Projects
Projects – Step by Steps
Door Hangers
Since Valentine’s Day is literally right around the corner, I put together this quick and easy tutorial on a fun project: Door Hangers!
These don’t have to be limited just to Valentine’s Day, you could make them for any occasions: birthdays, Christmas, or just to say Hi. Hang one on the door to your kids room or on your neighbors front door for an unexpected surprise. If you add a pocket to the back you can slip a gift card inside or a note.
All you need is a CD, some paper, embellishments, adhesive, ribbon and a sanding sponge.
- Glue your paper to one side of the CD and trim around the edges.
- Cut a piece of ribbon about 10-12 inches in length and tape both ends onto the backside of the CD so you have a loop to hang it with. The ends will soon be covered by more paper.
3. Glue paper to the other side of the CD and trim those edges off. If you are going to add a pocket to the backside of the CD, do it now.
4. Using a sanding sponge (available at any hardware store), sand all the edges until smooth.
5. Now have fun embellishing your door hanger!
Quick & Easy Christmas Tags
All you need to make these tags are: patterned cardstock weight paper, black soot distress ink, Tim Holtz inking tool, crop a dile (or whatever eyelet setter you use), eyelets and rub ons or stickers.
Step 1: Cut your paper into pieces 2 x 2.5″
Step 2: Snip the corners off the top two corners of the tags, or use a corner rounder.
Step 3: Using Black Soot Distress Ink (Ranger), and the Tim Holtz Ink Blending tool, ink the edges of all the tags.
Step 4: Now punch a hole in the top of each
Step 5: Insert the eyelets and set, then apply rub ons or stickers
Finish your tags off with ribbon, raffia or fabric strips and tie to gifts!
Take Out Gift Boxes – 4 varieties
These are lots of fun to make and relatively easy, some are a bit more time consuming than others due to the drying time of the paint. 3 of them are using techniques that Claudine Hellmuth taught us at Ranger U with her new line of paints! I really love her new products and I’ve been having a blast playing around with them again.
To start, you’ll need to round up some chinese food take out boxes (lots of art stores and craft stores carry these), and take all the handles out of them.
You’re going to need various paints, the Claudine Hellmuth Studio Gesso, and the Claudine Studio multi medium matte, and some brushes. (I have to say that the Claudine’s line of art brushes are fantastic! I have had so much trouble finding good quality brushes in the past – unless they are super expensive. But Claudine’s are really good quality and really affordable! Awesome!!)
Box 1: Painting
For this box, we are just going to paint the entire thing and add embellishments. You’ll need to start by painting the entire box with gesso. I used 2 coats of gesso trying to cover the design on the box.
Next, choose your paint color and paint the box 2 coats. Put aside and let dry.
Box #2: Piece by Piece
For this box you will need the multi medium (matte) and bits of various patterned paper pieces, book pages, etc.
I used a few pieces of some left over Christmas paper, book pages, a starbucks Christmas bag and some tissue paper from Starbucks.
Step 1: Start by brushing the medium over one of the sides of the box. Be generous with the medium
Step 2: Cut or tear pieces of paper and apply one at a time. After you stick a piece down, cover the entire thing with a coat of medium. Repeat this process until the entire box is covered. Set aside to dry.
to finish the box off, I attached a wide piece of ribbon around the box, and added a little stuffed felt Christmas tree.
Box 3: Masking Tape Texture
This technique was taught by Claudine Hellmuth at Ranger U – its so easy to do and looks so cool! Thanks Claudine!
Step 1: Layer pieces of masking tape all over the box until it’s covered.
Step 2: Place a dab of paint onto your non stick craft sheet and spritz a couple sprays of water onto it with a mini mister. Mix the paint with the water.
Step 3: Paint the box with the watery paint mixture until you get your desired look. I went over it a couple times before I achieved the look I wanted.
Box #4: Peeling Paper
Another great technique from Claudine!
Step 1: Glue some book paper, (or newsprint or dictionary paper) to the box using the multi-medium, try to cover as much of it as you can.
Step 2: Allow to dry only for about a minute. Stick some pieces of masking tape overtop of the paper, burnish, then peel off right away. Do this randomly all over the box.
Step 3: Place a dab of paint onto your craft sheet and spritz with a couple sprays of water from the mini mister. Paint the watery paint over the paper on the box. Dab off some of it with a paper towel.
After I put the first coat of green paint on and let it dry, I put another thin coat of brown paint and dabbed most of it off, just leaving enough to give it an aged look.
Holiday Card Holder – Felt Wall Hanging
Another fun project, especially if you like felt and have a lot of it, like I do.
All you need to do is gather some felt, a few embellishment such as buttons, and a needle and some embroidery thread (and a sewing machine if you have one).
Step 1: Choose what color you’d like your background to be and cut a piece measuring 9 inches wide by 37 inches long.
Step 2: cut 4 pockets, each measuring 9 inches wide and 5.5 inches long.
Step 3: now cut pieces to decorate your pockets: stars, snowflakes, trees, snowmen, etc. Lay everything out and then use fabric glue to glue the pieces into place.
Step 4: Either using a sewing machine or hand sewing (or combination of both like I did), sew the embellishment pieces onto the pockets.
Step 5: Lay the finished pockets on the background strip and pin them into place. (I left a gap of about 4 inches between each pocket)
Step 6: Machine sew the pockets onto the background. Then fold over the very top of the background piece (about 1.5 inches) and sew it together so you leave a loop large enough to slide a stick through.
Step 7: Slide a stick through and attach either ribbon or raffia to either edge of the stick.
Ranger Distress Ink tutorial
These inks are the best!!! I love using all the various colors with the Ranger Ink Blending tool. When I made this little mini album for Brent for his birthday I wanted it to look more masculine so I didn’t use any patterned paper, I simply used the distress inks and the ink blending tool to create my own page backgrounds, directly onto the chipboard! I love how it turned out.
I used one of the chipboard Basic Grey luggage tag albums, various Ranger Distress Inks, Ink Blending tool, and Tim Holtz Ransom Alphabet Mask set.
I started by sticking the brackets and 29 numbers from the ransom mask set onto the cover of the album, then using the ink blending tool, I inked the cover with Antique Linen ink.
I then removed the bracket mask pieces and inked over with aged mahogany ink.
Next I inked over the entire cover with Walnut stain
The final finishing touch for this cover: inking with Black Soot ink all around the edges, this really makes the edges stand out.
Now for the inside pages. To add some texture, I used a piece of magic mesh and stuck it onto the next page. I inked over top of the mesh with Vintage Photo ink.
Then I peeled the mesh off and it left a cool design on the page.
I used some Peeled Paint ink and inked overtop
On the next page, I stamped a stamp into Perfect medium first and stamped it onto the chipboard, then I inked overtop. The perfect medium acted like a resist.
For the remaining pages, I mixed various colors of inks
On this page, I stamped all over it after I had finished inking it.
You can view all the finished pages of the album here
I just have to say that I love these stamps from Paper Artsy! The owner, Leandra, was at Ranger U and she brought us all stamps! Thanks Leandra!!
My Project Tutorials:- Favorite Pet Accordion Album - Flower Mini Book – full instructions with photos can be downloaded here and the template here- Photo Blocks- Glass Pebble Magnets- Exploding Box Album- Envelope/ Tag Mini Album
