Themes, layouts and inspirations
Do you make any of these mistakes? I’m really not a fan of articles or sites that try to make us feel like we’re doing it all wrong, but in this video Sandy explains what she sees are three mindsets that hold paper crafters back from making art they truly love. I especially agree with the last two! What do you think?
Niella used the Color Me Crafty collection from Doodlebug to create this adorable crafty themed mini album. The cover and each page are shaped like giant tickets and there’s a disc binding on the edges and fun dangling charm hanging on the spine. The cover has a cute stack of Polaroids accent and a layered scalloped border with button pattern paper.
Inside she used more crafty pattern papers, embellishments, stickers, cardstock, puffy words and more to designs wonderful pages that have lots of room for crafty photos and journaling.
There’s even a pocket to tuck in mementos and ephemera. I love the color scheme of this collection, it’s so bright and cheerful! This little album project is perfect for all your memories of going to scrapbooking classes, crops, conventions, retreats, hanging out crafting with friends or pics of your craft room.
Visit the Doodlebug blog to learn more about this project and watch a flip through video.
-Heather
I am so glad you brought up good tools. My grandmother taught me to knit and crochet when I was 11. Knitting didn’t make sense to me but crochet did. Over the next 40 years I kept picking up and laying down my efforts though because I would get frustrated. Nothing turned out like the picture. One problem I learned when I tried this last time beginning in 2014 was that I was strangling my yarn but the other big lessons were 1) I was using bad yarn and 2) I was using cheap hooks. When I had to pick up a new F on the way to visit family in VT, we made a stop at WEBS. They only sell good tools. I bought my first addi hook and discovered what a great tool it was. I came home, went online and bought the full set for $65. When I decided to try knitting one more time last year, I started with one of the old pairs of Bates needles I had and quickly understood part of the problem…the finish on the needles is terrible and grabs the yarn. So I invested in my first set of Knitters Pride. They were acrylic and also stuck to the yarn. Over the next 12 or so months I have bought KP steel needles and rosewoods in circulars and straights. Now I love knitting and I am learning which yarns and needles work best together. I still use my steel addi hooks but so far they work well with all kinds of yarns. I do have to resort to acrylics for crocheting bulky weights when I need anything larger than a K but because I have the basic mechanics down now I can “make it work”. By the way, I’m also a papercrafter and have learned this lesson in that art also.
Thanks again.
Thanks for sharing your story Kathleen. You are so right, proper tools and supplies are very important. I also knit and crochet (check my personal blog http://www.callalosoup.com/crafts) and this past year I got rid of all the cheap yarn I had, and now only use good quality stuff. I’m slowly doing the same with my hooks and needles.