cheers, Sandy

Hi it's Sandy with my final post for Artfull Crafts. I've had a fabulous two years on the design team and it feels bitter sweet to say good-bye. This card is created using Kaisercraft's Sweet Pea Collection to thank Liz, the rest of the team and everyone who works in the store.


I'm looking forward to the reveal of the new Design Team next month and am sure they will be providing lots of scrappy inspiration for us all.

Supplies : Kaisercraft Sweet Pea (Nifty, Sassy, Pretty), Basic Grey Candy Dots, Wycinanka Chipboards

Hi it's Sandy with a bright and bold page inspired by fashion today. I'm scrapping about a Kenzo Padogon tote that my cousin loves and base the style of my layout on Missoni knitwear which combines geometric and florals in a kaleidoscope of colours. There is also a subtle sixties vibe that I try to replicate on my page through the selection of patterns and the use of retro fonts.

Hi it's Sandy having fun with my Dear Lizzy Wild Heart paper scraps. I cut my leftover pattern paper into strips and wove them into a pair of earrings. Topped with a couple of brads and attached to earring hooks, they make one-of-a-kind gifts for friends and family.   




If you enjoy making your own paper jewellery, you might like to check out the Triangle Earring tutorial on my blog.

Hi it's Sandy playing with a large, layered flower on my card today. I layer a Kaisercraft Ribbon Rose on top of a satin peony and a Green Tara Camelia. Combining these textures gives my flower a luxurious look and ensures it becomes the center of attention.




When using a large floral embellishment on a card, here are some tips to help you achieve a balanced look. Keep the colour scheme fairly simple by going monochromatic or pairing one colour with neutrals (green with black and white in my case). Limit the use of patterns and go with a fairly small scale pattern. Introduce some geometric structure such as this Crate Paper frame or a shipping tag which will allow the organic shape of the flower to stand out.



Hope you find these cardmaking tips useful. Next week I'll be sharing a layout using more die-cut products so see you then.


Supplies : Crate Paper (DIY Shop Tags, Maggie Holmes Die-Cuts, The Pier Slide Frame, On Trend Chipboard), Kaisercraft Ribbon Rose & Teal Pearls, Green Tara Turquoise Camelia, Trinket Track Satin Peony & Acetate Butterfly

Hi it's Sandy. This year I thought I'll try to do a December Daily album. Since we celebrate this holiday in tropical Singapore, Kaisercraft's Sweet Pea Collection has the perfect combination of colours and motifs for the cover of my mini-book.


I dress up the journal card with a chipboard frame painted with Stiletto Glimmer Glam and spritzed with several coats of sparkly Iridescent Gold, Pearl and Silver Glimmer Mists. Tthe word Joy is embossed with to give it a subtle texture.  


Are you planning to do a December Daily album this year ? Liz has already started stocking Christmas collection in the store - check out Kaisercraft's Holly Bright.  

Supplies : Kaisercraft Sweet Pea Sassy, Tattered Angels  (Glimmer Mist Iridescent Gold, Pearl, Silver, Glimmer Glam Stiletto), Ranger Holographic Embossing Powder, Tsukineko Embossing Stamp Pad Clear , Wycinanka Chipboards

Hi it's Sandy posting today. This month I went out of my comfort zone, got my hands messy with some paint, ink and mist to create in a more artsy style. For my page background I stamped with Tim Holtz's Antique Linen ink onto grey cardstock using Kaisercraft Gird Stamp and Kaisercraft Script Stamp. 


Then I built up two embellished clusters : one around the photo, the other around the journaling. To link these two elements together I used chipboard film strips. You can cut your own either with the Die-namic Mini Film Strip Die or are punch it out of cardstock using the EK Film Strip Edge Punch. To add a subtle shine I gently dubbed some Brilliance Galaxy Gold ink onto my chipboard title.


To soften the page I added some textile elements around each embellishment cluster. I used the Sew Easy system to create the stitched semi-circles and then put some Das Plaster gauze around each slide frame.


The next step was splattering paint spots to tie everything together. I used a mixture of Adirondack Terracotta Acrylic and Charcoal Glimmer Mist. In the close-up you can see the more viscous nature of the paint resulted in nice round dots while the watery mist resulted in a more splotchy look.


Finally I want to share a fun idea for using washi tapes to make little dimensional embellishments for your page. Just cover plain buttons with tape, tear off the edges and use an awl to pierce the button holes. I had a lot of fun creating this layout and hope you'll be inspired to incorporate some mixed media into your next creation.

Other Supplies : Studio Calico (Atlantic Plymouth, Sundrifter Die-Cut Shapes), Crate Paper The Pier (Slide Frames, Splash), Basic Grey Basics Candy Buttons, Wycinanka chipboards

Hi it's Sandy with a colourful and graphic layout for you today. I like bold, bright colours and since we are experiencing a heatwave here in Singapore, what is better than scrap about sunshine which is one of my favourite things for this month's challenge.


I've been playful with my embellishments, including a column of assorted buttons and two misted  canvas birds - you can easily create your own using the Claudine Hellmuth Sticky Back Canvas from the store. Scatter about the page are little stamped phrases from the Dear Lizzy Lucky Charm Roller Stamp. Last, but not least, I combine two halves of the DIY Shop Clippings paper to create the sunburst backaground, highhight the radiating rays with some stitching and add a border of orange washi tape.

Wishing everyone lots of fun scrapping and making cards about your favourite things.

Supplies : Crate Paper DIY Shop Clippings, American Crafts Lucky Charm (Roller Phrase Stamp, Falling Star),  LYB Naturals Birds Canvas Sticker, We R Memory Keepers Variegated floss, washi tape, assorted buttons, cardstock,

Hi, it's Sandy with a tutorial on using a visual triangle in card design. This design principle helps me decide where to place various elements like the sentiment and the embellishments. It also guides the viewer  instinctively along the path connecting the three points of the triangle, easily bringing across the message of my design.


1) My starting point is this Crate Paper DIY Shop journal card. It consists of a frame with a floral cluster in the bottom left corner. I add a Dear Lizzy Lucky Charm star die-cut next to the flower to create a base for my visual triangle, aligning it so the tip points along the diagonal of the triangle.

2) The logical place to put my sentiment is the top left corner. However "Thank You Daring" is too lengthy and will disrupt the visual triangle. My solution is to separate it into two lines.


3) To fill the empty gap in the middle of the card, I pop down a little bird which echoes the brown tones in the leaves and branches of the floral cluster. I am careful to place it so that the chest and head is approximately along the line of the diagonal.

If you find this design discussion helpful, please leave a comment. That way I'll include more design tips in future posts.

Supplies : Dear Lizzy Lucky Charm Die-Cut Shapes, Crate Paper Maggie Holmes Phrase Stickers & Tag Cuts, Crate Paper DIY Shop Tag Cuts, Kaisercraft Paper Blooms Dusty Pink

Hi, it's Sandy with a retro style card and tag for you today. When I saw the Cosmo Cricket Grab Bags in the store I knew I wanted to do something with the cool, graphic images and the nostalgic style lettering from the Social Club papers.


For this tag, I cut out the girl image and layered it onto a mini-tag. Then I added some wood veneers and opaque black rhinestones for texture. Everything is finally matt onto a larger tag.


For my card, I cut the couple image and layered it onto a background made up of a series of journal cards. To fill the blank space at the bottom I randomly placed some alphas, treating them as graphic shapes.

Hi it's Sandy. I've been playing with some of my favourite products from the shop - Crate Paper's Maggie Holmes and DIY Shop collections. The trend for photo-realistic pattern papers is going strong and I picked two of them, a weathered woodgrain and a blue sky, for this page.


The idea for my layout was that of photos and papers randomly pinned or taped onto the wall which naturally led to the woodgrain being used for the background. I added the script pattern paper to  breakup the background and then proceeded to layer the other elements at contrasting angles.


The subtle floral pattern was getting a little lost amongst the other elements so I added some free-motion embroidery to bring out the details. Layering a few pieces of vellum under them also helped to create a dimensional effect. The title was printed in black on the sky blue paper and then over-printed with the journalling in light grey for an interesting texture.


You might have picked up on my mis-spelling of Coca. I'm blaming it on scrapping too late into the night and making a note to spell check in the future.


Supplies :  Dear Lizzy Lucky Charm Blue Skies, Amy Tangerine Yes Please Share, Crate Paper Maggie Holmes (Elizabeth Kate, Remember This, Happy Day), Crate Paper DIY Shop Decor, Sullivan's Vellum, Bazzill Kraft Cardstock, Studio Calico Sundrifter Wood Veneer Phrases

Hi it's Sandy sharing my project for this month's 'Home is Where the Heart is' theme. I made a card using several die-cut pieces from Crate Paper's Maggie Holmes collection, including a cute little house-shaped one. It's a versatile card suitable for many occasions such as birthday, house-warming, party invitation etc.



Hope you'll join our challenge based on either the Home theme or on our April Sketch. More details can be found here.

Crate Paper Supplies : Maggie Holmes (Tags, 12x12 Die-Cut Sheet), Story Teller Epoxy Brad

Hi it's Sandy, sorry I've been gone from the blog for such an age. I'm thrilled with the new arrivals the store is stocking this month and have placed a big order for the Crate Paper and American Crafts. Can't wait to start crafting once my package arrives in Singapore. In the meantime, here's a card created with just one piece of Amy Tangerine Yes Please Currently paper.



Simply cut apart the journalling cards and layer four of them onto cardstock. For texture a little embroidery floss is wound around the top and bottom. My "celebrate life' sentiment is cut from the 1/2" label strip of a KI Memory paper but you can easily create your own by stamping onto grid paper.






Supplies : Amy Tangerine Yes Please Currently, KI Memories Flashback Blocks of Time, green embroidery floss

Hi it's Sandy. Today I want to share my tip for scrapping non-holiday layouts using christmas papers. My example will be this Sparkle, Shimmer and Shine page about my cousin-in-law's wedding.



Here's how I work with three christmas-themed papers :

First I choose a Crate Paper B-side. It's large arrow pattern in tone-on-tone cream will lend graphic interest to my background. Then I transform the regularity of an Echo Park woodgrain doily paper by cutting it into little rectangles. This allows me to selectively crop out any Santa or Christmas tree images. Lastly I used the  random scatter of an MME ledger paper to create more unstructured snippets for the page.


The design of my page is a simple visual triangle. It's base is that long line of journalling placed on the left to anchor the columns of rectangle frames. I strategically justified my title so the 'r' forms the tip of that triangle. This movement towards the apex is also reinforced by direction of the background arrows and of the bride's gaze.


Hope you're convinced that holiday-themed papers can be pretty versatile and that you'll try your hand at scrapping non-christmas photos with them. Wishing everyone a very Merry Christmas !

Supplies : Crate Paper Sleigh Ride White Christmas, Echo Park  (This & That Christmas Wooden Nickels, For the Record 2 Handwritten), MME All Is Bright Collage, Making Memories Gem Collection, Smash Date Stamp, American Crafts Flakey Thickers

Hi it's Sandy. Living in tropical Singapore I rarely get the chance to use Winter collections. There just isn't any good reason to put snowmen, mittens or sleighs on my pages. So I'm thrilled to be commissioned to create a mini-album about a ski-trip. Finally scrapping about snow !


I build this 16-page album using papers and tags of various sizes. All are folded in half and bound together by sewing a running stitch through each spine and securing them with kettle stitches. To keep the album pretty flat I didn't use bulky embellishments. 




Hope you'll be inspired to try making a mini-album gift to go into that special person's stocking for Christmas. And don't forget to link up your Wrapping and Gift Tags projects to our Challenge Gallery.


Supplies  : Echo Park (For the Record 2 Handwritten, This & That Christmas Wooden Nickels & Ornaments), Pink Paislee City Sidewalks Parcel Tags, Studio Calico (Wonderland Wood Veneer Snowflake, Yearbook Most Likely), MME (All is Bright Collage, The Sweetest Thing Honey One of a Kind Label Stickers), October Afternoon Witch Hazel Tidbits, sequin stars

Hi it's Sandy with a little giftbox idea for you. It's perfect as a treat holder for guests at a christmas party. A piece of 6.5"x8.5" paper will make a 1.5"x1.5"x2" box. It has a self-locking mechanism but just to glam things up I pushed some fancy pins through the top.


The kraft doily paper I used is Echo Park's Everyday Eclectic collection. The push pins are Webster's Pages Let's Celebrate. I might have grabbed the last packet from the shop so an alterative you can use are these gorgeous Jenni Bowlin Pearl Pins.

Here's the boxtemplate

Supplies : Cristina Re Transparency Provincal White, Kaisercraft Turtle Dove Bird's Nest and Wood Flourishes Twig & Berry, Dazzling Metallics Paint Splendid Gold & Black Pearl, Webster's Pages Let's Celebrate Trim, Scrap Matrix Out There Chippy Lattice, Sullivans Glitter Pack Xmas, Tattered Angels Glimmer Mist Gold, Karen Forster Sparkle Burst Brads, Fundamentals Wedding Words Rub-on, Pebbles Candy Dots Bonbons, Webster's Pages Let's Celebrate Pins

Hi it's Sandy with my take on the Kaisercraft Merry & Bright challenge that Liz set for the design team. It's been ages since I did a challenge so forgive me if I'm a little rusty.


As Tracy said this collection is quite misleadingly named, being quite muted with a lightly distressed colour palette. I didn't fight this and chose to highlight the browns and greens of the papers I was given, pairing them with a berry vine wood flourish to give my first tag a woodland christmas feel. With what was leftover I made a simpler tag that's composed of a series of triangles.



Hope you'll check out what the rest of the team did with this challenge.

Supplies : Kaisercraft Merry & Bright (6"x6" Paper Pad, Sticker Sheet, Collectibles),  Kaisercraft Wood Flourish Berry Vine, Organza Ribbon Yellow, Pink Paislee Misteltoe Clear Sticker, sequins

Hi everyone it's Sandy with an origami place card for my Christmas party table. In Singapore we don't eat much turkey. Instead we are having goose confit on the menu this year which gave me the idea of creating a paper goose place card which also serves as a gift for my guest.


I followed the instructions in this video to fold my goose using a 5.5" square vellum paper with a lovely snow swirl pattern. The guest's designation is written on it's neck then the goose is placed, with some Webster's mesh trim, in a twig nest that's sprayed with gold Glimmer Mist.


The nest sits on top of two chipboard pieces : a Kaisercraft foliage that's painted gold and sprinkled with glitter and a Out There Chippy lattice that's painted matt black for contrast. Finally to create even more shine I added two Karen Forster Sparkle Brads.


I hope you're enjoying our Christmas Countdown and that you'll be inspired to create something crafty to celebrate the holidays.


Supplies : Cristina Re Transparency Provincal White, Kaisercraft Turtle Dove Bird's Nest and Wood Flourishes Twig & Berry, Dazzling Metallics Paint Splendid Gold & Black Pearl, Webster's Pages Let's Celebrate Trim, Scrap Matrix Out There Chippy Lattice, Sullivans Glitter Pack Xmas, Tattered Angels Glimmer Mist Gold, Karen Forster Sparkle Burst Brads, Fundamentals Wedding Words Rub-on, Pebbles Candy Dots Bonbons

Hi it's Sandy sharing something I made for the mantel decoration. This year I'm going with a colour scheme of gold, silver, black and woodgrain. Since nothing in the shops fit this palette, I decided to create my own using simple paper construction methods.




I love the effect of twinkling lights reflecting off translucent vellum so I created the basic shape of my ornament using Christina Re Speciality Papers. Then an outer covering of Echo Park with it's doily and woodgrain pattern is added. To add some glamour and glitz I gathered some Websters Pages mesh trim into a flower and added a Jenni Bowlin plaster doily painted over with metallic gold acrylic. Finally a Karen Forster Sparkle Burst Brad completes my ornament.

Wishing everyone happy Christmas crafting !


Supplies : Christina Re Transparency Provincal White, Echo Park This & That Christmas Wooden Nickels, Echo Park Everyday Eclectic Kraft Doily,  Websters Pages Let's Celebrate Trim, Kaisercraft Wooden Flourishes Blossoms, Jenni Bowlin Doily Flower, Satin Ribbon Gold, Dazzling Metallics Paint Splendid Gold, Karen Forster Sparkle Burst Brads  

Hi everyone ! It's Sandy posting about a project that's close to my heart - a Memory Folder created with the Jenni Bowlin Studio Kit and a Christmas Card I made with the leftovers (in keeping with this week's Christmas Card Challenge).

The kit below is available for sale at Artfull Crafts for only $25! 

Inspired by Heidi Swapp's memory file system I altered a file folder, which you can buy at any stationery shop, and made my own version to hold photos and ephemera about my father. (The file is included in the kit).



On the folder cover is the JBS Kraft Bank Statement made me want to tell the story of my father reading the Financial Times on sunday mornings. I keep the design relatively clean and simple and included some red elements from the JBS Christmas 2012 line for contrast. If you'd like to recreate this layout then be sure to pick up the kit today.



Opening up the folder you'll find a double-page spread. On the left is another vertical format layout which incorporates newspaper clippings in the background. Since newspaper has high acid content you may want to apply a protective treatment before using it on your page. EK Success has an Archival Mist which is intented to neutralise the acid and stop the paper from turning yellow with age.



The other page consists of a series of layered pockets to hold journalling tags and other ephemera.  I  love the look created through whimsical pattern combinations, from the small geometric on top, to that red wheatgrass and the typewriter keys.


Here's the back of the folder all covered up with more pattern paper.