Frugal Scrapper Extraordinaire:)

For those of you who have been following my blog, THANK YOU, I'm still here and as FRUGAL as ever. I'm just expanding my blog title to further reflect my "altered" muse. I'm still the same (sometimes goofy) FRUGAL SCRAPPER that I've always been and will continue to focus on FRUGAL papercrafting projects:)
Showing posts with label distress ink tools. Show all posts
Showing posts with label distress ink tools. Show all posts

Wednesday, February 23, 2011

Frugal Scrapper's Homemade Flowers Tutorial

You know, I think I may have posted a similar tutorial once before, but since paper flowers are still REALLY popular, I'm going to post it again, espcially since this has a bit of a "twist".

First, we start with a scallop circle punch and a paper lunch bag.  I love working with a lunch bag for a few reasons:
  • They are EXTREMELY economical
  • They have a bit of a "waxiness or glossiness to them
  • They are a great weight and texture for altering
Then, once the bag is cut apart and 6 scalloped circles are punched, we add some ink.  I inked 5 of the scalloped circles with distress ink in Barn Door and one scalloped circle was inked with distress ink in Peeled Paint.  Make sure to ink BOTH sides of the scalloped circles.


Next, we crumple them up.  You can't crumple them TOO MUCH, so have a blast:)


Now, we'll un-crumple them and layer the red pieces on top of each other and secure with a brad.


Now, crumple them back up toard the center, one later at a time, starting with the top layer.  Once you've crumpled them back up, you can "press all of the layers together so that the brad cannot be seen.

Then you can slowly open the layers back up again...just open slowly so that the layers are still a bit crumpled.  This takes practice, so if you open the layers too much,you can always crumple them together again and start the opening process again until you get the results you want.

Once your satisfied with the results, take the last scalloped circle (the one inked with Peeled Paint) and tear it right in half.  This is where your imagination and inter artist is going to have to get to work.  You will play with each half of these scalloped circles until you think they look like individual leaves.  I personally play with them until when I "pinch" each end and leave the middle wider, they look like leaves.

My end result is this:


If you want to, you can also add a little "glimmer" to them by spraying them with some sort of glimmer spray (I use my homemade glimmer spray, made by filling a mini mister with water and adding a scoop of perfect pearls)...shake and spray:)

These are the results below:


The difference is subtle and based on how concentrated your glimmer spray is.  The reason I LOVE my homemade glimmer spray is because, my color comes from the distress inks and the spray just adds a pearly glimmer, now added color.

The other advantage to doing this is that you can then use a heat tool to dry your flower which will stiffen it, similar to starching.  Now your flower will hold it's shape perfectly!

Another suggestion is to go back over the tips of your flower with a darker color of distress ink (like Fired Brick or Aged Mahogony) so you can add more depth to the petals.

Stickles can also be added by squirting stickles on your craft mat and tapping your finger in them.  Then gently blot you stickled finger over the flower to randomly add more sparkle.

EnJOY!





Sunday, August 29, 2010

Frugally homemade Distress ink tools...

When I first became a HUGE fan of T!m Holtz, I tried a few of my "frugal" tricks including making my own distress ink tools so I could spend more of my hard earned $$ on the inks themselves.

Since there has been alot of discussion on this subject over on the ATT (All things Tim) yahoo group, I thought I'd share a few pics of my version of this tool.

I started with the regular round disk cosmetic sponges, a sheet of fun foam, some velcro (from a fabric/craft store), and some good liquid glue (I used 3 in 1 Beacon glue).  I used 2" square blocks as the base for my tool.  I found these at a scrapbooking garage sale and picked up a set of 9 for only $2.

As you can see, this "distressing tool" has gotten alot of use (notice the ink that seeped up the sides?).  I glued a piece of fun foam trimmed down to size, then attached the "tooth" side of the velcro (this had a self adhesive backing, and I did make sure to buy the heavy duty velcro).  I then cut the other side of the velcro down to size and attached it to one side of a cosmetic foam.  Then I trimmed the cosmetic sponge to square, too.

I do have to say that the cosmetic sponges aren't quite as good as the TH distressing pads, but hey, when you can get a bag of 100 of these cosmetic sponges for under $5, I'm good with the lesser quality.

These sponges do work for a while, and I noticed when they were "done", I could just pull them off of the velcro backing and glue another sponge on the velcro using the 3 in 1 Beacon glue (fabric tac would also work).


I even got creative and thought I'd decorate my homemade distress ink tools...but the novelty quickly wore off, lol...


Now that I teach "Tim" classes via my Frugal Scrappin' classes, I have "graduated" to the official distress tools, but I still use my homemade tools as well.  I have found that my homemade tools AND the Tim tools play very well together, lol...

You may notice that I have also labeled my distress tools AND distress inks...this has REALLY been a LIFESAVER and TIMESAVER for me.  I just used a plain white sticker page (with no individual labels) and typed a list using the "table" function in Word.  Then I could cut the strips to size.  I have just about enough "tools" to have one for each color of my distress inks.

enJOY:)