Photo Expressions

Valentines Cones - super cute gift idea

Valentine's Day Paper Cones

I just had to show you these GORGEOUS cones made by Briana from the Jenni Bowlin Blog. How cool are they?! Imagine hanging on a child's door knob or a neighbours front door or a co-workers desk, or giving to classmates. Super cute!  And these could be made using any patterned paper and supplies.

I made these cones, also known as paper cornucopias or May Day baskets, for my kids to give to their teachers for Valentine's Day. You can tuck a little wrapped gift inside or put the gift inside wrapped with tissue paper or for a very special presentation you could wrap the gift in a vintage hankie. Another option is to use shredded paper and fill the cone with candy and treats. 

They also look so pretty to use as decorations. In the top photo I strung them on a ribbon and hung them over my mirror and in the photo above I hung them on my white feather tree.

The cones were made using 3D Scalloped Cone from Silhouette. I have a Cameo so I was able to cut them from full sheets of 12 x 12 paper for the largest cones. If you have a Silhouette SD they'll be smaller, closer in size to the diamond patterned cone I made. If you don't have electronic die cutting capabilities there are tons of cone templates online. 

(Note: the Silhouette Cameo is available at Photo Express)

After the cones were cut I glued them together and used a long reach stapler to add a little reinforcement along the back seam, probably not completely necessary but I didn't have to wait as long for the glue to dry. I cut the silhouette girls from Jenni's papers.  The older girl is from Be My Guest and the little girl is from Haven. I layered the Haven girl on a JBS oval label sticker to match the other one, as seen on the diamond patterned cone. 

I made full, loopy bows with seam binding. For a few of the cones I used two colors on each bow. I added the teachers' initials using JBS alterable alphas in the middle of the bows. I attached ric rac handles and the bows with hot glue.

They look cute on the inside too!

Supplies:

Be Our Guest - Hers

Haven - Common Objects

Red/Black Line Extension IV - Letter Chart

Red/Black Line Extension IV - Multiplication

Red/Black Line Extension IV - Pen Nibs

Alterable Alphas - Micro Dot

Haven - Betty's House

Red label stickers

Red/Black Extension IV - School Dress
Other supplies:
Gold oval doily 
Vintage seam binding and ric rac

Briana

More Winter Layout Ideas

Sledding Scrapbook Page

Design by Melissa Inman

Melissa created balance in her layout by adding strips of paper to both sides of her two-page design. She added three arrows to guide the eye, keeping them all in solid green tones to pop off the patterned paper.

Editor's Tip: For fun lettering, add patterned paper to closed off space in letters, such as Melissa did with the "g" and the "o."

Simple Shoveling Winter Scrapbook Page

Design by Renee Foss

Renee created a block with her four smaller photos and balanced it with a larger shot. She kept the page simple, adding just a bit of patterned paper on top of a solid background.

Big Pic Winter Scrapbook Page

Design by Susan Weinroth

Susan created her title in the circle with stickers and letter brads. She positioned smaller circles along the top of the photo and centered red brads on the smallest circles. Her funny photo takes center stage in the middle of the page.

Family Gathering Winter Scrapbook Page

Design by Candi Gershon

Candi grouped multiple photos at the bottom of her layout and balanced them with a large title and journaling block above. She added extra emphasis to the title and journaling by curving the edges of the paper underneath.

Snow Fun Scrapbook Page

Design by Erica Hernandez

A craft knife helped Erica handle the thin spaces and smooth the curves of this penguin, which makes a cute addition to her page about winter fun. Erica brought cohesion to the layout by letting the sled and the penguin's scarf overlap her photo. Using colors from the scarf, Erica choose solid color paper to block off different sections of the page.

Serious Sledding Layout

Design by Shannon Zickel

Give your layouts some a cool factor by spraying ink along the bottom edges of the pages. The technique works on any color background, even kraft. Here, it gives the page a "frosty" effect. Chipboard snowflakes get a festive update with patterned paper.

Sledding Fun Layout

Design by Pam Callaghan

For this fun sledding scrapbook page, Pam grouped several photos in a large block for a big emphasis in the center of her layout. She curved the edges of the patterned paper and the photos to add movement to the page.

Editor's Tip: Create a title that mirrors the action in your photos. Pam lined up her letter stickers along the bottom edges of staggered supporting photos to play up the downhill action.

Snowboarding Layout

Design by Paula Murakami

The patterned paper Paula chose for this snowboarding scrapbook page immediately reminded her of snow and helped her pick a colour scheme for the page. Converting photos to black-and-white allowed her to use any colors she wanted, so she chose frosty hues that play up the winter theme.

Editor's Tip: Use seasonal shapes to further drive home your theme. Paula used snowflakes in several spots on her page, including the one that subs for the letter "o" in her title.

Snow Tubing Layout

Design by Annette Pixley

Annette's inner tube sledding pictures mark a trip to Mt. Hood with her son. She matted her photos with colorful cardstock to make the mostly white winter sports images pop off the page, and she mixed rub-on phrases with her journaling to help highlight certain words and emphasize the winter theme.

Editor's Tip: Recycle for low-cost embellishments. Annette placed her title on a cloud cut from a magazine advertisement. Just remember, not all found objects are safe for scrapbooks. Keep questionable items away from one-of-a-kind photos or treat with deacidification sprays to be safe.

Snowboard Outing Layout

Design by Angie Cramer

Angie snapped these winter sports photos of her son Ryan on a snowboarding outing. Angie chose the layout colors--black, gray, and red--from her son's winter gear, pulling the entire page together.

Editor's Tip: Be creative with your title. Angie stamped "snowboarding" as well as snowflake patterns onto three round metal-rim tags, then strung the tags together with fibers to make a vertical title.

 

 

 

 

Winter Scrapbook Layout ideas

I'm sure you've taken a few snow pictures over the last week.  Here are some great layout ideas from Scrapbooks etc.

 

Pretty Punch Winter Scrapbook Page

Design by Lisa Storms

Use basic punches to create a graphic snowflake border. Abstract flower punches produce simple snowflakes when paired with white cardstock. Clip the flowers' rounded tips, adhere the shapes to multicolor punched circles, and top with gems.

Editor's Tip: Give a winter layout a crisp, tiled look by mounting photos, journaling, and accents with thin adhesive foam.

 

Sweater Weather Scrapbook Page

Design by Jennifer Perks

No snow? No problem. Patterns, textures, and accents from the sweaters in these photos inspired the creative color blocks on this cardstock-only page. Turn buttons, snaps, and other notions into layout embellishments. For a fun, interactive element, machine-stitch a zipper to cardstock. Mimic the texture of a sweater by layering tone-on-tone cardstock shapes. Outline the shapes with pen to help them stand out.

 

Digital Winter Scrapbook Page

Design by Leslie Lightfoot

Bring together your favorite outdoor photos in a photo collage. A digital template makes designing the layout a snap -- all you need are photos and a few digital elements! Embellish with a cluster of stars instead of the traditional snowflakes and use dark colors for an interesting way to display winter photos. (Remember, you can get all your digital layouts printed at Photo Express!)

Outdoor Fun Winter Scrapbook Page

Design by Vicki Boutin

Head outdoors with your kids and snap shots of them enjoying the snow. Stamp a snowflake on a circle of white cardstock and add a gem in the center to make it glisten. Punch a text pattern into circles for an unexpected accent.

Editor's Tip: To get properly exposed snow photos, use the Winter or Snow setting on a point-and-shoot camera, or set a custom white balance on a digital SLR.

 

Snowflake Flurry Scrapbook Page

Design by Erin Clarkson

Break away from traditional icy pastels and go bold with unexpected hues. Stick with one paper line to make matching a breeze. Balance the bright colours and eye-catching patterns with black-and-white photos that are sure to pop. For a smooth finish, sand chipboard edges after covering with patterned paper.

 

Snowscape Winter Scrapbook Page

Design by Greta Hammond

Fashion slopes from white textured paper and layer them with adhesive foam to create depth between layers. Trim snow mounds with rickrack and tuck action photos behind the hills to make them feel like part of the scene. Mat snow photos with patterned paper to give them added oomph on a page.

 

 

 

 

Winter Day Scrapbook Page

Design by Amy Howe

Amy turned to darker shades of purple, blue, and green for an elegant look (the three colors also happen to fall next to each other on the color wheel). The dark colors contrast nicely with a large black-and-white photo, showing the fun that can be had on a dreary winter day. Clear plastic flowers with button centers add a subtle, but glimmering touch.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Brighten someone's Desk

Quick and Easy Floral Pens

Brighten someone's day with super-easy spring-theme pens. Secure flower embellishments atop a pen, then wrap the base with coordinating paper for a pretty, put-together look.

Love Is In The Air

Our Valentine's display is getting set, here are some of the new Valentine's with more coming this week.

Echo Park Yours Truly

Here is a cute bag topper using this line from the Echo Park Blog. Click here for a video with instructions.

 

A Year in Review quick project

Here is a great quick project from the Simple Stories website. A few sheets of paper, a couple of favourite photos from each month last year and an evening and you have a great review of last year. (If you have no idea how to find a few favourite photos from each month of last year, seriously consider taking Foto Freedom!) You could also do up the few album pages for this year and add photos in each month. What a great project!

I like to capture the past year in photos.  This time, I'm using the Simple Stories signature system of elements and page protectors to help me.  Year.o.graphy is the perfect collection for this kind of project. I created 4 pages, each with 3 months of 2011 documented on them.  I loved the ease of the 4x6 elements with the large month abreviations on them --- I basically just slipped them into my sleeves with some journaling strips on them!  I know I've said it before, but super quick & easy!

Simple Stories Year.o.graphy:

• #1901 - 12x12 Calendar Cardstock Stickers
• #1902 - 12x12 Fundamental Cardstock Stickers
• #1903 - 12x12 Expression Cardstock Stickers
• #1910 - 4x6 Journaling Card Elements #1
• #1911 - 4x6 Journaling Card Elements #2
• #1912 - 4x6 Vertical Journaling Card Elements

We R Memory Keepers - 4x6 12x12 photo sleeves

A Christmas Review Album

Jodi from the Simple Stories blog has a great album that you could easily recreate to showcase your Christmas photos. I totally love the Simple Stories lines - look how fast you can create a gorgeous album just by cutting up the page pieces.

I wanted to show you how easy you could make an album for yourself using the divided sheet protectors as well.  It is so easy and so fast to put together, the one thing that I really like is that I could put it all together and when I have a minute over the Christmas break, I will get the pictures off of my computer and in the album for my kids to enjoy all year long! 

One of our very favorite traditions at our house is to cut down our own tree from the mountains.  I can't wait to add the pictures of our giant Grizwald tree to this page!

January Page Maps

One of the benefits of having your photos organized, is it makes it easy to grab some photos, a page map, some supplies and get a layout done in a short period of time.  Becky has posted her January Page Maps here. Here are a couple of samples

Organizing Your Photos

Scrapbooking Tip:   Organizing Your Photos

 

Organizing is one of those words that make some people feel calm and serene, but makes the majority of us feel overwhelmed and stressed out. We would like to be organized but can never find the time to do it, or just don't know where to start. Over the next few newsletters, you'll find some ideas to help you on your way to being organized for your scrapbook pursuits. Pick and choose the parts that work for you and make a commitment to stick to it. These are only partial suggestions as I could write an entire book on organizing scrapbooking supplies. If you have any questions at all, please don't hesitate to email us at [email protected]  or stop in for a visit and let us help you design a system that works for you.

 

Calming thought: The whole of anything is overwhelming so work in small manageable increments. You can do it! Your photos didn't become unorganized overnight - it was a little bit here and there. You are not going to get them organized overnight unless you have a fabulous "time fairy" in your back pocket (and if you do, I'd like to borrow her! lol) Work in small bits of time as you find them. Write it in your daytimer just like an appointment and stick to it. It is amazing what you can do in 15 min increments if you do it regularly.

 

Why you need to get organized

Many scrapbookers are not actually "scrapbookers" so much as "supply collectors". (You know who you are, and I'm one of them. A classic sign is you have bags at home with your purchases still in them!) One easy way to become a scrapbooker is to get organized so you can find your supplies and use them. When you are organized you will actually enjoy scrapbooking, you will save time, you will save money (how many of us buy duplicates because we don't know we have something) and you will reduce the feeling of being overwhelmed.

 

Remember to choose a system that works for YOU! Your system will be different than mine and different from your friends. It has to work for you so you will actually do it, and maintain it (which is even more important than the actual getting organized).

 

Ideas for How To Organize Your Printed Photos 

There are different ways to organize your photos. Most people tend to organize chronologically, but you can also organize by person (helpful when you want to do an album for/about that person), by holiday/vacation/event (helpful for theme albums) or by period of life. These tips cover your photos you actually have printed. If you are so overwhelmed with all the digital files you have and don't have many printed pictures since you went digital, I highly recommend taking the Foto Freedom course.  It is so worth it! 

 

Step One: The first step is to assess the situation- figure out where all your photos are and gather them into one safe area where they can be left undisturbed for a period of time. This way when you find a few minutes, you can go and organize an envelope of photos. Don't forget drawers, bins, boxes - gather them from everywhere into one area.

 

Step two: Come up with a game plan - figure out the best way for you to organize/find a photo. If you had to find a photo of your child's 3rd birthday, would it make more sense to you to find it chronologically by date, or in a birthday section for that child with all their birthday photos in it? Figure out what types of albums you would like to create, and organize accordingly.

 

Step three: Purge. Yes it is ok, to recycle photos you are not going to use. Give them to your kids, other family members that might enjoy them or yes, even the recycle bin. Keep photos that you are going to enjoy looking at again, even if they don't make it into a scrapbook, but don't keep really blurry photos or 10 of the same image in slightly different poses.

 

Step four: Realize it is going to get worse before it gets better. Take it one step at a time, or one package of photos at a time. If you think of organizing 20 years of photos, it is overwhelming and paralyzing so you won't start. Instead, think of organizing one package of photos a day. You can find 5 minutes a day to do this, and often may squeeze in 3 or 4 packages. If you do this, your photos will become organized. (And you'll have a lot of fun reminiscing too!) Don't wait for them to all be perfectly organized before you scrapbook again.  If you are inspired to create a layout while sorting photos - do it!

 

Step five: Enjoy your success and maintain your system. This is probably the most important step so that you don't end up with years of photos to organize again. Even before your photos are organized into a system, commit to always organizing your photos as soon as you bring them home from the photo lab or print them at home. This way they won't pile up. It is much easier to organize one envelope of photos at a time, than facing years of photos to organize.

 

I use a combination of ways to organize my photos. I organize the majority of my photos chronologically, but when I have a photo that says so much about a person, it goes into their area (I use photo boxes and regular pocket albums for this). Each of my girls has their own box, my side of the family has a box, my husbands side of the family has a box, and other friends and family are in a box.

I also have specific work in progress albums I work on so when I find a photo that goes with that, I put it in that album. For example, I have an album about our cabin, I have a friends album all about my friends from elementary school to now, I have an album just about my favourite pictures and more. This way, when I go to work on that project, the photos I need are with it.

 

If I know I want to scrapbook the photos very soon, I place the photos in a page planner file from Cropper Hopper, along with papers and embellishments that match. I have 5-10 of these files at any time, so that when I want to scrapbook I just pull one out, sit at my desk where my basic supplies are and scrapbook right away without wasting time figuring out what I am going to scrapbook.

 

Having been in the photo industry for 28 years, I have a TON of photos and I made some good progress in 2011 towards getting them organized. They are all in one area, organized into boxes by years. I still have a few strays I have come across that I need to file away, but that will get done this year. One of my goals for 2012 is to go through the boxes and set aside the ones I want to scrapbook (the most important ones that tell a story), and put the rest into photo albums - yes they still make them and they are a GREAT way to look at photos and enjoy them.  I could never possibly hope to scrapbook even 1/4 of all the photos I take. 

 

The other step I took in 2011 that made a HUGE difference in how I feel about my photos, was developing and taking the Foto Freedom class. It has lifted a huge weight off my shoulders and is the best system for digital photos.  Did you know I have already downloaded, backed up, rated, tagged, shared and ordered prints from December - including Christmas and New Year's Eve?! It is possible with Foto Freedom!  

Next class session starts Jan 19th.

Quick and Easy Christmas Scrapbook Pages

Christmas Favorites Page

Design by Paula Gilarde

Five photos, 12 squares, and one journaling list all add up to one great holiday season! Paula's grid structure makes it easy to show off several activities on her digital page. To capture a busy holiday season on one page, just pick a selection of your favorite photos. If you make this a yearly tradition, you'll eventually have a great record of your family's holiday history.

 

Quiet Moments Christmas Page

Design by Shannon Zickel

Remember to snap photos of quiet moments during the holidays. Anchor a couple of photos with colorful strips of paper and include a small journaling block to tell the simple story. Create high impact with smaller photos in the center of patterned paper. Black sticker letters stand out on the colorful page.

Krafty Christmas Page

Design by Lisa Truesdell

Commemorate your favorite holiday decorations in a scrapbook page. Use label stickers to add info to each photo, and soften the design with scalloped ribbon.

Christmas Celebration Page

Design by Jen Lessinger

Smaller photos allow for a number of your favorites to make up a page about your holiday highlights. Don't stress about making your photos perfectly sized to create this look. Line them up as well as you can and give yourself permission to be imperfect.

Editor's Tip: When you have a lot of photos, a white background keeps things neutral and allows the photos and the embellishments to stand out.

Christmas Wish List Page

Design by Erin Clarkson

Holidays generate lots of photographed memories, so add more to your page by hiding them under a panel. Use hinges to allow the bottom portion of the layout to flip up and reveal more in-depth journaling and additional photos. For a fun touch, re-create or copy your child's wish list to add to the page.

Tree Trimming Page

Design by Annette Pixley

 Christmas often means decorations and a sparkly tree. Pull out your camera to capture the action as well as to snap a few shots of the trimming crew and the finished product. A few simple accents, such as photo corners and chipboard ornaments help the photos take center stage.

Use a Grid to fit Multiple Holiday Photos

Design by Shannon Montez

A multiple-photo grid and clean lines make Shannon's detailedlayout totally hardworking. She converted her color photos to black-and-white so that she could pick the colour scheme she wanted.

Scrapbook Old Holiday Photos

Design by Ruth Dealey

Ruth wanted to remember a Christmas from 1975 on this scrapbook page, but didn't remember much about the event. So she based her journaling on what she could see in the photos and designed a page that gives equal weight to the snapshots and her story.

Create a Photo Strip of Decoration Snapshots

Design by Peg Manrique

One of Peg's favorite things about the holiday season is pulling out her decorations and making her house festive. She commemorated this tradition by creating a quick Christmas-theme scrapbook page with a collage of photos of her decorations, some chipboard letters, and a few rub-on flourishes.

Christmas Frenzy Scrapbook Layout

Design by Vicki Boutin

Document the excitement of opening presents. Start with a pristine "before" shot of packages under the Christmas tree and end with an "after" shot. Colorful circles and chipboard numbers highlight the sequence of events. Crop images to fit more photos on your layout and to ensure a busy background doesn't detract from the story.

 

Christmas Morning Scrapbook Layout

Design by Melissa Inman

Melissa created a grid of her favorite Christmas-morning photos on this two-page layout by printing one large square snapshot for the left-hand page and arranging four small photos on the right-hand page to fill the same-size space. Rounding the corners of the photos with a punch softens the grid.

Editor's Tip: Make a plan for your page title. Melissa sized her photos into squares knowing she would have room between them to add small blocks of patterned paper and a large page title made of chipboard letters.

Minimalist Christmas Scrapbook Layout

Design by Nely Fok

Minimal embellishments and a subtle colour scheme put the focus of Nely's two-page layout on the photos of her daughter's Christmas morning activities. Building on a white background, Nely injected color with tiny splashes of Christmas red for a high-contrast design.

Editor's Tip: Convert your photos to black-and-white for a classic look that allows you to use any color scheme you like.

 

New Year's Eve Party Decor

New Year’s Eve Party Décor from Fiskars

(and many of these things can be made with tools, punches, diecuts you already own!)

Designer: Lisa Storms

Difficulty rating: Beginner

A New Year’s Eve party is a great chance to fit in one last crafting project for the year, and a fun way to start off the new year with hand-crafted touches! Fiskars tools make it easy.

Set the mood before your guests even arrive with a fun invitation. These toasting glasses are stamped directly onto cardstock and kicked up a notch with a fun bubble technique. On a protected surface, use the three sizes of eyelet setters to punch assorted circles coming up from the glasses. Add foam adhesive dots to the back of punched cardstock and layer onto champagne-colored cardstock for dimension and color. Then simply mount onto a folded card base.

A fun garland is an easy way to add dramatic décor to any party. This spiraled option is full of New Year cheer from stars to bubbles. Using a paper trimmer, cut strips of assorted cardstock and spiral around a small dowel, pen, etc. and thread onto string using a 1/16 inch Circle hand punch. To add some fun, punch small stars and circles from some strips before curling. For even more drama, run both sides through the new Bubbles border punch on a few strips.

Clocks are a perfect choice for New Year’s Eve décor and make for dramatic cupcake toppers. To create the debossed clock faces, punch two identical XL circles. On the back of one, draw an X with pencil to divide the circle into four equal quadrants and punch each line with the 1/4 inch Rectangle hand punch. Draw lines to divide each quadrant in half, and then again to divide each slice in half once more. Punch each of these lines with the 1/16 inch Circle hand punch. Then adhere punched circle onto the plain circle to create your clock base. You can repeat this for each clock face, or create one template to mark all circles.

The clock hands are made from the new ‘Snip Snip’ squeeze punch trimmed of its handles and topped with an adhesive gem or pearl. Glue clocks to toothpicks to insert into cupcakes.

I like to provide a cute midnight snack to start off the new year. Presenting food (including dips and candy/nuts) in plastic champagne glasses (I got mine in sets at the dollar store) is a fun touch. Tie up a little snack (like these mini cinnamon rolls) in treat bags and add a sweet tag to your bow. The bags keep your treats fresh when prepared in advance.

Tags are a breeze with the XL Tag lever punch. Add a large circle squeeze punch title to mimic a moon (trimmed to fit tag) surrounded by punched stars to complete the midnight theme.

While you have out the 1/4 inch Star hand punch, create a bunch of confetti from assorted cardstocks. Punch aluminum foil folded in half for metallic stars!

Round out the party in style by sending guests home with a goodie bag featuring the ball dropping in Times Square with a “thanks for dropping by” sentiment for a fun play on words. Cover a treat bag with black paper trimmed to size and adhere a strip of gray cardstock. Punch four or five scalloped ‘Seal of Approval’ circles from white cardstock and fold each in half. Adhere backs of folded circles together to form half of a ball to adhere to pole on bag. For extra sparkle, paint each section with glue (once formed and dry) and sprinkle with crystal glitter. Allow to dry fully before adhering to bag.

Here’s to all of the fun crafting projects completed this year and looking forward to lots more fun in the New Year!

New Cut Up Cartridge Trimmer in action

Cutup Cartridge Trimmer demo by American Crafts - Craft Room

The Cutup Trimmer features:

• Seven decorative blade styles -- all fully-enclosed in cartridges, making them safe and easy to switch in and out
• Rotary blades that cut more paper at once and offer increased accuracy
• A sturdy metal working surface
• An extendable arm for cutting 12x12-inch paper
• A lock-down bar that secures paper for smooth, accurate cutting

Available now at Photo Express 604-463-3654. www.photoexpressions.ca

 

Gathering from Authentique

Another beautiful line from Authentique called Gathering is at PE. Here are a couple of sample layouts from Authentique.

Christmas Tags from Authentique

Here is a great post from the Authentique blog for some beautiful Christmas tags. I like how even though the sheets were numbered 1 - 12 (for the 12 days of Christmas), she covered the numbers with the rosette and used them as regular tags. Great thinking outside the box. And Authentique is 30% off right now at Photo Express until December 24th.

12 Joyful Tags {Tutorial}

Hi there!

It's Tifany from Ink Blots by TRD and today I'm coming to you with a tutorial on how to use this "Surprise" sheet of Authentique Paper's Wonder collection:


And easily turn it into 12 great Christmas tags:


First we will need to create the rosettes (or medallions) for the tags.
{And may I just say in advance that I am fully aware now of why companies use hand models. And no...I don't ever have the hope of becoming one.}

Start by scoring a "Curiosity" sheet of paper every 1/4".
{Tip: I scored the whole 12"x12" sheet at once and then cut it into 12 strips to make my 12 medallions. Much easier than trying to score 12 strips!}

Once your sheet is scored, cut it into 12 1" wide strips and begin to accordion fold each strip.


Use a secure adhesive to adhere the folded strip into a circle.
{Tip: Trim off one section from one end of each strip so that only one section is overlapping to form the circle. This will create less bulk at the overlapping area.}

Using the Foundations paper, punch 12 scalloped circles. Stamp each circle with your sentiment and heat emboss. Then, using some of your Authentique Paper scraps, punch a circle for the back of each medallion.


Use a strong adhesive and place it on the scalloped circle (back piece). Place your accordion folded circle around the back piece and squeeze just at the tops and press down to create the medallion.
{Tip: Use both hands for this process. I used both hands for the actual creation of each rosette, but had to use one hand here to take the picture.}


{Tip: You can adjust the size of your rosette by the amount by how much you squeeze the accordion folded circle in toward the center. You can adjust the final size of a rosette that started with a 1" wide strip (like we have done) from anywhere between 2 1/4" to about 3".}

After your adhesive is secure, add the scalloped circle with your sentiment to the front of your medallion.


{Tip: I use a couple large acrylic blocks to give a little bit of weight to hold my pieces in place while the adhesive is drying.}

While your adhesive is setting up, separate each of the numbered cards from the "Surprise" paper with your paper trimmer. When the adhesive is dry, adhere one medallion on each card.


{Tip: I used the number on each card as a reference for where I would place each rosette. The varied placement on each card gives every tag an individualized look.}

Add some string or twine to each card, punch a hole and thread with ribbon or seam binding...and you've now got 12 beautiful tags perfect for the holiday season!
{Tip: You can use these tags for gifts, but don't stop there - they would also make great embellishments for holiday themed scrapbook pages, tree ornaments, and would even look great strung together as a garland!}


Thanks for stopping by today!

Supplies:
Patterned Paper: Authentique Paper (Wonder Collection - Surprise, Curiosity, Foundations);
Stamps: Market Street Stamps (Simple Joys);
Ink: VersaMark (Watermark);
Embossing Powder: American Crafts (Zing - Black);
Other: May Arts (Burlap String); Hug Snug (Seam Binding - Chalk White);
Adhesive: Ranger (Matte Accents);
Tools: Fiskars (Trimmer, Scissors, Seal of Approval Squeeze Punch); Martha Stewart/EK Success (Scoring Board);

Crop-A-Dile Tutorial Video

This is a great quick video showing the versatility of the Crop-A-Dile. This is a must have tool for any scrapbooker or cardmaker.

Here is a great sheet on how to use the Crop-A-Dile plus a project idea. Come in to Photo Express to pick one up. (Or send in one of Santa's "elves" and we will even gift wrap it for free for them).