Cosmo Cricket

DIY Easy Gift Bag

The results of my 9th grade aptitude test came with a suggestion for possible career choices. These included:
Mechanic Every 14 year old girl's dream. "Hey Eric, can you bring me the washi tape, I need to re-attach a hub-cap." 
Mover Yes that is a job choice. Although I can squeeze as much into a box as anyone except Mary Poppins, my weak little arms can't ever lift them afterward.
Home Organizer This one is just so funny I needn't say more!

With this selection, what is a girl with great Spatial Reasoning scores to do? Well, it just so happens that being able to organize shapes is handy as a designer and being able to fold up little drawings in your mind and know what they'll look like makes creating packaging much, much easier. Funny though, artist/designer was never suggested.

Lucky for me, I found my calling and with my mental box folding skills in mind, today I'll show you some of my tricks for making your very own gift bag.

You will need two pieces of 12" cardstock. I used my favorite print from Evangeline. To begin, you will need to score your cardstock. I used a scoring board, but if you don't have one you can simply use a ruler and the BACKSIDE of a craft knife.

Score both sheets of paper at 3" and at 9".


Next, you'll turn your paper 90 degrees and score at the 10" mark. Do this to both sheets.

Use a craft knife to cut along the folds below the 10" score line. Then go back with your knife and eyeball 1/4" away from the 10" score line and cut away a slightly angled sliver from either side of your first cut (in the photo I still need to do this on the outer edges). This will make your bag fold look crist and neat, like it was store bought.

On the second sheet, you will cut off the two smaller sections. It will look like this.

It's almost time to glue it together, but first we want to make our top border. Trim off 1" from the top of your bag.

Cut it apart on the fold lines too. (The yellow print is on the backside of my cardstock.)

Now, we can glue it all together. Start by putting adhesive on the side panels as shown. 

Adhere this to the other half. Then glue together the bottom. If you are putting something heavy in your bag, you may want to cut a 3" x 6" rectangle to adhere over the bottom as reinforcement. 

Add your border. If you like, make a tissue paper ruffle.

Punch some holes in the top and add a ribbon handle. I also made a fun tag using the Baby Jane Element Deck and Chipboard.

Tomorrow we'll feature another Thrifty Thursday. Drop by to see what we do with these books we picked up at a yard sale for $1 a piece!



 

Six Layouts, One Tutorial, Tons of Inspiration!

Good morning everyone!

My friends over at Memorable Seasons sent me some awesome inspiration to share with you all. If you've been looking for pages featuring our new lines, then this post is for you.

Let's start with a little somethin', somethin' from Wendy Antenucci. She used Tea for Two with some vintage photos to document her ancestors. What I love about Tea for Two is that this line can take on soooooo many different looks!

Next up, we have the fabulous scrapbook stylings of Joni Parker. She used Baby Jane for her boy layouts... which I think is awesome!





And if it weren't for the lovely Audrey Yeagar, I wouldn't have had any of these layouts to share. Give her a big thanks for sending them to me! It's too funny too, because I had spotted one of her Twenty-Three layouts and pinned it just the week earlier. Don't you love how many photos she has on each one of these?

 

Now, I promised you more sewing paper tutorials right. Well, today I'll teach you how to adhere sewing paper with a perfectly wrinkled effect. Then tomorrow, I'll teach you all just how to make that wonderful gift bag we showed last Thursday.

To mute a background pattern, create an interesting texture to paint or collage over, or to make fun, wrinkly embellishments take your sewing pattern paper (or any tissue paper) and wrinkle it up in your hands. Then you'll need some plastic cling wrap. Generic works great!

If you're making a background for a scrapbook layout, cut your cling wrap slightly smaller than your tissue paper. You don't have to be too exact, because you can just roll or push any exposed cling wrap under the tissue without a problem. If you are making a background texture to paint over, cut the plastic wrap large enough to cover the whole surface. 

Sandwich your cling wrap between your cardstock and tissue paper. Then, using a hot iron, without steam, press the tissue paper until the plastic melts gluing it to the cardstock. It will look like this. Imagine if you punched this into hearts for embellishments. I can't wait to try that!

Remember how I said to keep the plastic wrap smaller than the tissue. Well that is so the edges can be made more dimensional (and so you don't get melted plastic on your iron).

Take your loose edges and ruffle them a bit using adhesive to hold them. It's optional, and subtle, but you can see the difference in the above v. below photos.

Then you are free to create on top of your newly wrinkled background. Isn't that so fun!!!

Oh, and just in case you were wondering about the flower. I cut a 2" strip of sewing pattern paper, crumpled it up and folded it in half. Then I used our ruffly rose Gluber technique. After it was made, I spritzed the whole thing with a tiny bit of water so that when I added my watercolor to it it would bleed into the paper nicely. (I love crayola watercolors, with a nice brush.)



Now go and create, what are you waiting for!!! Then check back here tomorrow to see our next thrifty item to add to your crafting and our tutorial for this gift bag.

Challenge Monday: Banners, Buntings, Oh My!

Before we get to this week's challenge, let's take a look at what you all did last week and congratulate our lucky random winner: Janet Lebeau. To try and become a lucky, random winner yourself, please read on!

Nikki Blair pulled out some Garden Variety from our winter release in 2010. It's still fun, bright and perfect for spring.

Jan Garber went all the way back to our first-ever Cosmo Cricket release. This is Storytime from 2006. I can't tell you how in love I was with that sky paper when it came out. It's great to see it again!

Mandi used our second most popular line ever, Early Bird from 2009. (Our most popular line ever to date is Wanted.) Don't you love the randomness of this!

Lisa Sumpter made a card with Twenty-Three from 2012. Wait just a second, how can something from 2012 be in our "Somethine Old" challenge? Well, those chipboard pieces on the front are from so long ago that she can't even remember when she got them. Way to use them up Lisa!

I don't think KimberlyRae Ford even knows about our challenge, but she posted this project to our facebook fan page and it's so cute that I wanted to share it with you. She used Material Girl from 2010.

Janet Lebeau used a spinner card from 2009 (I think). I wish I still had some of these, they were so fun, especiall for making album covers with.

Patricia Moussatche posted this double page layout to our fanpage lamenting the fact that she was a week behind on our element challenge. Well, what she didn't know is that she was right on time with our Something Old challenge using Snorkel from 2009.

Lowri McNabb used Circa 1934 from 2010. It's a little over a year old, but her take on it is so fabulous!

Irit Shalom pulled out our third most popular line ever Mr. Campy from 2008. I think part of this is a digital layout (it's the paint spots that are giving me that feel). If true, this would be our first digi-scrap challenge entry ever.


Kayla Dupont used Salt Air from 2011. Doesn't she look fabulous in that photo? I guess a cruise is what I really need!

My sister-in-law Tami Comstock used a layout featuring Haunted from 2008. Not only is the product from a few years back, the layout kind of is too. Tami started it when Haunted first came out and got inspired to finish it up for this challenge by adding last year's Jack-O-Lantern photos.... although I noticed she still has some journaling to do.

If you weren't inspired to use up some of your older projects with this challenge, may I suggest another idea. Get together with some of your friends to exchange your oldies. It's amazing how someone else can have a vision for something you just don't see yourself using... besides it's super fun to have a scrap-swap party!

For this week's challenge, let's use some banners. They've been a trend for quite a while now. Make them for titles on layouts, embellishements on cards, out of paper or fabric for your home, etc. Show us your ideas. Inspire us with your talents.

Simply create a project featuring a banner or bunting, take a pic, put said pic on the internet and post a link to it in the comments on this blog post. You can also post it to our fanpage or email it to me directly julie at cosmocricket dot com. Whatever option you choose please, oh pretty please, put Banners and Buntings challenge in the subject line or description so I can find it. On that note, if I ever forget a project please let me know ASAP so that I can correct myself!

Thanks, you guys are the best!!!

We will play this week for a Baby Jane mini deck and stacked stickers. (As always it will be a random winner.) Good luck everyone!

Three Tea for Two Cards

This unexpected Saturday blog entry was made possible by the lovely Tracie Clairborne. Tracie sent me the following cards and they are so cute that I just had to share them with you all.

She used our Tea for Two Mini Deck to make each of these. She was on a roll and actually created 12 of each design, for a total of 36 cards, from the one deck. She now has plenty of cards on hand for short notice. I wish I were so organized!








To see more of Tracie's work, check out her blog, My Happy Life. Hey, we all love our blog traffic right!

Have a beautiful weekend my friends.

How to Create Pieced-Paper, Mixed-Media Collage

I love making these type of projects. They are deceptively easy to do, but don't worry, we won't tell your friends. 

Today I'll show you exactly how to make the flower vase collage, but the techniques for all of them are mostly the same. And, if you have any questions about anything, just ask!

To start, I needed a flower. I used my sewing pattern tissue paper, cutting a 1.5" strip and ruffling it onto a 1" Gluber starting from the outside edge and working in. (Ignore the big flower, it is not used in this project.)

For my "canvas" I am using a 2" by 7" scrap of wood. I used Gesso to cover it. Then I gathered my supplies. I do this just by focusing on colors. I picked out a green background and varying shades of yellows, looking for lights and darks. This is a great project for scraps!

Once your gesso-ed wood is dry, trace it onto a piece of type paper. We'll design our collage right on the type paper and use it for our template too.

I purposely wanted my vase to be a bit "skiwampus" so that it would have more visual interest and a folk art feel. Once you're happy with the drawing of your shape (hearts, butterflies, etc are all easy things to start with) cut it out.

Next, take your papers, cut scraps and stick them to the paper until it's covered. I put lights on one side and darks on the other to create an illusion of shading. I'll enhance the shading with Distress Inks later on.

It's completely optional, but you can stitch the seems if you like. I think it's cute, but I don't always take the time to do this.

Then just flip everything over and trim the excess.

Now you want to think about the background that your pieced shape will sit upon. I tore a piece of green patterned cardstock and used Liquitex Acrylic medium to glue it down. To do this, just paint it onto the backside of the paper, press that to your surface and then paint over the top too.

On a separate note, this medium is what I use to seal paper before painting on top of it. If you've ever tried to paint on paper and haven't been happy with the results give it a try!

Distress your background by sanding off any edges you don't want and layering up coats of ink to make everything good and dirty.

With the background finished, it's time to add our pieced vase. I used the same technique for this as I did for the background. The Liquitex will hold all the loose threads and everything. It's super-awesome! Use more Distress Ink to add any shading or antiquing that you think your piece needs.

Then you'll need to paint a stem. I used a dab of acrylic craft paint. Don't be afraid here, we are only talking about a simple 1/2" line. You can do it! If you're super afraid and you don't mind a black stem, just use a pen.

Then peel and stick your Gluber flower in place. I also added one of our new Tiny Text stickers because I like sentiments! I coated those with Liquitex too for the brushed texture that looks so nice with a little more Distress Ink over the top.

That's all there is to it! If you decide to give this a try, send us a pic or post to our facebook fan page. We'd love to see your projects!

 

Thrifty Thursday: The Awesomeness of Sewing Pattern Paper

Today, for Thrift Thursday, we'll go from this, a 25¢ sewing pattern found at my thrift store (and yes, I really did sew that top in peach striped fabric for my seventh grade sewing class.):

To these, and I won't be running out of tissue paper anytime soon!





I have to tell you, after making these projects, I am even more in love with sewing pattern tissue paper than I thought I would ever be! Let's discuss just some of the fun stuff you can do with it should we?

Using a 1" Gluber and a strip of our paper, I made this pretty little flower in a matter of minutes. This is so easy and the tissue paper ruffles in the loveliest way!

In fact, I loved it so much I wanted to make a big flower too. I used a 2" Gluber for this one. I wanted to change the color, but my spritzing inks are packed up at the moment. I improvised with watercolor.

Do you ever have trouble designing over busier patterns? Sometimes I do because if the background is busy, it seems to compete too much with the photo. Well, a great technique is to use sewing tissue paper to mute the backgroud design. (Don't worry, I'll be teaching step by steps of all these projects in the next couple days).

For the gift box, I used some tissue paper ruffles to dress up the top. They are much easier to work with than paper ruffles and are light and airy which I really love! I also love that for 25¢ I got enough tissue paper to stuff dozens of gift bags. I think it's especially perfect for giving crafty gifts to crafty friends!

On the tag to go with my new bag, I used the tissue paper to make my apron skirt. This is just another ruffle made with a much wider strip.

If you like these projects, stay tuned. I took step by step photos as I made each one and I'll be teaching you exactly how to do them yourselves. We'll start tomorrow with my flower vase collage. Out of all the projects, it's my personal favorite. I think it would make a perfect Mother's Day gift, don't you?

Julie at the Thrift Store

Join us tomorrow for Thrifty Thursday to see what we do with today's thrift store finds.

The sewing pattern cost a total of 25¢! Can you believe that. There is a ton of tissue paper in one pattern so that is quite the deal. And those letters... sometimes I can't believe my luck. It's true, I will only be able to spell a few words, but matrices are cool and the box itself is awesome! I have an idea for it too, but for tomorrow we'll focus on the sewing pattern. Be sure to check back!

 

Challenge Monday

I was going to get a project done over the weekend to join the fabulous projects below, but alas, Eric woke up Saturday with his knee locked at about 80 degrees and couldn't walk. Do you know how much more work a stuck in bed man is than an out and about man?

We are waiting for a donor femur part (that sounds better than donor bone, which I always mix up and say bonor done by accident) to fix Eric's knee. It's been about 5 weeks, but at 6' 6" a femur the right size is hard to come by. Cross your fingers that he gets one soon!

Ok, now onto your projects. I have to hurry before the man upstairs is calling my name again.

Lisa Sumpter used Twenty-Three and the new Element Deck on this cute greeting card. Don't  you love the stitched x's?!?!?

Hold on Eric, I'll be right there......

Next up, Laura made a fun garden layout with Early Bird. I just noticed some flowers on my strawberry plants and I'm super excited!


Cynthia B. shared a great card using Circa 1934 on her flicker page. It is right's protected and I can't share it here, so follow the link to see it.

Almost done Eric. I'm hurrying!

I love this layout by Janet Lebeau. The vintage photo is perfect with Social Club. What a handsome guy.

Irit Shalom did another fabulous layout this week, this time featuring Garden Variety. I am seeing a trend here with the stitched x's.

 Savi Ostrozny made this hip layout about herself using a new element tag from Twenty Three and some of the labels from one of the papers Eric designed. Isn't this a fun one!

 Another great layout comes to us from Monique Liedtke. Tea for Two is perfect for this one.

One more second Eric.... really.... I promise!

Lowri McNabb couldn't get a project done in time for the challenge, but one from the past is a great example of using element cards. I wanted to share it with you all just for inpsiration.

This week, it's spring clean time! Don't worry, I'm not going to make you clean out your stash. Instead, you just have to find on really old item. Something you loved enough to buy, but now that it has sat for years, you feel like you should just toss... except you can't because you paid cold, hard cash for it. You challenge, should you dare to take it, is to use this oldie and make it into a goodie! Come on, you can do it and you'll feel great about yourself once you have!!

Upload your projects to our facebook fanpage, anywhere else with a link in the comments here or email them to me julie at cosmocricket dot com. Please include Something Old Challenge in the subject line. Thanks!

Eric, here I come to save the day.
Don't you worry, I'm on my way.

(Please let the hospital call soon!)

Sorry, I got sidetracked with Eric and forgot our winner. Ooops!

Congratulations to Savi Ostrozny. Savi has played with us a lot and I knew she would win one of these times. Savi, send your info to julie at cosmocricket dot com and I'll see to it that you get your prize. 

I can't keep track of anything with Eric calling my name. We need a prize for next week's random winner. How about the Twenty Three papers and Stacked Stickers! OK, I think that's all. 

UPDATED AGAIN (this really isn't my day!). Izzy Anderson made these sweet cards with Tea For Two. I saw them when she posted them last week, but somehow they were lost this morning. Never fear, when I realized two were missing, I emailed Izzy and she re-sent them for us all. Thanks Izzy. They are super cute!

 

Element Inspiration: Free Sketch

We have had some great entries for our element challenge so far that I'm excited to show on Monday. If you haven't played along with us yet, I'm here to inspire you.

I personally love our elements. I use them on almost every project I do. In fact, I love them so much that sometimes I get a bit carried away. Ok, maybe more than a bit.

One of my favorite element layouts is this one I did for my Grandma.

Since I used almost an entire sheet of elements, I thought it may spark some ideas for your element projects. So, I made a sketch from it (yes, my sketches come after my layouts are made). Please enjoy!

 Have a great weekend everyone. I hope you all have fun plans!

Instant Pocket Card from Envelope

I use a lot of pre-folded card bases that come with envelopes, but I rarely use the envelopes. Do you have this problem?

Needless to say, I have stacks of card-sized envelopes sitting around. Everytime I see them, I feel a twinge of guilt for being wasteful. So, I decided to play around with one yesterday and came up with this.

(I apologize for the dark photo, but spring in Providence, Utah is less than sunny.)

I'm really excited about it for three reasons. First, it will give me a use for my envelopes, second I can put little treasures like gift certificates, movie passes, etc into the card and third it uses an element card and qualifies for our element challenge. (Don't worry, I won't enter myself into the prize drawing.)

If you would like to make one, simply fold your envelope backwards, add a rectangle of cardstock to the flap for the back of your card, decorate the front and voilà an instant pocket card.