Emergency Wrapping Paper

From the files of the panicked:

The Man of the Place and I are going camping this weekend to celebrate a number of family accomplishments, and we have gifts for several people, both birthday and graduation-type items.

I was all set to wrap them up today when I realized--all I had was Christmas wrapping paper!

Horrors!

We, unfortunately, have a great deal of Christmas wrapping paper; the MOTP got an entire case from his employer as severance when he was laid off at Christmas.

Waste not, want not, I thought.

With the help of the MOTP, I laid out a large sheet of the Christmas paper, printed side down, so that the white side was on top.

Then, I cracked open my Garden Whimsy set, handed him the Green Galore ink, opened the Brilliant Blue ink, and we just stamped the whole paper up randomly.


We ended up doing this three times in order to have enough paper to wrap all the gifts, and each piece was unique.

When we were finished, we simply wrapped up the gifts, stamped side out. Worked like a charm! And the cards that I made for each person heavily featured Garden Whimsy, coincidentally enough, so they all MATCH the paper.

How cool is that?

Try this the next time you're in a pinch! For that matter, you could easily adapt this to a kid project the next time they're bored. Just assign each child a color ink and a stamp, and let them stamp up the paper any way they want to. You'll have a stock of unique wrapping paper that shows off their talents.

Simple changes for Stampin' Up! fun!

So many of my new clients are new to stamping that I've decided to offer a monthly class time for basic stamping techniques. The first Sunday of the month, barring holiday weekends, Harmony's House will host a three-hour class that focuses on how to use the stamps you've already bought, and how to use the accessories to go along with it. The first stamping technique class will be held in August, unless there's a great demand for it. Cost, to cover supplies and snacks, will be $5 each. Reservations required.

Secondly, the monthly open house will now be held the third Sunday of the month at Harmony's House, starting June 21. Each open house has a different theme, and guests who join us will have the opportunity to make-and-take two new projects as well as participate in door prize drawings and see demonstrations of new techniques. This one's free--and June's will feature summer fun projects, such as the star-spangled box and the summer mini-album. Stop by--and bring a friend!

Finally, while there's a great deal of interest in the stamping club, we're not quite off the ground yet. I've been in touch with the owner of the Fill-In coffee house in downtown Mankato, and he's offered to let us use his big back room for a monthly stamping night! What's fun about this option is that none of us provides snacks--you can purchase your choice of snacks right from the coffee house. There's also plenty of room to spread out for as many people as can join us. If you're interested, email me.

Don't forget: if you need any supplies, you can contact me directly or go to my web site (link at left) to order online.

In other news:

The Last Chance list is out, and some of our old favorites are on it! Contact me right away to see what you're missing, or go to http://harmonyshouse.stampinup.net. The new catalogs are out July 1, and I will feature project using the new colors at the July Open House. Come check us out!

And, the project of the week:

I've been playing with making bakery bags using the Designer Series papers, and I've discovered that a six by six inch square of paper makes a perfect little favor bag. It's ultra simple: just score the paper at 1, 1.5, 2, 3.5, 4 and 4. 5 inches; turn and score at .5 and 5.5 inches.

Fold in the sides, adhere, trim the bottom and adhere. Fold in the top, punch and put a ribbon through it.

Pictures next, I promise.

Peace,

Amy

Celebrating Graduation...

Well, this isn't a Stampin' Up! post; it's a post about my other world of academia.

My favorite part of the year, and my favorite ceremony, is graduation.

I've come to realize that not all professors share my enthusiasm for watching their students celebrate this milestone. I've attended every graduation ceremony I could since I got my doctorate and started teaching myself. And each time, I get one or more colleagues who offer their sympathy that I've drawn "graduation duty." I've gotten suggestions to bring papers to grade with, or a paperback slipped up a sleeve of my robes, or other materials to take away the tedium of the speeches and the calling of the names as students walk across the stage.

I find it rude.

Maybe that's because I have a slightly different perspective on graduation than some. I earned my education. I paid for it myself, with burns from deep-fat fryers, sweat from midnight deadlines at the student newspaper, many versions of "Twinkle, Twinkle" sung for four-year-olds at the campus day care center, and hard studying to keep my four-year full tuition scholarship. I was one of the first in my family on the Mattson side to get a bachelor's degree, and I value it. I recognize the blood, sweat and tears it takes to get that degree.

And I believe we all should celebrate it.

Both universities at which I've worked as a professor have student bodies comprised of working-class students. Very few of these students have a great deal of family money to help them over the hurdles of tuition and books. Most are working in addition to going to school; some have families; some are single parents, reaching for that degree.

We in the professoriate should honor them for their hard work and the significant achievement of attaining a bachelor's degree. They could have given up on it at any time. We could have given up on them.

But they didn't, and we didn't.

And that's worth celebrating.

To Oval All, or Not To Oval All ... Well, Why Wouldn't You?

I'm in love with the new Oval All stamp set in the Mini Occasions catalog, the large oval punch and the large scallop oval punch. In minutes, I made this card:This card uses the Echoes of Kindness and Oval All stamp sets, the large oval punch and large scallop punch, and Walk-in-the-Park Designer Series paper, in Nearly Navy ink, matted on Nearly Navy card stock which is, in turn, matted on a Very Vanilla cardstock card base. (Tough to see here.)

It's remarkably easy to use these sets! And as you can see, the results are very nice.

I spent a good hour Sunday playing with just scraps of paper, the Oval All sets, and the punches, creating easy gift tags. I've got stacks, now, let me tell ya. Some samples:


The far right, top tag was the inspiration for the card above.

Quick tip of the day:

When matting on cardstock, cut each piece a half-inch smaller than the piece before it to get a nice, quarter-inch border on your card.

For example, if you're making a standard 5.5 inches by 4.25 inches card, size the next piece of stock at 5 by 3.75 inches, and the next one up at 4.5 by 3.25 inches. The standard sized border there is actually an historically accurate measure called a pica, and in journalism, we have research that shows us human eyes like that border. From the files of "Who knew?"

Probably only PhDs in mass communication.

Happy stamping, and don't forget to visit my other website: http://harmonyshouse.stampinup.net.

Books, brads, and banter ...

Well, all right; I only added "banter" to keep the "b" alliteration going. Once a writer... well, you get the idea.

I've been psyched this weekend after the discovery of a great book about making books! It's Esther K. Smith's book about book crafting, purchased for me by the Man of the Place, and I'm already head-over-heels for the ideas inside! They're simple ways to make small-to-large, handcrafted books, content not included.

I immediately went to work with plain typing paper and a scissors, and got the techniques down for a 3 by 5" book, a 2 by 2" accordion-style book, and another 2 by 4" book. These all can be generated from single sheets of paper, folded and cut properly. I also crafted a single, multi-paneled 3 by 3 inch accordion-folded book that I wrapped in black designer paper to create a really unique little album-style book. It would really be perfect for gifting, set with individual pictures of family members. Or a neat little alphabet book for a shower gift. 

I also made two small notebooks, using the simplest form of the beginner book folding technique, designer paper covers, and brads to hold it together. I presented the first one to the Man of the Place in thanks, and he loves it. He plans to use it for taking notes during his martial arts lessons. If I can wrestle it away from him for a few seconds, I'll scan it it in for y'all. And yes, I'm still waiting on batteries for the camera.

Finally, a note about brads: I'm now completely in love with these little decorative elements. As a journalist by trade, and therefore, a book-o-phobe (there's gotta be a better word for that), I love how I can use brads to bind and hold things together. However, just lately, I've been using them purely for decoration on certain cards. I'm also using them on the belly-bands that keep the accordion-style books and mini-albums together. There's a beautiful line of decorative brads available through Stampin' Up!, and I'll have to get some more.

That reminds me: Paper's on sale this month! Buy three designer packs and get one free. Check out my other web site: http://harmonyshouse.stampinup.net  for more details.

Peace!

An Unfortunate Acronym

As a publications designer with nearly 20 years experience in layout and design, I'm often called up on to teach and share my experiences in layout with classes and in other venues. In fact, I'm writing a book chapter about it for a new editing text.

Most of what I can teach is boiled down into four terms, which, taken together, spell a rather unfortunate word: Contrast, Repetition, Alignment, and Proximity.

Yes, folks, the word is CRAP. (Also used in the Nondesigners Book of Design, which I frequently use as a text in class.)

Contrast, essentially, means if you're going to use two different fonts, colors, shapes, sizes or images in your layout, make sure to make them VERY different. Good, contrasting colors in the Stampin' Up! line include any true colored cardstock and Whisper White. Very Vanilla also contrasts well with the jewel-toned and darker cardstocks. 

In the world of stamped images, look for clean lines that go with fussy florals; fancy type that goes with simple images, and so on.

Repetition means, in part, consistency. Using the Eastern Blooms florals on a card? Use them all the way through the design, and resist the temptation to break out a different set of florals that may not work well with them. But it also means repeating simple elements all the way through a design--a butterfly on the front of a card can be repeated on the back of the envelope, for example.

Alignment means to have elements line up in such a way as to draw the eye naturally from one element to another. A classic pattern is a left-to-right zig-zag, which mimics the way most in Western civilizations read. Start with text or an image in the top left, draw a mental line to the middle right and add something contrasting, then draw a line to the lower left for some sort of embellishment. Other patterns can be viewed in the 2009 Idea Book and Catalog, but the idea behind alignment is to work with what human beings do naturally with their eyes.

Finally, proximity: group like items together. That's it. Florals go together, shapes go together, dots go together, texts go together, colors go together, and so on. Stampin' Up! has that one nailed with coordinating papers, inks, colors and stamps that make it practically impossible to make ugly cards. 

Nothing is ever completely wrong. Let your creativity be your guide. But if it helps, when you're frustrated, just think of CRAP.

 

Working on Samples ...

My first open house is on Sunday, but now I've got my first workshop to prepare for in May. I'll be demonstrating for a group of day care providers in the Twin Cities.

I'm working with my cousin and good friend, Shawn, who is a day care provider, to come up with good, stamp-a-ble projects for kids to do as useful, inexpensive gifts for parents and grandparents. We've decided on the acrylic post-it note project, and on an accordion-fold booklet that can be dressed up with family pictures, a kind of mini-album. It's perfect for national scrapbooking month in May.

I've been playing with the design, and the dimensions of the original piece of card stock are 3" by 9" long, scored at three-inch intervals for folding. This gives you six panels to work with. 

Fold the cardstock into the accordion along the scores. Stamp the front cover with your theme; in my sample, I used "together" from the Define your Life set. As you open it, add other stamps and photos, mounted on a contrasting colored cardstock, to each panel. Reserve the back panel for embellishment and ribbon.

When you've completed the interior panels, fold and flip it to the back. Embellish with flowers, brads, and other fun stuff. Lay a line of adhesive across the back panel, then press an 8-inch piece of ribbon on it, leaving the ends to dangle free. 

Turn the book to the front, and draw the ribbons around to tie in a bow on the front cover, under your stamped theme.

It's simple, cute, and fun as a mini-album for a kid gift.