Jewelry Box - Mod podged

Hi all. I have tried something for the first time, which I have wanted to for a long time. :-) I too have modpodged and I loved it!. Alright, so here is a before and after of the box. Ta-Da!

Below is the list of materials that I have used for making this box.

1. ArtMinds wooden box base (can be purchased here.)
2. Modpodge - Gloss-Luster
3. Rub and Buff - Grecian Gold 
4. Paint brushes
5. Arcylic paints of your choice
6. Pattern paper of your choice
7. Water
8. Modpodge Clear acrylic Sealer
9. Paper trimmer
10. Scissors
11. Exacto Knife
12. Measuring tape
13. Clear tape

The Process
Colour the whole box and its interiors with an acrylic colour that matches your pattern paper and allow it to dry for an hour. This will be the base over which we start of adding layers.

Later trim the pattern paper of your choice with trimmer and scissors, according to the measurements of the box. Only the exteriors of the box may be covered with the paper. The thinner the paper the better for modpodge.

Cover all sides of the box with pattern paper and apply modpodge thoroughly and carefully, without tearing the paper. Allow the first coat of modpodge to dry before doing the 2nd coat. Any air bubbles may be punctured with a needle and the paper will flatten out. Add another coat of modpodge if necessary.

Apply sealant all over the box and finish it off by painting the knobs and border in gold or a colour of your choice. 
Tips
The trickiest part for me was with cutting the paper around the knobs. I had used an exacto knife to precisely cut the paper around the knobs carefully, by measuring the knob size.
I had always used a clear tape around the edges, to avoid the gold paint from smudging. This gave me a crisp finish with the gold paint.

I have been using this box for a month, where I have put all my favorite  fancy jewelry in.
Hope you liked this box. Thanks for stopping by.

Reference Binder

Hi. Today I'm sharing with you all, another important tutorial which has made my life much easier - 'REFERENCE BINDER'. This binder was created to address the following main problems.

• All the paper printouts, tip sheets, sketches and other reference material, which is often used for crafting but not organized.
• Keep a track of all the growing stash and maintain a reference of the following
• Stamps
• Dies
• Punches

 

FEW USES OF THE BINDER

• Easiest way to look up for stamps or other stash that you need for a project.
• A great reference to keep track of all the stamps, dies, punches and other stash that you own. (as we may not remember a stamp set that is not so often used, bought a couple of years ago)
• Details about all the stamp sets you own is preserved.
• All the lookup information that you need for crafting purposes, will be in a single home.
• No more loosing important reference documents or helpful information.
• No more rumbling all your shelves and drawers for finding the right stamp set

HOW TO MAKE THE REFERENCE BINDER

Materials that you will need for making this reference binder are

• 3 Ring Reference Binder
• Page dividers
• Labels
• All the paper printouts to organize and file
• Page protectors (Optional)
• 3 hole paper punch (Optional)
• Colour pens and stickers (Optional)

Below are the steps for making this binder.

Step 1. You could personalize the Reference binder front with a decorated pattern paper or a graphic printout of your choice.. This step is optional. Below is an image of how I personalized my binder, with white heat embossing and white gel pen.

Step 2.  Decide on all the categories of information that you wan't file in this reference binder. Then label the page dividers with those categories. Following are the categories that I look up to in my binder.

1. Stamps
2. Dies / Punches
3. Tips
4. Sketches
5. Tutorials

Step 3. File papers on both sides of a page protector and arrange them into the binder. Following are the tips for organizing/ file papers onto different categories. STAMPS

• Prepare a PDF/ word document with all the images of stamps that you have in your stash.
• You could include digital stamps that you own as well.
• In case you have some miscellaneous stamps that you cannot find a reference image of, or rubber stamps, you could stamp them directly onto an A4 paper and file them. 
• Take printouts of the word document that you had prepared and file them as shown below, into your page protectors.

You could also file papers by grouping similar stamps into one, to ease your look up of stamps. Eg: I filed all the sentiments together by grouping 'sentiment only' stamps as shown below.You could group or create an index for looking up stamps, based on the stamps that you own.

DIES

• Prepare a PDF/ Word document with images of all the dies that you own. 
• Along with dies you could also file paper punches together.
• Take printouts of the word documents that you has prepared and file them into the page protectors.
• In case you own paper punches, then you could punch out some samples from colour papers. You could then glue these paper punches onto A4 sheets and file them along as well. (image shown below)

TIPS

• At times you come across some creative ways to use specific stamp sets that you own, which can be a very helpful reference document to save.
• Also, if you own any PTI stamps, then you could download and save the tip sheets that they share online for the corresponding stamp sets.
• All the possible combinations for a layering stamps or sentiment stamp sets can also be saved.
• All the above information can be created into a word/ PDF document. Later print all the pages and file them into the page protectors.
• A Sample tip sheet that I have filed is shown below.

SKETCHES

• All those interesting sketches that you find online, or all the scraps of hand drawn sketches that you have can be filed under this category
• Certain websites/ blogs share sketches for free, which can be downloaded and saved.
• All the above materials can be printed out and filed under this category for reference.
• Below image shows all the sketches that I have saved from CASE This sketch blog.

TUTORIALS

• Any graphic design tips/ tricks that you find helpful can be saved and filed under this category.
• Standard card sizes, shapes, templates can be saved under this category as well

The uses of this Reference binder are endless, you could expand the use of this binder to suit your specific needs.
Hope you find this tutorial helps you. Do share your ideas and opinion about this tutorial. Thanks for stopping by. 

Easy Colour Swatch Tutorial

Hi all. Colour swatches are a must have for an artist. You do not want to pull out all the stamp pads and keep trying all the shades and tones of a colour, until you find the desired colour for your project. Labels on the stamp pads can be deceiving at times, as the actual ink on paper may actually turn out to be dark or lighter than the label on stamp pad. 
One way to get a colour swatch is to download and print those that the manufacturers sell. But again, you do not want to buy all the swatches from all the manufacturers, though you may own only half of all those colours. Also these colour swatches keep getting updated with time.
So I created by own colour swatch to address all the above issues. A simple but very functional cute little swatch.

Making the Colour Swatch

 Step 1. Gather all the supplies. The supplies that we are gonna need are listed below. 1. Hole Punch 2. Binder ring 3. Pen/ label maker 4. Scissors 5. Stamp block 6. A stamp of your choice 7. Stamp pads, which you want to add to the swatch. 8. Index cards / Card stock - White

Step 2. Cut Index cards into half, to get uniform sized swatch papers. If you are using a card stock here, make sure that you are cutting all the swatches of same size. A white colour card stock or index card must be used, for obvious reasons :-)

Step 3. Stamp each colour on to a single leaf of swatch paper. Don't forget to label the make and Colour Name of that stamp pad on the swatch.

 Step 4. Once all the swatches are ready, then punch holes to a corner of the swatches in batches,

Step 5. Arrange all the swatches colour wise / make wise, as per your interest. Slip through the binder ring to secure them all in place together.

The handy colour swatch is ready-to-use !

Tip-  Whenever you buy a new stamp pad, create a swatch and slip it through the binder ring into appropriate position. So easy to maintain!

Thanks for stopping by Ta- Ta.

1-2-3 Butterflies

Today it's the 50th Challenge @ {PIN}spirational Challenges and This will be my last card with the PINspirational DT. I will miss being a part of this DT. Deanne, you are such a wonderful co-ordinator.

so here is the card for today.

And this card is inspired from this week's  super cute pinspirational pic.

Now you too can join the fun here @ {PIN}spirational Challenge # 50. Wow !! It's the 50th Challenge.

I am also submitting my card for the CFC - Challenge 95 which asks up to create a clean and simple project with no stamps.

How I made this card?

I have received a few requests from my friends and followers, about how I make cards. So here goes a photo tutorial for the same - my first attempt.

First, I have selected a certain pattern papers and then punched out a few butterflies using my butterfly punch. The punched butterflies and the punch that I have used are shown below.

Next I inked the edges of the butterfly with an olive green distress ink, using my distress ink tool. the difference between the original and the inked butterfly is shown below.

Then I have cut and scored a white card stock for the base of my card (5.5" x 4.5 "). Also I have scored two lines at a quarter inch at the two ends of the card as shown, to add some interest.

Then I have used my Martha Stewart's circle cutter to cut out a 3.75" circle from a beige card stock.

I have also cut out a small white card stock, distress inked its edges and then adhered the butterflies using dimensional adhesives.

I then adhered the circle that I had cut out and tied a good length of brown twine around my card as shown below

I then had to assemble the butterflies using dimensional adhesives over it to get my card.

Simple isn't it? Hope you like my card. Your opinion about the card matters and a feedback about the tutorial is most welcome. Thank you.