please, hold the sugars and creams though).  have two shallow bowls or tea saucers with coffee or a soda.  Take a mug, dunk it in the coffee and then place it on the paper.  drizzle the drink in random places on the page.  Heck, cover your table with papers you want to stain and have fun flicking straws of tea or what have you on them.  Go nuts.  Let dry overnight and they look nice and worn.

The third technique is inking.  I have already described inking the edges of torn paper.  Ranger Distress Inks are my ink of choice here, but any ink that isn’t pigment based works well here.  One way is to use the inks (inks in dropper bottles, not ink pads) for the second technique of staining.  It only takes a drop or two (or more if you want a darker stain) and the whole range of colors is yours for the dyeing.  Another way is to take the ink pad, holding it in a face-down angle towards the paper, and drag it across the edge of the paper.  You can hold it more parallel to the paper if you want more ink further into the paper, or more perpendicular if you want just the very edge inked.  This goes an amazing way towards making a factory produced piece of paper look more homemade, and it is a great way to cover up any of the white core that can easily be seen from cutting the paper.  yet another idea is to stamp an image with these dye based inks randomly on all over the paper.  Before it dries, spritz it with water, and let the ink move where it may.  Of course, you can help it along by propping the paper up slightly, or by lightly heat setting it with a  hair dryer on low or an embossing gun.  This kind of look like it started raining while you were stamping.  A really cool layer to add to this is to sprinkle salt (table or rock) onto the freshly inked and wetted paper.  The salt soaks up the ink and water where it fell and looks awesome!

The fourth technique is crumpling.  This, to me, is the most stress relieving, and can easily be done with any type of paper.  Wad up a piece of paper (I use the whole 12x12 sheets, but you can wad up even the smallest bits if you need to).  The un-wad it… very carefully.  Here is the cool trick.  Flip the paper and wad it from another angle.  Now you have creases going up and down the paper.  You could stop here, or you could make it look more beaten up.  Flatten the paper on your table.  Take an ink pad (I love the Ranger browns here, but whatever coordinates will do), and run the whole pad lightly across the paper, inking only the raised creases.  I like to do it in certain spots instead of all over, which makes it kind of look like it was stepped on. If you ink all the creases, you have created a new pattern on the paper.  Use the water spritzing idea from above and spray the inked creases, making the ink snake out into cooler designs.  You can now flatten the paper back out by pressing it between some heavy books overnight or use it nicely crumpled to add texture to your next scrapbooking adventure.

The last technique is sanding.  Crumpled paper can be stressed by lightly sanding it with a nail file (not too many strokes, unless you want a holey look) which will help the creases stand out by whitening them. Sand the edges of flat paper to create a light border.  Sand the edges of several sizes of circles, crumple them, layer them, and staple the center to create a rough flower.  Make up your own use for sanding, but it really is easy.

Just doing one of these techniques for an hour or so to create distressed, “ugly” paper is a great way to work out any aggression accumulated throughout the day.  And the result is paper that is now uniquely yours, and makes those scrapbooking days pass a lot faster when you can finally get around to them.

Scrapbooking in Pieces

I learned how to scrapbook the summer of 2005, when I discovered a wonderful little scrapbook store in Auburn, AL called "PaperJazz." I was going to Auburn University working on my masters and went there to fulfill my insatiable need for a creative outlet. I hung out there so much that I got a job working there part time. They had 6 hour crops on Friday nights, and I ran them, basically helping the women (as everyone there seemed to be) find the items they need, and keeping things clean. If I had time, I was allowed to work on scrapbook layouts. I learned two things from that awesome time working at PaperJazz. One, I really like playing with color. And two, planning is crucial for doing a good amount of scrapbooking the way you want to.

Whether you are just starting out in scrapbooking and just have a wish to make a cute book to display treasured photos, or you are like me and have your own warehouse full of paper and gadgets to do just about anything you want, there is something you probably already know. Scrapbooking takes time. Someone out there is going to read this and say "I can punch out a 20 page scrapbook in an evening, it doesn't have to be a big production." And they are right. You can do a whole scrapbook in an evening, or you can take six hours to make a single page. The amount of detail you put into your pages is up to your individual wants, needs, and capability. That is not what this blog post is about. This is about how to plan to do the scrapbooking you want to do in a small amount of time.  I am currently working on a pre-made scrapbook for my niece that recently got married. She and her new hubby went on a hiking honeymoon through the beautiful vistas of Utah, and I wanted to give them something fun to display those pictures in. I knew this was going to take some planning. I also knew that on a good weekday I would only have about three hours to do anything. So I broke the project down into small, doable sections.

The first phase of the project was the purchasing phase. I wrote down in an email all the things I needed for their scrapbook: the album, matched sets of paper with a hiking and camping theme, cardstock to match, stickers, accents, and double stick tape. I then sent the email to myself so I could bring up the list on my phone. This comes in super handy if you only have a few spare minutes to create the list, but can't go shopping for a few days. Then the fun execution of this plan is hunting through whatever scrapbook store you like and picking out the goods. It is important here to remember NOT TO OVERBUY. Just get what is on the list, even though everything looks great. You don't need it now, you only need the items for this project. Just keep telling yourself this while you check items off the list.

The second phase is the planning phase. I planned on making twenty pages of pre-made pages based around a hiking theme. For those times when i only want to make a page or two, I plan what I want them to look like. There are several places to look for inspiration, based on your level of scrapbooking prowess. You can go through old scrapbook pages you have made and pick and choose items from them that you would like to do again. You can troll the internet or scrapbook magazines for layouts and find one you like. There are hundreds of pre planned layouts there you can use; just Google "scrapbook layouts." Or, you can doodle until you some up with something you like. Remember the following questions as you pick layout(s). How many pictures do you need on these pages? How much time do I want to spend on putting special accents on the page? Does this page need pockets for ephemera (keepsakes)? This phase can take a long time, but it can be done whenever you have time.

The third phase is accent prep. I myself love to make accents more than buy them. All I need is a pencil, some cardstock, scissors, and my Xyron machine. I also have a QuicKutz die-cutter to make some of the cutest items ever. Confetti, borders, photo corners, and other popular accents can be handmade, giving your scrapbook a more unique feel. This can usually be accomplished in a night, if the other phases have gone well. The fourth and final phase is actual page creation. I suggest saving your biggest stretch of time for this, and try to do this in one or two nights, tops. By this time, I usually get frustrated at my lack of that feeling of having a pretty page to show off. With the freshly purchased items, layout plans, and accents from the previous phases around me, something special happens here. I run through the pages at a great rate, and feel so creative! I am almost finished with the scrapbook for my niece, and pictures will follow for everyone to oogle over. But, this is how I plan to do a big scrapbooking project using the small chunklets of time I have to actually do them in.