Frugal Finds: Kids Craft Supplies

You probably already have some in your house; the papers and glue sticks, crayons and markers, stickers and beads...Kids Craft Supplies!

 

Today we are showing you a few ways that you can use them on your cards or scrapbook pages!

 

 

Practical Scrapper Patty created her photo mat by melting crayons with a heat gun and dripping the wax on watercolor paper. When the wax cooled, she used kid's watercolor over the whole paper to create this bold background!

Practical Scrapper Kim Ryden stamped a chevron stamp in Smokey Slate ink on Whisper White cardstock then used crayons to fill in the white spaces.

 

 

We hope that you have been inspired!  See you back here tomorrow to check out our September Layout Sketch!

Frugal Finds Feature: Straw

Today's frugal find feature is showcasing straws!  They seem to be popping up everywhere and can be cheap and fun to decorate.  Here's some fresh ideas from our designers.

Practical Scrapper Becci created this birthday package topper with candy striped paper straws.

Practical Scrapper Bev created a layout using straws as an accent.

In the 2 close ups you see the upper corner with an attempt at a sunburst

in fun pastel straws and below is a straw frame around the photo. 

Practical Scrapper Michelle James used the straws to create two poles to hold a fun BABY banner. She used the Wee Ones line from Moxxie.

Practical Scrapper Kim Ryden used a straw (from a Sonic drink...of course) and Tangerine Tango ink by Stampin' Up! to stamp on the base of her card.

Practical Scrapper Laura uses Red, White and Blue paper straws to create a flag on this Patriotic card.

Frugal Finds: Hardware

This month, our Frugal Finds challenge was to incorporate any type of household hardware item into a project. After scouring the workshop and junk drawers, this is what a few of us came up with. I just love how even though we may have used similar items, we all achieved a very different feel on our pages. I also now know that every scrapbook stash should contain a tile spacer or two.

Practical Scrapper Charity used dry wall sanding screen, gaskets and o-rings on her layout as well as tile spacers. This layout inspired by a Scrapbook Steals Sketch.

Practical Scrapper Kerri used some gutter shield/cover to use as a layer to mat her photo.

Sketch from Sketch Savvy #97

Practical Scrapper Erin also used tile spacers as embellishments on her page, scattered among buttons.

 If you'd like to play along with our challenge, and have something to share with us, we'd love to see it!

**Designer projects are not always linked in our posts, but you can always find their blogs in our sidebar or in the staff tab**

Frugal Finds: Jar Lids

Last month, I polled the designers and gave them a choice of two items ( not gonna tell ya the other because it may end up as one yet).  After a very close race, the designers decided they would like to see jar lids as this month's frugal find.   That worked for me just fine.  Being the jar hoarder I am, I have so many lying around and packed in storage boxes I could spare a few.  We came up with some fabulous ideas on what we could do with our jar lids producing another amazing set of projects that will sure get your head spinning. 

Pratical Scrapper Kerri used a lid from a pickle jar, and both pieces of a pint canning jar lid to mat her photos and snowflake embellishment.  She first painted them with gesso to seal them off then added paper, trims, and stickles to top them off.

Practical Scrapper Wendi Robinson used a jar lid to create a Christmas ornament to hang from the tree. This idea can be applied to any holiday, just by adding paper and creating a "scene" inside the itself.

Practical Scrapper Leslii used a mason jar lid to stamp the background of this "Sweet" layout.

Practical Scrapper Charity used caps from coke bottles to create these vellum flowers. Check out the tutorial on her blog. This page was inspired by a Creative Scrappers sketch.

Practical Scrapper Kerri decided on this project to not just use the lid, but also the jar to create these festive snowman lanterns.  She covered the jar lid with some black fleece and tied it off with some red gross grain ribbon. You can find the details of how she created these on her blog.



Practical Scrapper Charity used a lid from an Applesauce Jar to make this confetti filled shaker. Check her blog tomorrow for instructions.

 

 

Practical Scrapper Ann altered the seal from a mason jar to create the snowman embellishment on this wintery layout. Check her blog for detail shots and how-to's. 

Frugal Finds: Toothpicks

We are back this month with another fun frugal finds feature.  Today we are going to get picky...toothpicky that is!  This month we challenged a few of our design team members to get creative with toothpicks.  For me personally, I had a lot of fun with this one.  I stepped away from my normal style and took a chance which is always a good for a creative mind.  I will admit, I ripped apart (for the the first time ever :O) a layout.  Yet, I was please with the end result.
After I had my ripping apart meltdown, I sat down and wrote a list of some other ways I could use toothpicks.  Here are some of those ideas I came up with ...

                             *make a fence -how cute would that be with some twine wrapped around it

                             *make a campfire/tee-pee embellishment

                             *use them as a tool to apply those detailed rub-ons

                             *make some Valentine's day cupid arrows 

                             *frame a photo

                             * use them for snowman arms

I'm sure I could go on , but let's take a look at what our designers did!

Practical Scrapper Brenda painted some toothpicks white, trimmed one end on each one, and then used them to outline a diecut star for this 4th of July page.  She used micro glue dots to adhere the toothpicks.

On this layout, Practical Scrapper Kerri, placed two round toothpicks together and wrapped a double layer of Martha Stewart twine around them to create her flagpole.

 

Practical Scrapper Liz Chidester used toothpicks and a doily die cut to make this cute umbrella.

Not only can you use them to embellish, but you can use them as a tool! Practical Scrapper Kerri took a stab at quilling on this card.  She used her toothpicks to roll her pattern paper to create her flower petals and leaves.  Not only did they do the rolling, but she used them to apply her glue to her rolled petals and leaves.

Hope you enjoyed our newest edition of Frugal Finds!  What frugal item would you like to see us use in an upcoming feature?  Leave us a comment below to let us know!



**Designer projects are not always linked in our posts, but you can always find their blogs in our sidebar or in the staff tab**

Frugal Finds: Mesh Bags

Waste not want not.Sometimes as paper crafters we overlook the "scrap" portion of scrapbooking, and too often forget that the craft doesn't always require manufactured products and the latest and greatest gadgets to be effective. I am now constantly looking at many household items with a new light and wondering how they might possibly be reused in a fun way. Sometimes the perfect "new" product is something we've always had, but never thought to use. Take a simple mesh produce bag, and see what it can become in the hands of a Practical Scrapper:

 

 Practical Scrapper Erin removed the paper backing from the Studio Calico wood veneer, revealing the adhesive on the back, then stretched out the mesh and stuck it to the star. A quick trim with scissors, and a bit of Distress Stain and you have custom sports page embellishments.

Practical Scrapper Michelle used her mesh bag as a mask with mist in the upper right corner, and then added it directly to her page along with the product label. Perfect for a page with oranges!

Practical Scrapper Heather
Heather used her mesh with paint to create the playful texture on this page.

First Practical Scrapper Ann misted through the mesh, then she added it to her layout to mimic the scales on the dragon.

Practical Scrapper Fern took her mesh bag and cut it down the center to that "ugly" metal staple at the bottom... she then took some twine and started wrapping around both sides leaving about 2 inches at the bottom.  She did this so it would stay together and frame her photo but still fan out after she tied it together..  The flower vine is covering that "ugly" staple..

Practical Scrapper Carolina created a mesh bag flower for her layout. 

I hope these inspire you as much as they have me, to think twice about what you can save and work into your pages.

 

Frugal Finds: Bobby Pins

Welcome back to our monthly installment of frugal finds and do we have a "doosie" for you this month. Back in February when Christine, Erin, and I were trying to come up with what we wanted to do,  I posed bobby pins as an option.  I had just finished giving my five year old daughter an up-do for a "Fancy Nancy" birthday theme party she was going to and inspired me to try to use these in another way.  All thought it sounded interesting and what's even more interesting, are the ideas that we all came up with on how to use them.  A special thanks to design team member Liz for joining in with us!   Hope you enjoy all our bobby pin creations...

Practical Scrapper Erin used Bobby pins with rhinestone butterflies on them to make the bodies of her canvas butterflies. Just slip them over the canvas, and wrap the top pin with yarn or twine.

Practical Scrapper Liz made this simple Thank You card using bobby pins as a design on the puffy hearts. She covered the pins with micro beads and topped them off with a small sequenced flower.

On this layout,  Practical Scrapper Kerri painted her bobby pins white with white acrylic paint.  She then used them to create her journaling lines in the bottom right hand corner of her layout.

Practical Scrapper Kerri was inspired by the layout of this card from her online scrappy friend Cassie D'Ambrosio.  She then decided to add her own twist to Cassie's design my adding some more painted bobby pins and then embellishing them with some dew drops from one of our past sponsors The Robin's Nest.

Pin It **Designer projects are not always linked in our posts, but you can always find their blogs in our sidebar or in the staff tab**

Frugal Finds: Candy Wrapper Edition

We're taking our inspiration from the recent holiday and using candy wrappers for our frugal finds topic this month.  This one definitely required some thinking out of the box!  Check out these creations!

 Hershey Heart Wrappers covering Maya Road Chipboard.

Practical Scrapper Cathy

Practical Scrapper Kerri used her Dum Dums wrappers to create her "lollipops".  She wadded up a tissue and covered it with the wrapper then tied it off with some Martha Stewart baker's twine.  She also used the dum dums wrappers to create the accordion flowers on the ends of her banners.

If you are one of the scrappers who has a hidden stash of chocolate bars in you office then this project is for you!  On this card, Practical Scrapper Kerri used some mini Hershey bar wrappers to embellish her card.  She altered some brads, used the wrapper as a layer of paper in her banner, and created an accordion flower out of them.  What a perfect way to get rid of the evidence-- no one will ever know ;)

Practical Scrapper Carolina used the wrapper that covered a chocolate marshmallow heart (yummy!) to cover the pop up heart she cut with her Silhouette.

 Practical Scrapper Erin used the inserts from this year's Valentines chocolates to create a page. She used embossing folders on two of the hearts, and attached the chocolate liners to the third to create a ruffled edge.

Pin It **Designer projects are not always linked in our posts, but you can always find their blogs in our sidebar or in the staff tab**

Frugal Finds: Leftovers from Christmas

Christine, Carolina, and Cathy are back today with a frugal finds feature on using some leftovers from Christmas.  Dig thru that stash of yours, you never know what you might come up with!

Practical Scrapper Christine decided to play with tinsel and see what she could come up with.  She laid down a whole bunch of tacky glue on her heart and then laid rows of tinsel down.  Afterwards she trimmed the edges.  She also found there were spots she had to give it a haircut :) to make it all lay correctly.

Practical Scrapper Carolina

This year I decided to make Christmas jammies for the whole family, but I only started sewing a month ago, so I bought WAYYYYYYY too much fabric. Enough to make not only jammies but cushion covers, banners, and now create fabric hearts for my layout (the brownish hearts are made from Santa's beard!!!).

Practical Scrapper Cathy

I picked up a box of these snowflake ornaments last year, a box of 12 for a $1.00.  They are super light weight, thin and glittery...perfect for all types of paper crafting!

Another tinsel card from Christine...she tried out just layering it at the bottom of the card.

Pin It **Designer projects are not always linked in our posts, but you can always find their blogs in our sidebar or in the staff tab**

Frugal Finds: Projects with Paint Chips

We're taking a break today from Christmas projects to do a frugal finds feature on paint chips.  We all have them laying around left over from house projects, why not put them to a creative use?  Here's some fresh ideas on how to use them in your papercrafting endeavors!

Erin used a 1inch square punch to make filmstrip style frames for her 1 inch square photos. She used the leftover squares as corners for her border, and to write her journaling on.

Because paint chips aren't acid free, Claude didn't want to use them on a layout so she made this cute 8x8 frame.

Christa used her paint chips to provide a backdrop for her picture.

For her paint chip project, Kerri chose to create a Christmas card with her new "Tucked Tilda" stamp that she colored with her copics. She started by cutting up two of the same paint chip cards (reds) that have three colors in the same hue into 1 1/2" squares. She glued them onto some white card stock creating a 4 1/2" x 4 1/2" square and used her circle nestabilities to cut a circle to fit inside her lacey circle nestabilities. She embossed that cut circle with her one of her snowflake Cuttlebug embossing folders. She then took a solid paint chip (dark green) and embossed it with her other snowflake embossing folder and used it as her background paper. Next, she cut another one of the three color paint chip cards (light green) and stamped with her timber brown Staz-On ink her Happy Holidays sentiment. To finish it off she colored her Tilda stamp with her copics (see her blog for coloring combos used). She added some Studio 18 red bling and some pearls inside the lacey border.

Not a believer that this is all paint chips? Here's a look at the her paint chips in process of creating her card...

Pin It **Designer projects are not always linked in our posts, but you can always find their blogs in our sidebar or in the staff tab**