Paper Crafting with Buttons.

This week I thought I would share some tips for using buttons in your paper crafting projects. I have been fascinated with buttons since I was a little girl. I can remember playing with all of the treasures I found in my Grandmas Button jar. Here are a few of my favorite things do do with buttons and some that I’ve learned by taking an Accessory class exclusively for Close to My Heart Consultants.

In the center of a flower or snowflake.
In a Line or cluster to fill in a spot that needs a little something extra.
I love tying waxy flax, embroidery floss or hemp through the button holes to give them a sewn on effect.
You can change the look of buttons by sanding or stamping them with stays on ink.
Use the rub ons to add a little something unexpected to your buttons.
I love layering buttons for a dimensional look.
Use them with hemp or Waxy Flax to close Items and make your cards or journaling interactive
Use them in place of a letter or punctuation.
Group a few of them in a corner to create a beautiful one of a kind photo corner.
Use brads through the center of button holes to give your accent a layered effect.

Close To My Heart offers buttons conveniently packaged according to season. There are 100 buttons in each pack. I have out together a slideshow of projects i’ve created using buttons. There are more on the art page of my website.

Christmas Cards

I thought that this week I would combine Technique Tuesday with Pictures of Mondays card Workshop. We had such a good time and the girls seemed to love the cards. I thought I would Highlight some of my favorite Stamping techniques for you.

Using a Stamped Image as an accent piece is one of my favorite. I love how you can chose ANY stamp, cut out your stamped image and adhere it with a Piece of 3D foam Tape. It is a great way to highlight your theme in our favorite color.

Another of my favorites is using a stamp that has a pattern to it as a border to your card or layout that little something extra. I used a stamp that has 15 or so dots in a line, repeated stamping lining up the dots to create a border.

The third technique I used was background stamping. By stamping an image in 2nd or 3rd generation you can create a subtle back ground. You can also create a background by stamping one to a few images repeatedly creating a pattern. I love to use it to highlight a title or fill in an empty space.

Here are a few examples of how we used these techniques in our latest workshop.

Disappearing Ink

This week's technique can be found on the NEW webisode of Art and Soul. All you do is Stamp your desired image in Bamboo using the exclusive Inks stamp pad (Z2103 $5.95). Then you color in your image with our Watercolor Pencils ( 3505 $22.95) and blend using our Blending pen (3174 $3.95). Thats it!!! Don't forget you can learn how to do this and many other wonderful techniques on CTMHTV and Art and Soul.

Horsey Time...

So I went down to play with Sassy yesterday. I hadn't been to see her for two weeks(I was sick then hubby had surgery). I came home feeling somewhat defeated. Sassy charge at me as a punishment for my neglect. Not only that but about every ten steps she would come to a complete stop as I would pull and pull on her halter she would just stand there and look at me like, you created this with your lack of caring for my needs. The only good thing that came out of it is that I got her to turn around without facing her butt to me on her bad side in the round pen. I have been trying to get her to do this since I got her in June. Today I went back newly inspired by her giving me what I've been asking for months. She was great. She didn't stop once while I led her around, she did exactly what I asked of her when I asked it, and she didn't charge at me. What a great feeling. I even asked her to bend her head for me and stay when I tell her whoa. She is relentlessly in my space. But she did every thing I asked without fussing. Lets see how tomorrow goes.