Frugal Friday: Home Made Transparencies

I decided to join in the fun of another year doing the Ali Edwards December Daily album…I enjoyed it last year and am really looking forward to this year’s mini album. After looking at Ali’s instructions for getting the foundation of the mini album together I saw that she used a lot of transparencies. I don’t have any of these…so I whipped out the Michael’s coupon and took a trip down to the store. Well for $2 a 12X12 sheet, and I needed about 12 sheets….that was really gonna add up! Not to mention, the selection of transparencies was pretty slim….what is a cheap girl to do?


No question….break out that old box of transparency film I bought about a hundred years ago and get to making my own.

I only had about 5 sheets left in the box, which originally had 50…so you can imagine how long I have had this! I tried two different approaches to making my transparencies.

First, I opened up the program Print Shop on my computer, but MS Word would work just as well, and imported all the Christmas themed images I could find. Truth be told, all the images came with the Print Shop software…and if you can get your hands on it I recommend it…it is really easy to use and comes with oodles of copyright free images!

And then simply printed out the sheets! Too easy!




Secondly, I felt like I wanted some transparencies that just had one overall pattern…so I broke out the Staz-On inks and my Christmas themed stamps. First I cut the 8 1/2” X 11” sheets in half, since this would eventually be the size of my mini album.


I inked up my stamp…


Placed it on the rough side of the transparency…be sure to resist the urge to “wiggle” the stamp at all so that the image doesn’t smudge…and them lift straight up…


I started with my biggest snowflake stamp and then moved down the line to my smallest filling in all of the area.


I played around with a few other stamps and ideas and came up with these transparencies…
So in the end, they aren’t quite like say a good Hambly transparency, but for the price they will work and I had a lot of fun playing around with them!


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

Cost: $0 (again, I had everything on hand…but a box of transparencies run about $25 to $35 for a box of 50)
Fun Factor: This was pretty neat!
Time: Varied, but not too long.
Skill Level: Intermediate (a steady hand is a must)

So there it is, Home Made Transparencies! Easy Peasy…and Cheap! Cheap!

Frugal Friday: Mini Album

Okay, for this week I am going to do something different...actually something I didn't think I would do...that is, post a link to someoneelse's tutorial. But the more I contemplated my schedule (hectic) and the more I watched the video (totally cool), I realized I needed to be frugal with my time (if that makes sense) and just let you all see this awesome tutorial.

This crafter, Laura at The Paper Trail, is my new guru for recycled crafting and found object scrapping. She is the queen of frugal!

Her mini album is made from nothing but found objects, recycled bits and baubles (including plastic grocery store bags!) and a bit from her stash!

I watched the video a couple of times, and am completely amazed at how lovely her "Happiness Found" album looks!

I compiled a list of all the found/recycled objects, and can you believe it, there are 14 different things!

Here's the list:
corrugated cardboard
scrap paper
plastic grocery bags
bread tabs
UPC code from FedEx package
old floral arrangement
blue jeans tags
twist-ties
tin can lid
pop can tab
Capri Sun juice pouch
fortune cookie fortunes
library card pockets
concentrated orange juice top

This is the link to the video 'walk-thru' of the mini album

And this is the link to the video about the plastic pages...so awesome!

It inspires me to try something similar...just walk through the house and see what I can find to use in a mini!

Frugal Friday: Home Made Holiday Envelopes - Part 2

This week I am going to show you part two of making your own holiday envelopes, lick & stick glue.

The recipe is pretty simple, gather up your ingredients:


Homemade Holiday Envelopes
Small Paintbrush
White Vinegar
Unflavored Gelatin
Flavored Extract (optional)

In a small saucepan, bring 6 tablespoons of vinegar to a boil, then reduce the heat to low.


Add four packets of unflavored gelatin to the vinegar, and stir until the gelatin is dissolved. The smell is pretty strong and vinegary…do not inhale, in fact I turned on my stove fan to suck up as much of the smell as I could.


Remove the pan from the heat and add a tablespoon of flavored extract, if desired. Mix well.

Determine the overlap of your homemade envelope. If you are using the .pdf I designed, the overlap is approximately ½ inch.

Using a small paint brush, apply a strip of the glue to the top edge of the envelope flap and let dry.




When you are ready to use the envelope, simple lick (or otherwise lightly wet) the glue and seal….simple!

You can store the left-over glue in a small container. When the glue has cooled, it will be thick and semi-firm….to use it again, simple heat the container in a small bowl of warm water. Do not add water to the glue to thin it out.


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

Cost: I had a bit of trouble finding the unflavored gelatin, but a box of 32 packets (way more than I needed) was $9. Otherwise, the other ingredients were in my kitchen cabinets.
Time: The cooking part of making the glue only took a couple of minutes. Applying the glue to 23 envelopes…another five minutes.
Skill Level: basic

There you have it, Lick and Stick Glue…easy peasy and cheap cheap!

Frugal Friday: Home Made Holiday Envelopes - Part 1

Like I said last week…I am really in the mood to start my Halloween projects.

This week I am going to show you part one of making your own holiday envelopes.

This is a link to the .pdf of the envelope I used in this tutorial, but I wasn’t completely happy with it…so I fidgeted on my computer last night and made my own version (.jpg version and .pdf version), which I think works a bit better. And then I went a bit further and converted the image to .gsd, for anyone using a Silhouette die-cutting machine.

First I gathered up a bunch of Halloween and Halloween colored papers and trimmed them all to 81/2” X 11”, so they will print on my desktop printer.

I printed the .pdf of the envelope onto the white side of the papers, or if it was a double-sided paper, onto the lighter side.

I trimmed out all the envelopes…by hand…all 23 of them! Which is why I made a .gsd version for making my Christmas envelopes!

I scored and folded them on the printed score line (light gray).

If you can’t see the score line on the patterned paper, it is fairly obvious where the fold needs to go…simply fold in all the ‘tab’ parts.

I placed a double-sided adhesive, 3M Scotch Brand, on the bottom ‘tab’, lining up the edge of the tape with the paper.

And folded the bottom up adhering it to the two side ‘tabs’. Super simple!

Since I used heavily patterned paper for my envelopes, I added a mailing label on the outside…

And decorated them with some Halloween themed stamps.

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

Cost: I used a bunch of papers I had on hand, all were 12X12 cut down to 8 1/2X11…and I kept the scraps to use for the matching cards.

Time: I spent close to two and a half hours….but I got 23 envelopes made.

Skill Level: super basic

There you have it, Homemade Holiday Envelopes…easy peasy and cheap cheap!

And be sure to come back next week and check out the final step for your homemade envelopes…lick & stick glue!

Frugal Friday: Glittered Embellishments

I am so very in the mood for Halloween. It is one holiday that just screams for sparkles and bling! And what can I say…I love green and orange!

I have been scouting out all the new glittered Halloween embellishments online and in the stores, like these from Making Memories and Doodlebug Designs…



And wanted to try to make some for myself…so I gathered up the following:

Glitter, flocking powder and glittering tray (although generally, I just use a piece of scratch paper)



My handy 5” Xyron and my Xyron X



An assortment of die-cuts I cut using my Silhouette machine.



Run the die cuts through the Xyron, making sure the side you want to be glittered is face down (in a lot of cases this won’t be an issue, but it is a must to remember if you are glittering letters or stack-able shapes)



Remove the die cut from the release paper



If there are lots of glue ‘webs’ simply remove them. I use my awl to pull them away from the shape.



Then shake the glitter on top of the sticky side…after applying the glitter, I usually tap off the excess and them smoosh the shape back into the glitter to make sure everything is covered.



And finally spray a sealer over the top of the shape, I use Aileen’s Matte Sealer, to ensure the glitter stays where it is needed and doesn’t flake off onto your hands…and counter…and floor…and clothes…and cats…sigh!



I also tried this with some stack-able shapes.



I ran the bottom piece through the Xyron...



And adhered the top piece.



You can see the cut out areas that are left are perfect for glittering.



Apply the glitter…



Keep away from cats…



And remember to spray with the sealer after you glitter…aren’t these fun!



Here is a stack-able howling wolf die cut. First I sprayed my moon with some Glimmer Mist and homemade Shimmer pray…but the sparkle wasn't enough...



So I placed the moon face down in the Xyron…



And added glitter.



As you can see, the Xyron doesn’t always cover the die cuts perfectly. You have two options here…leave as is, which for my moon looked pretty good or go back into the shape with a liquid glue pen and fill in the missing spots. Whatever you do, do not run the glittered shape back through the Xyron…it just doesn’t work, trust me!

I also tried this technique with flocking powder on the body of my sheep die cut, and it worked pretty well…flock is odd though, and I never seem to get really good coverage…but it basically worked. (I flocked the ears using a glue pen, not the Xyron)



And one final trick to try, combine two colors of glitter or glitter and flock on the same shape…just remember to keep the areas not being glittered covered with the release paper.







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

Cost: $0...I had everything on hand..and finally I feel better about using all the glitter I bought over a year ago!
Mess Factor: Pretty high! And a word of warning…glue, glitter and kittens do not mix!
Time: I spent a fair amount of time doing this…including the clean-up..about 2 hours to cut and glitter the spiders, the witches feet, the flocked sheep, the howling wolf and the angel phrase.
Skill Level: basic

There you have it, Glittered Embellishments…easy peasy and cheap cheap!