Monday, February 28, 2011

Sakura Design Team!

I am SO excited to share this news with everyone!

I have been selected to be a part of the first Sakura Design Team!  Starting in March,
 look for some awesome and inspiring projects posted on their blog - http://www.crystallacquer.blogspot.com/ - posted by myself, Heather Morrow, Chelsea Povall (yes, both of these ladies are part of our KatScrap Studio team!), Jennifer Van Pelt, Carol Lassak, Cheryl Lindsay and our Design Team Leader, Terri Sproul 

Also, you can follow us on Facebook at Sakura Hobby Crafts - make sure to "Like" the page as well!

Karen

Tuesday, February 15, 2011

She Loved Life Anyway - Distressed Tag

Here's a tag I just created accented with 3D Crystal Lacquer & 3D Colored Crystal Lacquer.  I loved the way it turned out - a little vintage & blingy!  I started with a size 8 manila tag and used Distress Inks in Old Paper, Tea Dye & Barn Door to color.  I roughed up the edges to give it a worn look & used Inkssential applicators to apply the color.  I also misted it just a tad with a mini mister to add an aged look on the distress ink and let dry.

I used Stampers Anonymous stamps from the fabulous flourishes and mini ornates sets for the images on the tag using Tea Dye Distress Ink.  I cut a heart shape from a vintage music sheet from my collection and colored it with Barn Door Distress Ink and glued "She Loved Life Anyway" that had been printed on cardstock, cut apart and distressed with Vintage Photo Distress Ink.  Now on to the wings!  Cut from a flea market find book I coated with Crystal Lacquer & sprinkled with fine glitter while wet - and set to dry.  This is the most difficult part - waiting for the Crystal Lacquer to dry!!  I'm not very patient - but the outcome is amazing.  You can see the dimension & shine when it dries and the glitter give is an extra little boost of bling!  I glued the wings under the sides of the heart using Crystal Lacquer (it's a great adhesive!) and then used my Tiny Attacher and stapled in an "X" pattern overlapping the wings and heart - a little steampunk look.

You can see the shine of the Colored Crystal Lacquer here - I just went over the stamped image lines using the brown color.  I love the way it shines and adds dimension to this element on the tag.

I wanted to try Crystal Lacquer on a few different surfaces and I really liked the way it came out on the metal flower at the top of the tag.  I just put a little puddle of the red color on each petal of a metal flower and brown on a metal brad (I sprinkled the brad with glitter).  The words on the LIVE ticket were covered with the clear Crystal Lacquer.  In this photo, you can also see the sparkle of the glitter on the wings - pretty!

A Bonus!
Once I started working with the colored Crystal Lacquer - I couldn't stop!  I made this double paper flower (I used 2 scalloped circles of dictionary pages) and was going to originally use it for my tag.  I wanted to see what the crystal lacquer would look like if I covered the entire flower ( I used red) and as you can see - it turned out awesome!  It's shiny and vibrant and pretty sturdy from the coating of the lacquer.  I used a vantage pearl button for the center.  I love it!  It could be a great addition to a scrapbook page or card, or a pin back could be glued on the back to make a pin or even put on a headband!  I haven't decided what I'm going to do with it yet.  I do know the most important thing is to be patient and let it dry!  I had worked on my project in the evening and just let it sit overnight.  In the morning - it was ready to go and I could continue working.

I hope you enjoyed reading about my project.  I had a great time working with the Crystal Lacquer products and will continue to experiment with the.!  If you would like more info - just use these links to learn more!



Karen

Sunday, February 13, 2011

Happy Valentine's Day!

Here's a little pocket album that I made today.  For those of you Tim Holtz fans out there, he shared this project yesterday on his blog.  It's created with one little sheet of 12 x 12 scrapbook paper, has 6 pages and 3 secret pockets - amazing!  I had never seen this book before, and was really excited to try it.  Hope my sweetie likes it :)







                                               Happy Valentine's Day!