This is a very fast and easy project. I used my the leftover image pieces from the Sweeping Plains Papers to decorate a few Artist Trading Card Holders. Each made holder can store eight ATC's.The base of the holder is made from cardstock I had in my own supplies and the pockets that hold the ATCs, I made from a manilla folder.
The Base
Cut your cardstock to 11" x 3". Then score at 2 1/2", 3 1/4", 7" and 7 3/4"/ Fold on score lines.
The Pockets
Cut your manilla folder to 6" x 4". You will need to cut and make eight pockets. Score with long side up at 2 3/4" and 5 1/2". Then turn once with short side up and score at 1/2". Fold along score lines. Cut the small square off the bottom corner and then cut from 2 3/4 score line to edge, taking off the long 1/2" panel.
Use your double sided Ranger LetterIT tape and place on the bottom flap and the side flap. Fold over score lines to make your pocket. I used a 1" circle punch to punch out a small slot at the top of each pocket.
When you have made each pocket, I placed a strip of tape down the center back of seven of the pockets and on the eighth pocket, I put tape in a square shape. This will hold the pockets firmer to the base cover. I inked around the edge of each pocket with the Rhubbarb Stalk Memento LUXE ink.
To put the pockets together, you place one on top of the other using the pocket with the squared shaped tape as the bottom pocket. This is taped to the inside of the cover. I then cut out base matting for the front and back of the holder cover and also cut out a decorative image from the Sweeping Plains paper to be put on the base matting.
For a closure I used a self adhesive velcro circle cut in half. Also for something different I sewed a button on one of the top flaps, used with some twine.
Added a decorative piece to the front pocket.
Below: back view
You can watch the full process below:
Hope you enjoyed this fun useful project. Go and make some Aussie themed ATC Holders for yourself or as a gift to send to a friend.
For my last September project
I used the rest of the gorgeous Couture Creations Sweeping Plains
papers as pages and to embellish this fun travel journal. I had picked
up the wooden covers from a journal in a second-hand store and decided
these were perfect to begin with. Other pages were made from recycled
items such as bags and envelopes. Earlier this year I was very
fortunate (not that I knew how much at the time) to be able to take
myself on a road trip from the Adelaide Hills in South Australia over to
Victoria for a crafting retreat. This was just as COVID19 had begun
and I returned home a few days before the borders closed - which at the
time, no one believed would happen!!! I wanted to document this trip,
as it was such a liberating and fun experience for me and I met the most
wonderful fellow crafters.
All of the hessian I have gathered
from the second-hand stores certainly came in handy this month and
backed this cute picture perfectly for the cover.
I used a map that helped me get form one state to another as the first page and this month's papers and ephemera made perfect pages, pockets, tucks and embellishments.
A
recycled book page was used here for a journaling spot, and I began
adding photos from my travels - there were a lot of towers, windmills
and farmland along the way........
........and silos! I
made a page from a paper bag that has a little tuck spot in the front
for a journaling card made from the Sweeping Plains paper, and two side
pockets to hold papers. There is a process video below on how I created
this pocket page.
Here
is one of the beautiful Sweeping Plains paper pages with a tuck spot to
hold information, embellished with stenciled print of a kookaburra made
with Distress Oxide Spray through a die cut negative.
The
next small page and tag was created from the packaging of the Sweeping
Plains Die-cut Ephemera. The pocket was made from Oxide sprayed paper
and a Native Breeze Wooden Flourish of a Kookaburra was added to the tag
as a dangle with some string.
My
process video below also shows how I made this large envelope page,
covered with book pages and Oxide sprayed paper, with tuck spots on
either side.
Here
is a gorgeous page with a Die cut Ephemera Kookaburra paper clip and
another paper bag page folded at the bottom to create two front tuck
spots. I have tucked in an envelope embellished with a Sweeping plains
cut-out, a postcard from my travels and a small journal card made from a
paper off-cut and topped with some brown material.
The
back of this paper bag page has another tuck spot with pictures of just
a few of the many wind turbines I passed along the way. The top of the
bag is also open to fit information about places I want to visit in the
future.
The
small page on the left is recycled packaging covered with the beautiful
papers making a nice little pocket that I have slipped a stamped
Project Life card into.
I visited the Giant Koala on the way home - he is a creepy looking dude and I am glad I was passing him during the daytime! 😅
I
used one of the papers folded to create a large page that flips out -
this leaves plenty of room for me to add more photos (when I get more
ink for my printer!) I recycled a business envelope to make more pages
and added to this multiple tuck spots on the front of this using a
cut-out of a page from the Sweeping Plains collection.
This
is the back of the envelope with a cute stamped kookaburra in the
window, a die-cut stencil piece and sign cut from a photo of a place
called 'Tintinara' that I stopped at. The envelope flips open from the
back to show more photos from Tintinara. The inside of the back cover
has another cut-out backed with some hessian.
This
is the inside of the envelope page. To make more room for the photos I
added two smaller envelopes which flip over...........
...........and are open so I can slip journaling cards into either one.
Here
is a video showing the items I used for this project and the process of
making a paper bag page and envelope page with plenty of tucks and
pockets:
Here is the final flip-through of this fun travel journal:
I
have really enjoyed using this month's products from Aunty Vera Scrap
and Craft and can't wait to fill up my travel journal some more. I Hope my
projects have given you some crafty ideas.
Happy crafting and stay safe,
Love Nat xxx
Aunty Vera Scrap and Craft products on sale that I am using for the month of September are:
This project gave me a great deal of enjoyment to make and it looks fabulous hanging on my wall. I remembered Donna's altered photo frame from NSD month in Crafty Vera and Friends group and thought I would let that inspire me to make an Aussie themed wall plaque.
I had picked up an old photo frame from our local op shop and thought it would look great jazzed up a little...
I started by prepping my frame. I pulled the backing board out and put it to the side for the time being. I then gave the old wooden frame a coat of primer/gesso. While the frame itself was drying, I also painted gesso on the large and small Australia chipboard piece from Couture Creations Sunburnt Country Chipboard Set - Australiana. I also gave one of the larger 'Australia' a coat of gesso as well.
When the gesso had dried on each piece, I then grabbed some Modeling paste and a stencil...the stencil I used was from Kaisercraft called Birch (available from Aunty Vera Scrap and Craft).
On the sides and front surface of the frame, I used the modeling paste through the stencil. I love the marks this stencil leaves on the frame. I also added the modeling paste through the stencil on the Australian chipboard pieces.
When the modeling paste had dried on all the pieces, I used my Dina Wakely Acrylic paints to paint it. I chose Sedona (a burnt reddish colour) and Olive. I wasn't too sure if I was going to like these two colours together but I totally did in the end. I was trying to make it look earthy in colour, like our Aussie outback. I painted the letter of Australia in black. I painted in random sections over the entire frame, made it look patchy,
I used my hot glue gun to attach the Australia chipboard piece to the top right hand corner of the frame. I then grabbed my Inka Gold and lightly went over the entire frame to bring out the raised parts on the frame. I absolutely love how this turned out. Both colours worked well together.
I then placed my painted frame to the side and grabbed the base board. I covered the board with No 10 paper from the Couture Creations Sweeping Plains collection. I think the colour of it went great with the frame colours.
Now it was time to make my collage. I cut around some images from paper numbered 07 and the kangaroo from No. 03. I inked the egdes of my images with some of my vintage photo ink and more or less played around with them until I was happy with the look.
I used some of the eucalyptus leaves from the ephemera set and glued them on and then made the kangaroo my main focal point on the plaque. I slightly raised the kangaroo up by using some foam tape. The last thing was to glue my letters of Australia on the bottom of my frame.
LOVE, LOVE, LOVE the way it turned out...something so very unique and different to hang on my craft room wall.
The full process video is below:
Thank you for stopping by and I hope this project gives you some inspiration to purchase some of the Couture Creations Sweeping Plains papers, an old frame and make something similar for yourself.
This month's theme of "My Island Home"
made me ponder what I love about this beautiful country I live in. I
came to the conclusion that my favourite thing about Australia is the
nature - specifically the birds and botany. The gorgeous Couture
Creations "Sweeping Plains" collection has captured some of this
perfectly within the papers for this month, therefore I decided to make a
journal using birds and botany of Australia as the theme.
Previously,
I have shown how I put together journals using old book covers, so this
time I wanted to show some journal embellishing. I assembled a pile of
goodies which included scraps of the Sweeping Plains papers that were
off-cuts from journal pages, second-hand book images of Australian
plants and birds, the embellishments I coloured in my last blog post and
video, and the Sweeping Plains die cut pieces.
I used Sweeping plains papers to begin each of the three signatures in my journal as they have beautiful bird images. When I folded the pages, the kookaburra image ended up on the back page of the signature. I wanted one for the front so I cut out this great picture from the #12 (CO727979) paper, backed it with some calico and added some gum leaves and nuts from the Sweeping Plains Die Cut Ephemera.
My
favourite die cuts from the collection would have to be the big,
brightly coloured birds. I decided to make these into paperclips simply
by using some cardstock and glue to hold the clip on. These are great
additions to journals as embellishments and functional as they can also
hold other pieces.
I found some small coloured index cards, which make great journal cards, and embellished these with the Couture Creations - Sunburnt Country "Protea" Stamp and the Couture Creations - Sweeping Plains "Eucalyptus" Mini Stamp. These had been coloured with brush markers. I fussy cut a small picture of a kingfisher for the third card.
I
found a craft coloured envelope and piece of cardstock to slip into it
and wanted to embellish these a little. I stamped the envelope with a
text stamp then used a postage stamp die to cut a beautiful Waratah
picture from a book page. I adhered this to the envelope and added one
of my colored Native Breeze Wooden Flourishes. For the journal card
insert, I tore a piece of the paper I had sprayed with the Distress
Oxides "Bundled Sage" and "Gathered Twigs" and added tot his a wattle
die cut and the Couture Creations - Sweeping Plains Kookaburra Mini Stamp, both cut from the Oxide sprayed paper. I added the words "Be still" to finish it off.
This
next journal card was cut from the Sweeping Plains #11 paper (CO727978)
and it goes so nicely with the inside front cover of my journal as they
both have the wattle. I backed it with some paper for a writing spot,
then cut a border piece from the other side of the Sweeping Plains paper
to make a little tuck spot at the bottom of the page to slip the card
into.
Next
job was to embellish the cover of the journal. I wanted to cover the
words on the spine of the old book cover and used another border piece
to do this with.
For the front I used a gorgeous, colourful picture of parrots cut from the #12 paper (CO727979). The colours in these birds helped to inspire
the colours used within the pages of the journal. I layered this
picture onto some dark greenish/brown hessian that I had frayed the
edges of. I used some of the yellow border piece from the #11 paper to
back the journal title onto, and made the title with some alphabet
stickers and scrap paper. These were all stuck onto the cover, then three
of the coloured Native Breeze Wooden Embellishments were added.
Here is a video of these processes.
I have added much more to embellish this gorgeous book so make sure to
check out the flip-through video below to see all the pages:
This
month's collection of papers and other crafty goodies were so
inspiring. I love this colourful journal filled with birds and botany
found within "My Island Home". I cannot wait to get started on my next
project - so stay tuned............
Happy crafting and stay safe,
Love Nat xxx
Aunty Vera Scrap and Craft products on sale that I am using for the month of September are:
