TIPsy Tuesday - Easy Wood Grain

Wood grain has been a big trend in scrapbooking.  There are a lot of chipboard letters out there in woodgrain looks.  I stumbled across this easy way to get a wood grain with undressed chipboard:

Thin dark brown paint slightly - not too thin or your chipboard will warp.  Brush onto plain chipboard with a somewhat rough paintbrush - one that has been used a lot.  You'll get a nice grainy look.

Old paintbrushes - that's another way scrapbooking let's you repurpose stuff!

One quick project notes:

• The cork is leftover from my tumbled tile coaster projects.  It's just shelf liner from Lowes Hardware.

My goal for this layout was to use some of my older stash.  I think everything on this layout except the ink is at least 2 or 3 years old.  Thanks for stopping by!

Ingredients:  Stamps:  Polka Dot Punches, Office Accruement by SU!

Ink:  Soft Suede

DSP:  My Mind's Eye

Embellishments:  Oriental Trading

Chipboard:  Unknown source (I've had it a very long time.)

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Project 365 - Update

Happy Monday.  Thanks for joining me this week!

One of my New Year's resolutions was to do a photo every day for Project 365.  With this effort, you commit to taking one photo per day and then scrapbooking them.  The idea is to capture the little stuff as well as the big events of a year.  I'm a quarter of the way through this project now and here are a few things I've learned:

• The world won't come to an end if you forget to take a photo.  I have resisted (without too much effort) the urge to leap out of bed at 11:00 p.m. and snap a photo when I realized I'd missed one that day.  It is sort of like dieting. If you slip one day, just start back the next.  OK, it is easier than dieting. Fortunately, I haven't missed too many days.
• I've also decided it is OK to capture two interesting things from the same day.  Particularly since it is Spring and so many things are changing in our yard and lives at this time of year, it is OK to snap quite a few different images.  It sort of makes up for those days I forget to photograph.
• It is best to scrapbook these photos as you go. I can't imagine they would ever get done if I left them till the end of the year.  This is actually one of the best parts.  I have a quarter of my 2009 album done!  That has never happened at this point in the year.
• I'm still a theme person.  I try to take photographs of random stuff each week but invariable start looking for themes.  That is how we go the CHORES layout above.

Project Notes:

• To create the photo collage in PSE, I typed out CHORES in white and changed the transparency to 75%.  I added each photo and then cropped with the marqee tool.
• The design was inspired by a layout in Scrapbooks, Etc. April 2010 issue.
• The waves were cut with a Creative Memories tool.  I'm not sure it is still available.  Every time I think I might list it on E-bay, I find a use for it.
• One of the circle designs was stamped with the Medallion background stamp in black pigment ink and then embossed.  I then just cut out the center circle from this design and added the cork clock button.
• The other circle designs were typed in PowerPoint using the WordArt tool.

Ingredients:  Stamps:  Medallion, Trendy Trees, Polka Dot Punches from Stampin' Up!
Ink:  Black pigment ink from Colorbox
Fonts:  Andy, Book Aniqua, Honey Script
DSP:  Crate Paper Mia Collection
Cardstock:  Brocade Blue
Cork buttons:  Pink Paislee 365 Collection

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The reasons Why

One of the reasons I love this hobby of papercrafting is no one knows what you really intended to do.  This layout is a great example.  I started out with this cool circle paper from American Crafts.  I loved the colors and they fit my photos.  I knew I wanted to create a shopping bag and have my photos spilling out of it on tags.  Yet the paper was just too busy as a background so I started cutting and cutting... and cutting.  The short version is I was left with too short an amount of the paper to even get a border going all the way across the page!  That's when I improvised the idea of splitting the border with the circle element.   It's still a busy page, but no one really saw it the way it was before as I was assembling it.  If I hadn't told you, you would never know the border being in two pieces was really a way to fix a big mistake.  This just proves...

There really are no mistakes in papercrafting - just opportunities to be even more creative.  And thus this page kicks off a series of posts - about one a week - on all the joys of papercrafting.  You know them; I know them, but sometimes it is nice to see them in print.  So when someone (like your Mother or your husband) wonders why you can spend an hour in the scrapbooking section of Hobby Lobby or can't wait for the next card making video or just hole up in your craft room, you'll have a few ready answers. 

Notes for this Project 365 Layout:

• As I've already confessed, I had to stretch the designer paper to get this border by cutting it and adding the circle element.  The center is a chipboard circle I painted with various shades of yellow and orange until I got something that worked.  I used Creative Memories circle cutters to cut the edges of the DSP around the circle element.
• American Crafts DSP has a solid back that coordinates and it was a great blessing to this layout for the background and some of the elements.
• The tags were cut with the Cricut and Tags, Bags, Boxes and More cartridge.  I printed the photos on matte paper and then pasted them on the tags.
• The Kraft bag is cut with decorative scissors along the top edge and then just scored and folded.  It has 1/4" deep sides.  The handle is cut from a real shopping bag.
• The 'tissue' is scrap cardstock.  I soaked each piece in water briefly, crumpled them up wet in my hands and then laid flat to dry.  None of these papers had an ink run but I've had that happen before so be careful of handling wet paper or you can end up with a lot of dye on your hands.
• Another fix for this page was the yellow strip at the top.  I got the whole thing a little too high on the page so I just cut off some of the bottom and added a contrasting strip to the top.

In taking these photos for a week of Project 365, I was amazed that even when we shop in stores we often start on-line such as the Liberty of London bowls I bought at Target.  Target is a bit of drive for me so I wanted to know they had them before I bothered.  The Internet has changed many, many things but definitely the way we make purchases - and very much for the better.

Ingredients:  Designer Paper:  Everyday collection by American Crafts

Cardstock: Kraft and Choc Chip by SU!

Pens:  Signo White gel pen and journaling marker from SU!

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