imagine crafts

Imagine That: Coffee or Cocktails

In The Studio

Today I have a two-fer to share with you–one project here and another, using the same stamp set and theme, over on the Image blog.

Waffle Flower was kind enough to share some products with the Imagine Artists in Residence this month and you know how much I love Waffle Flower for their cute monkey stamps, right? For these projects, though, I used the Currently Drinking mini stamps that are part of their planner series.

For Imagine I used the wine and cocktail-themed stamps in the set to create a scattered, embossed background for a fun card perfect for a bachelorette bar crawl or a girl’s night out.

Not to be left out, the coffee and tea images also in the set were perfect for a bracelet when used with shrink plastic and a few jewelry tools. Check out the video, below, of just how easy this bracelet came together.

Here’s what I used to create this bracelet (amazon links, below, are affiliate links–thank you for supporting this blog!)

Imagine Supplies

Waffle Flower Supplies

Other Supplies

Imagine That: Anything But Cardstock Art Journal Seascape

In The Studio

While I haven’t managed an art journal page every week the way I’d planned, I haven’t completely forgotten about the project, either. The “Anything But Cardstock” challenge this month seemed like a great reason to pull the journal out and create something!

While my art journal layouts do not routinely use cardstock to begin with, in the spirit of the challenge, I avoided all paper other than what was already in the journal. My major supply, then, were wet wipes that I’d used to clean up from previous stamping projects and then let dry. They end up being this stretchable, tearable, art-able fabric that can be very fun to play with.

Make sure you head over to Imagine’s blog to see how I “painted” with these leftovers and maybe you won’t look at trash the same way again!

Imagine That: Summer Citrus Card

In The Studio

I don’t always look forward to summer, but when I do, it’s because there’s good food and fun to be had.

We’ve been working out in the yard a bit lately–planting flowers and clearing the way for some bigger projects to come (driveway! fence! deck!). And at the end of a day outside, there’s little that’s as refreshing as a tall glass of ice-cold lemonade.

When you can’t share a glass in person, send a cute card like this one, complete with a liquid-looking inside to your lemonade pitcher.

The liquidy center was inspired by those baby bottle toys we had as kids–the ones where the liquid looked like it disappeared as you tipped it up?–and it gave me the opportunity to dig out my woodburning tool to combine with the diecuts to make it work. You can do the same, most like, with a Fuse tool or similar.

The video play-by-play and the full supply list can be found over on the Imagine blog.

Imagine That: Tangerine Mums Card

In The Studio

I can’t tell you how often I’ve set out to make a single-layer card only to end up trimming it down to make it into a panel and matting it onto something else before being happy with it. It’s been a lot, of that I’m sure, and it’s pretty dog-gone frustrating!

I am happy to report, however, that I have broken this unlucky streak and, really, once I realized how I managed it, I’m kinda kicking myself for not trying this before.

What it all boiled down to were three basic rules of design and composition:

  1. Repetition (the same stamped shapes repeated throughout the image)
  2. Limited color palette (dark, medium, and light of the same color family–in this case tangerine/orange)
  3. Balance of positive and negative space (leaving one area blank to offset the busyness of another)

The diagonal line I created with the flowers helped too, and by playing with the mix of color and texture within the repetitive shape I kept the card interesting.

You can see exactly how this card came about–including video!–over on the Imagine blog today!

Scrap With Me: CSI Case File #231

In The Studio

http://csichallenge.blogspot.com/

Imagine teamed up with CSI: Color, Stories, Inspiration to solve their June 1st Case File. I used to participate with CSI as a digiscrapper, but it’s been a few years since I was last on that site. And now, as part of the Imagine team, I needed to drag out my old school supplies to go back to basics for a traditional scrapbook layout!

Case #231 is super hero-themed, and it just so happens that the 2017 Rose Parade was also super hero-themed, and we had Duncan with us, so I had perfect pictures for this assignment.

The fun twist to the CSI challenges is that it’s more than merely a sketch and/or color scheme (though that’s part of it). To solve the case you have to use at least three pieces of “evidence” (that would be elements or supplies) and give appropriate “testimony” (aka journaling, and they give you prompts to choose from).

As per my usual these days, I ran video for this layout (considering how long it’s been since I’ve done a physical scrapbook page, this is right up there with historical documents!). Take a gander to see how I planned out the page and put the various pieces together.

The supplies in my CSI kit were:
Imagine Supplies:

Other Supplies:

  • Paper: khaki, red, white, yellow chevron (DCWV)
  • Stamps: Geek is Chic (My Favorite Things), Woofers & Tweeters (Paper Smooches), Make a Wish (Studio Calico), Speech Bubble (unknown), Clickable Typewriter Alphabet (Contact USA, I think…), Foam Stamps (Making Memories)
  • Paint Brush
  • White Gelly Roll Pen (Sakura)
  • Embellishments: Star brads (unknown), Epoxy brads & Camera clip (Paper Studio), Metal letter brads (JoAnn Scrap Essentials), Ribbon and Twine (Dollar Tree?), Wooden starburst (Michaels?)
    Adhesives: Create a Sticker 150 (Xyron), Tape runner (Home & Hobby)
  • Cutters: Scissors & Paper Trimmer (Fiskars), Craft Knife (Xacto)
  • Upholstery Needle
  • Adhesive Pick-Up Block
  • Acrylic Block
  • Bone Folder