StazOn remover - No need to buy a special one!

I was recently stamping with black StazOn and of course stained my acrylic bloc quite a bit. However, I resisted to buy a special StazOn cleaner 'cause I cleaned my stamps almost immediately with a baby tissue and they were perfectly clean. If I didn't clean the bloc , it would stain, though. So today I tried my nail polish remover to clean the acrylic bloc. Guess what... it is crystal clear in a few seconds! So the lesson I learnt today is that I should try and find a solution to the scrapbooking issues instead of just buying stuff from the store, no matter how tempting it is! The scrapbooking market nowadays offers so many gadget, tools, embelishments and so on which are in fact not necessary - you can in most cases do without them. and doesn't it take away a pleasure from scrapbooking when you use the ready made stickers or use composters instead of making those things on your own? For me it does !That's why I'm trying to make better choices when in a scrapbook store - buy what you cannot do without (paper, paints) or what you can use multiple times (stamps and inks). After all, scrapbooking is a huge business for some people, and I just want to enjoy my hobby without over consumption..

Love is... comic strip to use in scrapbooking

Love is... comic strip can be great in scrapbook layouts. I have plenty of black and white pictures with these cute little guys :) Here are some of my favourite ones

Eating in and Out Layout

Here's my latest layout :) It's pretty simple but took me quite a while as I was drawing and cutting and embossing the letters myself.. A cute pair of silverware (plastic, from a doll's set) is attached to the letter G. The tag is movable and there s an old grandma's button on the edge of it. That's it for now - next scrapping not earlier than next weekend :(

First heat embossing experience

I got the heat gun today and decided to emboss the journaling on the wooden frame. wow, so exciting!!! I think it s certainly a must-have tool for scrapbookers- gives an incredible results in just 30 seconds!

Wooden photo frame decorated

Today I finished decorating the wooden picture frame that I bought in a craft store. It wasn't painted so I chose white acrylic paint ( tw0-three layers were needed). The roof was covered with a gift wrapping paper and to the sides of the house I glued glittered cardstock. Also, I had to cut out the pics and put them against pink and blue backgrounds because the original backgrounds didn't fit to the the style of the frame. To decorate the little apple on top of the house, I put a pink mat behind it . It is also a journaling space :) The cardstock that I used was not long enough so you can actually see where one piece meets the other.. In order to hide it a bit, I dry embossed little birds on white glossy paper, cut them out and glued them on the border of two pieces. The little pink flower in the lower window is actually an earring which I put on a small chain and fixed it behind the pictrue. And finally, I tied a red heart with a key which I found in a Moscow jewelry store some years ago. So that's it, I'm pretty happy with the look of the frame. Maybe I 'll try to emboss the letters in the apple, but I need the embossing tools for this :)

Envelope template

In my first post on this blog I'd like to share cool templates (click here) for perfect-shaped envelopes. The original template is plastic, but you can make one from cardstock - it should work just fine! The size of the envelopes will be 12x8 and 8x6 cm . All you have to do is to trace it, score the lines on the sides, cut it off and glue it together. I have 2 larger templates as well (22x10 and 17x12 cm), but they don't fit on A4 paper. So in case anybody needs those, let me know!

Happy scrapping!