Frugal Friday: Tacky Textiles

This week on the TES forum Living in the Positive posted a cute tutorial from Studio Calico with instructions on using their new FabRips for the binding on a mini book…super cute! And when I saw the tutorial I had the perfect project in mind! But, alas, I have no FabRips….what is a frugal girl to do?

Well, make my own, of course.

Now, never having seen these fabulous little embellies in person, I am just guessing about how I can make my own...

Gather up various scraps of fabric, at least 12” long and of varying widths. If you don’t have any fabrics lying around, you can get some cute small pre-cut pieces from Wal-Mart (21” X 18”-fat quarter) for about $1.00, or try using up some old jeans or kids clothes that aren’t good enough to donate to charity.

Since fabric weave is loose, a liquid adhesive isn’t really a good option for this project, so I used my Xyron 500 machine.

I simple cut two strips of fabric 2” X 12” and one strip 1” X 12”, placed them all down on the 5” bed of the Xyron and ran them through the machine. The 2” wide strips are destined for the mini album, and so as to not waste space, I also passed a 1” strip through that will be for my embellie stash. The only limit on the width of the strips is the machine whose bed is 5” wide. As you will see in my sample project, I also made on strip 5” wide.

While you are running the fabric through the machine, keep slight tension on the fabrics to make sure they pass through straight and not overlapping each other….but don’t pull too hard or you may stretch the fabric.

After you have run the fabric through the machine, be sure to rub over the top of the fabric really well. I used a squeegee to make sure all of the adhesive transferred nicely to the fabric.

Then simply peel the strips from the backing, don’t throw the backing out, it is fantastic release paper for other frugal projects.

Here is my sample project:

This mini album is to show off my “10 Summer Photos to Take Right NOW” pictures (this is a free class from Big Picture Scrapbooking…check it out!)

My mini is 6” square, cut from 12” sheets of chipboard/book board and hinged as in the instructions from Studio Calico.

Yellow polka-dotted hinge...

I love how the pages lay flat...

And pink polka-dots...

So was the experiment worth it? Here is the tally:

Cost: I had everything on hand…but a fat quarter of fabric is about $1.00 and the refill for the Xyron 500 is $10.00 (from Wal-Mart), making one 5” X 12” sheet about $0.76. The FabRips from Studio Calico are $5.49 for two 6”X9”sheets of rip-able fabric in nine patterns.

Cats Annoyed: 1 (Clyde is a bit skittish and he did not like the squeaky sound of the Xyron machine!)

Time: Super fast…only a few minutes picking fabric, cutting the strips and running them through the machine.

Skill Level: Basic

So there it is, homemade tacky textiles! Easy Peasy…and Cheap! Cheap!

Wow! I won!

I have been crabby all week....

Just having a real grump-athon...

A grouch-fest...

Not happy...

Don't know why, just am...

But I plug on, get the work done, and almost everyday I enter to win something, somewhere, on some blog...

And today...

I won!

WooHoo!

Don't get to excited though, I'm still grumpy...

Maybe it is all this summertime wind here in Green Valley! I hate the wind, and it isn't helping my resolve to ride my bike to work everyday...

But I digress...back to me winning!

I posted a comment on Wednesday's Making Memories blog post, about their new Vintage Groove jewelry line...and the random generator picked me!

See...here I am...wining!

June 23, 2010

We have a Vintage Groove Winner

Congratulations to Christine Diamond who is the winner of the Vintage Groove contest. Please email me your address so we can send your jewelry kit.

WooHoo! Grump-grump!

More Minis!

I finally finished the...well...finishing touches on a Palm Springs August 2009 mini album I have been working on for a couple of weeks.

Whew! I'm finished...actually it was pretty simple and fun.


I cut tags out of cardstock and covered them with bright summer (hot!) papers and bound them all together on the side.


I tied thin ribbons to the top of each page....and the binding...


And used "contact sheet" sized prints for the pictures...fun size to use!


I cut a palm tree for the front cover out of white cardstock, and misted it with "home made shimmer spray" to glam it up...I set the plam tree on the back page while I sprayed it...and voila, two palm trees for the price of one!

I love the pop bottletop...I must have bought this five years ago, and finally found a use for it. I have been try to 'shop' my stash more these days...it's amazing what I keep finding.

I think next month I will try another "30 days Spending Freeze"...hmmm, Let me think about t hat some more!

Have a creative weekend!

Frugal Friday...Dew Drops

Okay…so I had never heard of Dew Drops before…but I came across a video on how to make your own…and being of an inquiring mind, I checked it out.

Apparently Dew Drops (also called skittles) are tiny acrylic blobs (and you know how I love blobs) that you use as decoration on your layouts. Okay…I’ll bite…how do you make them?

It’s pretty simple, all you need is a hot glue gun, glue sticks, release paper (love this stuff!), and some alcohol inks. (I also found instructions using Diamond Glaze or Glossy Accents…more about that below)

First, place your release paper down and get your glue gun heated up. Make sure the glue gun is nice and hot, this works much better when it is HOT!

Place small blobs (there is that word again) of glue on your release paper and let them cool.

There is a bit of finesse that is needed for this, and after a bit of practice, here is my hint:

squeeze the gun trigger, letting the glue out into the blob; release the trigger BEFORE you pull the gun away from the blob.

With the trigger released, kinda swirl the nozzle a bit…the resulting peak of glue will fall into the blob and level itself out.

There are the inevitable glue gun threads,

but after the glue has cooled, these are easily removed.

As you can see, the in the top row…the glue gun wasn’t hot enough and I had trouble getting the blobs to form circles…

I tried, as one video suggested, using Glossy Accents for this as well. The blob placement was easier than with the glue gun, but the resulting drops were far flatter and quite a bit tackier (as in sticky…not ugly…although in all honestly I did think they were uglier than the glue gun drops…)

To color the drops, I placed a small amount of them in a plastic baggie

along with several (10-12) drops of alcohol ink. I used Ranger Arts inks.

Smoosh the baggie around to get the ink on all the drops…

And dump them out on a piece of scratch paper to dry…I separated the drops for the drying, it was a bit messy and now I really need a manicure! Aw, such is the life of a messy scrapper!

The drying only took about 15-20 minutes, but to be good and sure, I left them out overnight to dry and placed them in a baggie for storage.

Overall the coloring on most of the drops was a bit mottled, sorta tie-dyeish, but I liked it. There are tiny air bubbles in the drops, which I’m sure aren’t in the real thing, but again I kinda like that too.

Here is a close-up comparison of the hot glue drops and the Glossy Accents drops…both colored Wild Plum…I like the thickness of the hot glue much better.

Here is a layout I made using my new colored dew drops…

I used sticky spots to adhere the drops to the page.

So was the experiment worth it? Here is the tally:

Cost: I had everything on hand…but a package of 50 hot glue sticks runs about $6…and that would make a lot of dew drops!

Cats Annoyed: 0 cats…1 human! (my fingernails are varying shades of the rainbow at the moment, and I have a wedding to go to this weekend!)

Time: The glossy accents took a few hours to dry, while the hot glue was set pretty quickly. The coloring of the drops was pretty quick.

Skill Level: intermediate, a little flair with the hot glue gun is definitely need, there is a learning curve.

So there it is, homemade dew drops! Easy Peasy…and Cheap! Cheap!

Mini Albums Galore!

I have a few mini albums that I have been working on...and off...and on again!

Some are definitely ongoing projects, like my Garden Journal and Harvest Mini Album...and I am making progress with them.

Here is the bare bones of the Garden Journal...

I still need to embellish and title the front cover...the paper I used is this really lovely handmade paper with flower petals...


The metal corners are from Tim Holtz...I love these (in fact I thought they were so cool, I bought two packages!)






I still need to print and add the pictures from the last few months, but the pages are there with a few notes. I used heavy kraft cardstock for the dividers for each month and added a calendar to the backside of each of those....with a cute little mr. greenjeans stamp I found...


I'm trying to keep up with writing down what has been S-L-O-W-L-Y happening in the veggie patch...and hopefully at the end of the season I will have a nice record of all the right and wrong things I did with my first veggie garden.

I also have started the harvest mini album (I'm staying positive!)...this one is taking a longtime to get the bare bones together...but still, it's progressing...


For this one I am making a book that will sit inside a slipcase box and will look like a recipe file.


I cut the file folders on my Silhouette


and hand-sewed each one onto an accordion spine...that will be glued into a hard case cover...

I'm really enjoying how this mini is coming together...I just with the veggies would come along as well!

Be creative!

Something Creative Everyday...almost

I wanted to do something creative everyday...that was a goal for 2010.

I doesn't always come to fruition...chores and work quite often get in the way....

But I'm trying...

This past weekend I made time to be in my studio, even if only for an hour, Friday, Saturday and Sunday! It felt great!

I worked on this a bit...that a bit...and even started a couple new projects...

I enjoyed myself!

I finished these invitations to a 4th of July party my mom is having...simple and cute!





Complete with matching envelopes...



Tomorrow I will show you the gardening journal I started...and the beginnings of my 2010 Harvest Mini album! (I'm cheering for my veggies!)

Frugal Friday...And More Uses For Sticky Spots

So last week’s post (sticky spots) got me to thinking…a dangerous thing sometimes.

What else can I do with repositionable glue and sticky spots…and my idea…

BLING!

So I set out to see if it would be cheaper and reasonably easy to make my own sheets of rhinestone bling.

You can buy packages of self-adhesive rhinestones, by almost every scrapbooking manufacturer, for anywhere from $1.80 to $4.50…in almost every color imaginable. The most expensive per piece price I found was $0.14/pc (32 pieces for $4.50) and the cheapest $0.03/pc (72 pieces for $1.80). This, of course, was not exhaustive research and doesn’t take into account those wonderful 40% off coupons we all love to use…but is just a general idea of cost, for comparison purposes.

Here is what I did:



I cut a 4 ¼” X 5 ½” piece of release paper (remember, we are keeping these from used office labels and such)



I placed small blobs of Aileen’s Tack It Over & Over in rows on the sheet (36 blobs in all)



I very carefully (and with a bit of frustration) dropped a small rhinestone into each blob. I used a variety of rhinestone sizes.



Now be sure the blobs are VERY small…my first sample row was a bit too large. The glue does dry clear, but the rhinestones don’t set as nice if the glue blob is too big.



And let it dry…



And, it worked! The rhinestones came off of the release paper with no troubles and adhered to my project like a charm!





So was the experiment worth it? Here is the tally:

Cost: I had the Tack It Over & Over and on hand ($0), I fished the release paper from the garbage can ($0), the package of rhinestones was $4.99 for 840 pieces making my per piece price $0.006 (or the sheet of 36, $0.22)

Cats Annoyed: 0 (I must be doing something wrong…why aren’t they hovering around me?)

Time: This is a bit hard to quantify…the blob placing is pretty quick, drying…well a few hours. The longest (and most frustrating part) was getting all the little itty-bitty rhinestones face-up so I could ‘just drop’ them into the glue…argh! Patience is definitely needed here!

Skill Level: intermediate (not too complicated, but patience and a steady hand are a must)

So there it is, homemade bling! Easy Peasy…and Cheap! Cheap!