Chipboard Tile Magnets

Hi!

I watched this video: Creating Art Tiles by Joggles.com and was inspired to give it a try. I did one set that followed the technique pretty closely, using gesso and inking the edges. I decided to try another set using more color – you can definitely tell which ones are from the second batch!

I used regular chipboard that I have in my stash, some pieces were thinner than others, but it didn’t really matter. I have lots of little embellishments that I used along with some Tim Holtz small talk stickers and some really old sticker words from Heidi Swapp.

I decided to make these into magnets to make them useful as well as pretty. At first they were kind of curvy so I put them under an old crock for a few days and they flattened out perfectly.

I also used a couple of different Tim Holtz ephemera packages, one of them had really little bits in it that were perfect for the small ‘canvases’ I was working with.

Junk Journal Made From Packaging

I have been having fun lately making junk journals by up-cycling, recycling, binding, saving and re-purposing books, papers, and mail. One aspect of creating junk journals that appeals to me is that they are all different and there are no rules. There aren’t rules with scrapbooking and card making either, I have just been finding it liberating somehow to create these journals. It feels good to find a use for older supplies and having to use my imagination to put them to use. I have heard people say that making junk journals keeps things out of the landfill, although I can’t claim that as one of my main motivations.

This is the packaging I used for this project – it originally contained a Grove Collaborative Glass Spray Bottle. It was a box and I cut away one side to make it a book. I created ten signatures from random papers and cards and attached them with a long stitch binding. As you can see, my stitching could use some practice! I used embroidery floss because it seemed strong enough and I have lots of it. I initially thought I would keep the window on the front cover but changed my mind.

Here’s a side view, I probably wouldn’t make one quite this thick again because it is a bit unwieldy to handle.

Here is a look at some of the papers and cards I used. You can see the embroidery floss in the middle signature. Having those visible doesn’t bother me in a project like this that isn’t meant to be neat and tidy.

I used gel medium to attach the papers on the outside covers and wanted it to be bright and random-looking. I used washi tape to cover the seams and edges and it kept peeling off so I used some liquid glue to encourage it to stay put.

The tag on the back says Dream Big and the one on the front says You Go Girl. I plan to use this as a place to record snippets of my day, quotes, and tiny layouts. The green page below has a couple of small photos of my son blowing out some birthday candles. I seem to have lots of photos like this that have been cropped already or I have scrapped the best photos of the event and these are the leftovers. Even though I have already scrapped the big stories that the better photos tell, I see small stories that I want to tell also. The yellow paper behind the tiny green layout has a small photo of my daughter and a small layout about her.

Here’s another look at some of the pages. There are some of those old green stamps, small embellishments, and small stickers scattered throughout the pages.

A few times while I was putting this together I heard my inner critic questioning the value of spending time making a junk journal. I silenced her by telling her that it was fun and having a small canvas to try out color combinations and unusual paper and materials was stretching my creative muscles. It’s a nice way to just dabble with something and not have any worries about the outcome. One of the pages is part of an old player piano roll – I thought that was cool!

 

Two Distress Ink Techniques

I am not a watercolor expert but I like to play with water and ink colors. I made this card for a challenge a couple of weeks ago using Distress Inks and water. The same Distress inks worked well to dye the seam binding and the card stock which were both originally white. I wanted the ink to pool a little bit in the debossed areas so I used the impression plate first.

I put some water on the card before dropping inks on it and that helps them move around without much help from a brush. The key to keeping the colors light was not mixing them very much.

This card also used Distress Inks but this time I used an ink blending tool to create the very soft tints of color. Tapping the ink blending tool off on a scrap first let me add very small amounts of color and not make them too heavy. I used the February My Monthly Hero Kit to make this card. It is an amazing kit full of weather stamps and dies.