Welcome Bookshelves Blog Hoppers!

Just like last month's blog hop inspired by the February Club Scrap Up, Up & Away collection, it's finally time for projects featuring Club Scraps March Bookshelves Kit.  It's so much fun to share and see what other talented crafting friends are doing!

I just couldn't help myself. Altered book time!

I used the Bookshelves collection to embellish this altered book purchased from a thrift store. You can see how crazy I went with the globe rubber stamp for making cards in the March Scrap Rap. But to create the jumbo globe on the inside of this book, I enlarged the Unmounted Rubber Stamps index sheet on the copy machine by 160%.

I carefully trimmed out two enlarged globe stands with a detail scissors.

Next, I cut the correctly sized circular nook into the pages with a circle cutter, working several pages at a time.

Once the circles were cut all the way through the book, I attached a photo to the inside back cover to show through the nook.

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Then I attached the globe stand to the inside front page with a light application of CS Bookbinding Glue. I sort of held my breath while I did that!

I chose to suspend a butterfly into the open space of the nook, so I sandwiched thread between two butterflies. Next, I sandwiched the thread between two pieces of Eggshell paper from the kit and attached it between the first two pages of the book. 

The pre-sandwiching technique really helped with installing the butterflies. And you'll want to make sure that the thread lines up with the axis of the globe stand.

Check out how cool that looks!

I stamped images from  the Bookshelves Greeting Unmounted Stamps onto the Library Pocket goodie included in the kit. And the Library Card was the perfect thing for inside this pocket after I gave it the royal stamping treatment and added a photo or two!

For the cover, I stamped Bookshelves images onto Ivory paper, shaded them with colored pencils, and trimmed the whole works into inchies. Each inchie has a black matte to really make it pop.

Then I added a little more rubber stamping to the book . . .

. . . onto the back cover and even the outside edge of the pages.

I suppose I've included way too many pictures, but I'm having a hard time stopping myself. It's just so much fun sharing!

Your next stop, on this blog hop, is the lovely and talented Cathy Grey's blog, The Artful Gamut.

Hop along now!

Kay

Shadowbox Tin

Feeling crafting fortunate today, I submitted my shadowbox tin project to Paper Crafts Magazine for their Paper Crafted Creative Ideas For Every Season & Holiday publication, and here it is! in print! going on sale March 19th, 2013. Thank you Paper Crafts Magazine for including my project!!!

I was inspired to make projects with these fun black matte tins when we received them in the October 2012 Peacock Club Scrap kit, so one thing lead to another and I'm still wanting to make more!

This wasn't on purpose, but in the process of putting this shadow box tin together, I think I've crafted the world's smallest drawer!

Since the Black Matte Tins were a goodie in the Peacock Kit, I enjoyed doing projects with them for the Scrap Rap, but then I just kept making projects with this sweet little tin.

I'm going to let the pictures tell most of the construction story, but I started by cutting dividers from black book board.

Once the dividers were in place, I put together the teeny tiny drawers.

Here is the other mini drawer I made for the upper corner of the tin (perfectly sized for fortune cookie fortune storage).

Then it was fun filling in the other compartments with other odds and ends.

I decorated the lid by spreading a thin layer of Book Binding Glue and attaching a color photo-copy to it.

Then used sand paper to trim off the excess paper, followed up with a little brown ink on the edges to give that warm used & handled look.

While I'm talkin' tins, here is a photo tin I put together.

I used the same steps for attaching my photo-copied photo as the lid above. It's amazing how well rubbing sand paper on the edges works for trimming off the excess photocopy.

Lastly, I couldn't resist making an accordion album using Club Scrap's October Peacock Paper in at least one of the tins. Here it is.

With a little rubber stamping on the lid and some button embellishments, it's also really cute! What a different look than the other tins!

Thanks checking out what I've been up to. Wishing you an inspiring day!
Kay

Welcome Up, Up & Away Blog Hoppers!

Creative February Greetings,

Welcome to our first Club Scrap monthly blog hop! Fifteen Club Scrap fans (including me) have joined crafting forces to post something made with the current Club Scrap kit. For this month I am posting yet another version of the February Art On A String Kit, so some of the parts and pieces from my own stash are used to finish off this project. I had so much fun making the other versions that I already posted on my blog earlier this week that I had to make just one more!

Different from the others I made earlier in the week, I simply wrapped this one with black text-weight paper and mounted a family photo on the front.  I used the lid pull hardware included in the kit with ribbon from my own stash.

The kit is called "Art On A String", so it's time for the fun part of lifting the handmade box lid to reveal the strings, or more importantly, what's on the strings.

I never get tired of lifting the lid to see what's suspended inside. The kit comes complete with vintage hot air balloon prints for hanging from the lid (so perfect), but this is my own twist with the photo and rubber stamped quotes from the Navajo Collection. 

There is room for a different photo on the other side. The thread suspended from the lid gets sandwiched between symmetrical photos and stamped panels.

Thanks for stopping by the Club Scrap February Up, Up & Away blog hop! Next on the list is the super lovely & talented Cathy Gray at The Artful Gamut, so be sure to stop by there next :)

Quick, enjoy the last couple days of February while you still can!
Kay

It's What You Make Of It

The month of February is flying by! On the 20th of each month our Club Stamp Kit ships, so the Up, Up & Away Club Stamp Project has found it way to our member's craftrooms now, already! I mentioned the beginnings of this project just two blog entries ago, when I worked up a prototype, so now it's about what this project grew up to be as The Art On A Sting Club Stamp Project, now available online.

Like many projects, it's what you make of it that makes it your own. This project has many possibilities and I enjoyed whipping up a couple variations :)
First, here I have the handmade box wrapped in the vintage balloon print papers provided in the kit. I finished the box off with Up, Up & Away rubber stamps on a couple nested cardstock panels. It may just look like a box wrapped with pretty paper to you at first, but once again, it's what you make out of this box.....

...the lid of the box holds the surprise here.

Little works of art are suspended from the lid. The printed hot air balloons are included in the kit for trimming out, coloring/altering and attaching, it's art on a string -- inside a box.

 I certainly could have stopped there with using the kit contents only for making the project, but I also wanted to use some of my own papers, metal hardware embellishments and rubber stamps to make a couple different looks from the same kit.

See, a completely different look on the same project.

I used Club Scrap's Serenity and Papillon rubber stamps on this project, the ivory paper I used to wrap this project is the plain side of the Club Scrap Logo Printed Gift Wrap.

This is the fun part, lifting the lid.

Side Note -- Man, it's really hard to hold the project still with my left hand as I try to snap the pic with my right! but you get the idea I'm sure.

I used two threads here to hang my rubber stamped butterfly and quote from the lid, using two threads stops the attached stuff from spinning. However I liked using a single thread per hot air balloon in the previous project because there is nothing to read on the balloons, and they simply look cute when they spin after pulling them out of the box.

Now lastly, for the project I made with photos inside, first about how I decorated the outside. 

The flip side, plain side, of the printed paper included in the kit is rubber stamped here with the Up, Up & Away Unmounted Rubber Stamps. Then I added color with colored pencils, rubbing on ink, spraying mists and applying glitter glue.

Now again, the really fun part of lifting the lid...

....a couple of photos nest inside this one. Basically I choose/created items that are symmetrical in shape, they can be glued back to back to sandwich the thread suspended from the lid.

Once again, heheee, it's really hard to get the hanging part of the project to stay still for photoing while holding it with my left hand and trying to take the photo with my right hand (no time for a tripod today, too many projects to make). It's really good I have long arms, but please excuse my blurry pic above! 

Another version of this project, that I have in mind but haven't gotten the chance to make yet, is simply decorating the outside of the handmade box by mounting photos on the outside. Maybe I'll get that one put together this week :) Looking forward to it.

It's what you make of it that makes a project special to you!
Thinking this project is a perfect example of that for me:)

FREE KIT ALERT!!!

TAKE ADVANTAGE WHILE I'M SO EXCITED ABOUT THIS KIT -
COMMENT ON THIS BLOG AND ON MONDAY, MARCH 4TH, 2013 I'LL RANDOMLY SELECT A WINNER TO SEND THE CLUB SCRAP ART ON A STRING KIT TO!!!! FREE!
I'LL SEND A MESSAGE TO THE WINNER NEXT MONDAY. FUN!!!

Thank you for looking and good luck winning the free Club Stamp Kit!
Kay