Get Krafty!

This week at the Beary Scrap, we are getting Krafty - with Kraft paper that is. Have you seen the Haunted Line by MME? Have you felt it? Oh my! It is the coolest Kraft paper with black flocked designs. I really love it! It is so much more luxurious in person than you could ever tell from a picture. I colored Bat-Tilda from Magnolia with copics, and propped her up on a Kraft tag that I sprayed Black Gold Glimmer Mist over a Glimmer Screen to produce that cool negative effect pattern. I cut the flower out of a brown paper bag and used Dazzling Diamonds Glimmer Mist to give it a little shine.

Who would have thought you could do so many cool things with grocery bag paper!

Getting Krafty!

Hello friends! Today I'm bringing you a card made with kraft paper and a little Glimmer Mist. I've really enjoyed all the Halloween-theme projects lately, so I'm at it again. Click HERE for the current Beary Sweet Challenge - it's a fun sketch!

So, here's my spooky "kraftiness". I used My Mind's Eye Haunted papers as well as a kraft tag.The image is a vintage find from The Graphics Fairy.

I used pearl Glimmer Mist on the base layer and the tag. It doesn't look nearly as cool in this photo as it does in person, so just take my word for it - It's cool! The spider web is embossed with clear embossing powder, and the vintage image was painted with Rock Candy Distress paint. Oh, and the white pearl pins were colored with a black Copic.

Card Recipe

• Image: The Graphics Fairy vintage image printed on Neenah Card Stock
• Paper: My Mind's Eye Haunted - Flying Witch, Raven and Spiders; Bazzill Basics Mocha Divine and Ruby Red
• Medium: Glimmer Mist Pearl; Stampendous Detail Embossing Powder - Clear; Copic marker; Distress Crackle Paint in Rock Candy
• Embellishments: Bazzill tulle in black; Vintage red gems, button, pins from stash
• Adhesive: Score-Tape

Thanks for visiting today! You have a few days left to whip up a fun project for our Beary Sweet Sketch Challenge - come join us!

Cheers,
Susan

"Ask the Designers" Sunday

Hello dear friends! This week we've been asked about order, as in, what order do we create our projects?

From Paperpapier: "I am always having problem with coordinating the coloured image with designer paper. Do you select the DP first then only colour the image based on the colour in the DP? There are so many papers, what determine your choices if you choose the DP first before colouring the image? I really really need tips on this. Thank you so much for sharing."

This is a great question, and one that trips everyone up at some point or another. Here's what we do:

Susan says: In a perfect world I work in this order: 1 - Pick sketch/theme/challenge; 2 - Pick main paper; 3 - color image to coordinate with paper. Most of the time I'm up against a deadline (whether a challenge deadline or personal one that prevents me from dallying in the studio), so I have to be organized.

Gini says: I really should pick my DP before I color...but, that doesn't always happen. Usually I have an idea of what type card I am wanting to make, so that helps me narrow down my DP choices. Sometimes, I have gotten some DP that is so gorgeous, I just can't wait to make something with it (Like the MME Lost and Found Line!). But sometimes, I just start coloring and then have to look through mounds of paper to find what looks right with it ( I never like myself when I do this!)

Patricia says: I some times do both if I have a theme like a specific holilday like Halloween I usually try to see what paper I have on hand then color my image to match the paper. But if the challenge is just a simple one like add bling then I usually just find an image I really like and color it. If I don't have much designer paper to match I will just use plain colored card stock and let my embellishments do the matching to my image. But with my stash of designer paper I usually have something that will match.

Jamie says: I almost always select my images (photographs for scrapbook layouts) FIRST, then match the designer paper to something in that photograph. The most obvious --and most simple to decide--choice would be theme. For instance, if it's a Christmas page I will most likely choose some type of Christmas patterned paper. However, there are lots of other ways to pick as well. Often I try to match the colors of some element in my photo to the paper-- it might be the clothing worn, the background or even the color of someone's eyes. It all depends on the story I am trying to tell and what I want to stand out. An example of this would be the girl layout I posted on October 1, based on the current Beary Sweet Sketch Challenge. I chose the brown toned Echo Park papers because my daughter was wearing brown clothing and then for the highlight colors I picked the same pink and green that were in the flowers she was holding-- this ties the paper and the photos together nicely.

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About Ask the Designers

Crafting is creativity - some of it comes from within and some is learned. We're here to help you learn techniques, make your crafting life easier with product experiences, give advice and generally inspire your inner muse.

We will collect emails and comment questions, and post answers each Sunday. You can ask general questions to the design team or specific ones to any of us. If you want more info about something you've see out there in blogland or any product the has you curious, email or leave a comment and we will share our experiences and opinions. We're not here to sell you specific products from The Beary Scrap online store, although we hope you will visit for your crafty needs. Our goal is to share our knowledge and experiences, with the hope that we can help make your crafty life easier.

Please join in and Ask the Designers!

Cheers,
Susan, Gini, Patricia and Jamie

The Witch is In. . .

Creepy wishes going out to all of you during this spook-tacular month of October! I am just warning you now, I love Halloween and you will probably have to put up with my obsession with all things orange, black, purple and witchy all month! It's really not my fault, I didn't have much of a choice about liking that day because it is actually my birthday! So I have always had double reasons to celebrate and make it a fun day.

But that's not all-- I actually have even more reasons for this being such a big deal in my world-- 7 years ago, my younger sister had her first baby girl on Halloween and I thought, cool! someone to share my birthday with. AND THEN, 4 years ago that same sister had her second daughter on Halloween. Seriously, my family may be bewitched! So myself and my two nieces share a Halloween birthday and have fun celebrating it together now each year. AND, by the way, my other sister is currently expecting a baby due Nov. 14th which is extremely close to Oct. 31st, especially since her other two babies came early. I'm keeping my fingers crossed for a 3rd Halloween niece to share my day (I'll keep you posted!)

So, in honor of the witches, big and small, in my family, my project this week is an altered witch hat.


I simply took a paper mache witches hat bought at my local craft store ($2.99) and covered it with the fabulous Echo Park Happy Halloween paper. I have the collection pack, which is on sale this week at The Beary Scrap for the awesome price of $11.19-- for 12 double sided papers, 1 sheet of die cut stickers and 1 sheet of alphabet stickers (4 different alphabets). No witch can beat that!

First I painted the bottom of the brim, edges, around the crown and the tip with black craft paint-- I wanted to make sure that any edges that might peak through the paper would be black and not the brown kraft color of the original hat.


Then I traced around the bottom brim circle on the sheet of Echo Park paper and cut out the entire circle. Then I flipped the hat upside down, set the circle on it and carefully with my embossing stylus went around the smaller inside circle. After cutting out that inside circle I was left with a piece that looked like this:


I had to trim in a few places to get a tight fit but I got it to slide right down on the brim and then adhered it with glue sticks. I like to use just plain old glue stick (I prefer Scott brand) when adhering paper to chipboard-- I put a layer on both the paper and the board to get a good hold. Some people like Modge Podge but I have a hard time with that stuff and my paper always ends up wrinkling so I just stick to the glue sticks.

The top of the hat was definitely trickier-- first I measure to find out how far it was from the point down to the brim. Then I cut a square that fit those dimensions and rounded it a bit to look like this:


After adhering that piece with glue stick, I was left with a spot like this on the top so I cut another triangle that measured the length of the top and finished covering up the paper mache.


Note: I did use glue dots to attach the last piece to both sides of the paper that was already there so I could get smoother edges.



And now, the best part! Embellishing! I used black tulle, Bazzill tulle in butterfly (0range), some black tulle flowers from Bo Bunny and a few black feathers to go around the brim. Above that I added some crystal swirls (check out the Prima ones at The Beary Scrap) and a cool little bat.


I also made a tiny card to set on the hat brim, using more of the Echo Park papers, die cut stickers and alphabet stickers. Both the card and the hat are edged with Black Diamond Stickles.



Now the only thing I have left to do is find room for this in my highly haunted and decorated house! Check out our Beary Scrap Store for some hauntingly fabulous specials this month and create something to celebrate your Halloween. Best Witches!

Halloween Week at The Beary Scrap

I just love Halloween I'm sure going to miss it in a few weeks when it's all over. Well I decided to mix things up this week from my normal cards and make a 12x12 layout for you this week. Well how many noticed I missed my post this week? Well I didn't till Susan dropped me an email today to make sure I was OK. Well you could have heard my jaw drop and hit the floor when I got the email and looked at the calender.  I don't know where I lost a day but as most of us scrapbook/card makers go we don't like to sleep much and I guess one of my days rolled into the next. Here I was thinking I was going to have this awesome post for you to look at and I was MIA. I just want to thank Susan and Kimm for wondering if I fell off the planet. Well enough babbling here is my page.

Here is a hidden little note card that I have behind one of my photo mats.

My card recipe:

Pandie the Panda Bear with legs from the Tear Bear

Mulberry Paper

Echo Park Paper Happy Halloween

Making Memories Toil and Trouble

Martha Stewart punches, Iron Fence, Bat, Web

Tim Holtz Branch Tree Inked with ColorBox Fluid Chalk

Flowers

Ribbon

Black Tulle

Jolees Stickers

Brads

Buttons

Now you still have time to enter into our Sketch challenge --HERE

If you haven't see yet Kimm is having some crazy fall sales so be sure to check out the THE BEARY SCRAP STORE to see all the sales.

Don't forget to join us on FACEBOOK to Kimm has little games going on over there for her fans. You never know you may win something.

Thanks for looking.
~Patricia~

Here's another little Treat!

Hi, it's Gini! I'm back today with another Treat for you (No tricks here!). We hope that you won't be too frightened to keep coming to see what we have to share this week.

I colored my Little Witch with Broom (from Belles n Whistles) with copics. My papers are from Bo Bunny - Peacock Lane. I know these are not Halloween papers, but since purple is such a great color for the season, I thought it would be fun to use. I had some black Vintage Shards Glass Glitter that I added around the edge.

Thanks for looking!

Boo!

Hello hello dear friends, and happy October to ya! It got cooold this weekend and was a bit of a surprise. I *knew* it was going to get cold, but I forgot how October can be here. That's what sweaters are for, though. I love a warm cozy sweater!

This week the design team is bringing you projects created with a Halloween theme. Click HERE for the current Beary Sweet Sketch Challenge - it's a fun one!

The most important thing I can tell you about my card is this: It kicked my butt! Haha! I've been admiring stamp-free cards lately, and decided to give it a go myself. Honestly, it felt a little like my very early card-making days... and it was uncomfortable. BUT I stepped out of my current style box and tried something different, about which I'm very happy. I used a ton of "product" and still let the paper tell the story. I like that.

The card is a combination of Cosmo Cricket's Haunted (in-store only) and My Mind's Eye "Halloween Wishes". I've gone and used black card stock as my base once again... it's a trend!

This swirl is part of Pink Paislee's Artisan Elements pack. They are paintable swirls and bits that you can spritz or paint to match your project. Love! I dripped a little Black Soot Distress Ink onto the swirl and tilted it around until it covered the whole element. It took a long time to dry, but it was worth the wait!

The cream and black diamond paper was embossed with a Cuttlebug folder and randomly inked with Charcoal chalk ink to give the hint of dark. I decided it needed more, so I sprayed (too much?) Pearl Glimmer Mist all over. If I planned this out, I would have sprayed with GM *then* embossed and inked. I was worried that I would lose my embossing when the paper was wet... luckily, no. Phew!

"Boo" started out as unfinished die cut letters. I dripped slate alcohol ink (the closest to black I have) on each letter to give it a dark base and set it aside to dry. Once it was ready, I layered black Stickles to cover completely and set aside once again. It's very sparkly!

Card Recipe

• Paper: Bazzill Basics Raven; Cosmo Cricket Haunted - available in-store or on the phone; My Mind's Eye Night Light "Halloween Wishes"
• Medium: Stickles - Black Diamond; Glimmer Mist - Pearl; Distress Ink - Black Soot; Color Box Fluid Chalk - Charcoal
• Embellishments: Bazzill Tulle; Petaloo flowers; We R Memory Keepers Designer Snaps (on sale!); Pink Paislee Artisan Elements; Bazzill leaves and American Crafts die cut letters from ooold stash. :) 
• Tools and Adhesive: Cuttlebug embossing folders; Scor-Tape

Tomorrow Gini will haunt these pages, so please come back!

Cheers,
Susan

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Our current Beary Sweet Challenge can be found here.

Isn't this a fun sketch? Come join us! You could win a $20 gift voucher to The Beary Scrap!

BSC #10 Winners!

Hello friends! We want to extend a huge "Thank You!" to everyone who played along with our last challenge! We really enjoy visiting your blogs and definitely appreciate your support. I also want to offer up my heartfelt apologies to you for getting this out so late.

Our winner of the $20 gift voucher to The Beary Scrap is...

# 7: Staci of Precious Memories

Congratulations, Staci! Please email Kimm and she'll set you up with a voucher to go shoppin'!

We would also like to congratulate our Beary Sweet Top 3:

#3 - Linda
#15 - Leanne
#1 - Alison

Ladies - thank you so much for joining us! Here's a fun badge to display on your blogs:

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Don't forget! Our Beary Sweet Sketch Challenge #11 and going on now through October 14th *and* we just launched our new weekly feature Ask the Designers - come check it out!


Cheers,
Susan, Gini, Patricia, Jamie and Kimm

Ask the Designers Launch!

(BSC #10 Winners will be announced later today. Sorry for the delay! I went to a Copic class yesterday and my brain is mush from all the driving, learning and laughing. I'll get right on it, though! -Susan)

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Today is the beginning of a new weekly feature called "Ask the Designers". Have you ever gazed upon a fabulous project with your head tilted, eyes squinted to focus on a detail, thinking to yourself, "How did she do that?" We've all experienced the "non-response" from bloggers who don't want to share. It's hard enough to get up the nerve to contact someone, and to get a cold response is, well, embarrassing. So, to break through that wall we'll bare it all! *groan* We believe sharing is an important part of growing our creative community.

Crafting is creativity - some of it comes from within and some is learned. We're here to help you learn techniques, make your crafting life easier with product experiences, give advice and generally inspire your inner muse.

We will collect emails and comment questions, and post answers each Sunday. You can ask general questions to the design team or specific ones to any of us. If you want more info about something you've see out there in blogland or any product the has you curious, email or leave a comment and we will share our experiences and opinions. We're not here to sell you specific products from The Beary Scrap online store, although we hope you will visit for your crafty needs. Our goal is to share our knowledge and experiences, with the hope that we can help make your crafty life easier.

Please join in and Ask the Designers!

Cheers,
Susan, Gini, Patricia and Jamie

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Today's question is about adhesive. Everyone has a passion about their favorite sticky stuff - there are so many on the market, how do you choose without wasting money? Ask around for the "why" as well as the "what" - everyone has different reasons!

Question: What is your favorite adhesive, and why?

Susan says: I rely heavily on 1/4" Scor-tape and Fabri-Tac. I layer a lot, and as I'm making panels I will line the edges with Scor-Tape but keep the outside protective layer on until I'm ready for final assembly. (If I sew on a layer, I will add the Scor-Tape after sewing.) It's thin yet very strong and handles the weighty cards I make.

I use Fabri-Tac for flowers and other embellies. It sticks to everything! I was annoyed by the stringiness at first (kind of like hot glue), but once I figured out how to "break" it off I was in glue heaven! One great feature of Fabri-tac is the flexibility to move things around if I screw up with placement. It takes a few minutes to set so I can move leaves around if I need to squeeze in another flower or lift them up if I decide to add a pearly stick or mulberry rose bud.

Gini says: I use lots of Scor-tape- I love it for attaching a heavy card front and for gluing down ribbons. For heavier embellishments I use Fabri-tac - and if it is something that need precision, such as a 4mm Sworovski crystal, I like to use Flower Soft glue.

Patricia says: I love Fabri-Tac for everything. It sets really fast but gives you just enough time to make any adjustments before it sets. I find this glue works the best when making easel cards I can attach the top part of my easel card and not have to wait for it to dry and I can stand it up without the back peeling down with still time to make any adjustment before it sets and I can get started right away on the bottom. I also like it when adding mulberry flowers; once they are on the card and dry there is no taking them off! This glue holds tight whether or not you're attaching buttons, metal charms, ribbon or any other embellishment. I also like it when I'm making Tear Bears because I don't always like to wait for the paper to dry before gluing. Fabri-Tac will dry nice on the damp mulberry paper.

Jamie says: I usually end up using several different types of adhesives on a layout but hands down, without question, my very favorite way to stick things on are Glue Dots. They are fast and they never come off (though sometimes you might want to take something off and it is stuck forever!) I am picky about my Glue Dots, though, my favorite brand is ThermoWeb Zots and I get sad if I can't find them. Some brands are too sticky and don't come off the roll well, I have found that Fiskars brand has this problem. I generally use medium size glue dots but always have tiny ones on hand for small embellishments and I also love to use glue lines for ribbon (Glue Lines are manufactured by the Glue Dots company).

Other adhesives I often use include the Vario Tab dispenser which is great for photos (though it doesn't stick well to heavily textured cardstock) and Xyron's small sticker maker-- this is especially handy for letters and shapes I have cut on the Cricut. For heavier items, like metal, I love KI memories GLOO-- it dries fast and holds everything. GLOO is hard to find so I stock up on it when I see it.

Other non-traditional adhesives I often use for attaching things to my layouts are machine stitching, staples (fast & cheap!!!!) and brads.

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Now, what's *your* question? Email us at tbs.askthedesigners@gmail.com (or click the email link) or add a comment to our Ask The Designers page and we'll share it all!