How To Make A Journal From Blank Cards This cute little junk journal is easy to make. All it takes is a few blank greeting cards. Here's how to make one of your very own. Gather Your Cards Gather some A2 Kraft Cards & Envelopes. You won't use the envelopes for this project, but save them for a future journal craft. Decide how big you want your journal to be. I used 8 cards for a total of 16 pages, including front & back covers. One More Card Now get one more card and cut it vertically into inch-long strips as shown. I like to use a trimmer for this, but you can use scissors, too. Hinges Fold each strip in half as pictured. A ruler can help with this to keep the fold straight. These strips will become your "hinges". Cut Off Hinge Ends Next, take one of your folded strips or "hinges" and cut off each end at an angle as pictured. Attach Cards Using Hinge Line up two cards folded ends touching. Apply craft glue to your hinge and glue it to one of the cards as pictured. Next, apply glue to the other side of the hinge and attach it to the other card. The hinge holds the cards together, kind of like a door hinge holds a door to a wall. Repeat this process for all of your cards until they form one large book. Don't worry about the hinges showing. Once you decorate your journal, you can cover them with papers. Done! Easy Peasy And you're finished! You have a blank card journal ready for your personal touch. Want to see how I decorated mine with a vintage "World Travel" theme? Click here. Click here to see how I decorated MY card journal.

get ready for more inspiration as we wrap up the show recaps today with idea-ology. i have to say that when it comes to theme…

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Crafter & Tim Holtz Addict

welcome to week seven of my Q+A demo series on facebook live. each week the Q+A demo will focus on a specific product/topic…

These 18 Ideas to alter Tim Holtz Paper Dolls will provide inspiration to take Tim Holtz Idea-Ology Paper Dolls to another level for creative projects.

welcome to week seven of my Q+A demo series on facebook live. each week the Q+A demo will focus on a specific product/topic…

I fell hard for this Eclectic Elements fabric collection by renowned paper crafter, Tim Holtz. Tim is the Creative Director for Ranger Industries and all you have to do is go down an aisle at a Michael's or JoAnn's and see walls of his wonderful product creations. This is his first fabric collection, and it comprises of 3 design categories: Documentation, Labels, & Melange. In order to retain all the good scrapbook/grunge/steampunk vibe - I used my trusty pattern: Easy Bake from Cluck Cluck Sew. It was not easy to find the entire collection (24 fat quarters total) and I wanted to use every bit of it. After making the bulk of the quilt - I measured the remaining fabric and found that 4" square gave me the most pieces. These squares were put on the front sides and back. My first time making a quilt with a cotton top, traditional batting & a cotton back - (used Warm and Natural batting / pre-washed and dried before quilting). The back is Michael Miller's couture cotton in Nite - which comes in 85 colors - and has a wonderful soft drape - (while it looks rather bright in the pictures, it blends well overall - another option could be the Midnight Blue which is darker). Quilted top and bottom with Aurifil 50 wt. ( light sand #2000 & dark cobalt #2740). Spray basted (and ironed to fuse them even more), I had a few hiccups (and 3 rows to rip out) as the bottom tension went all wonky - but a few turns on the bottom bobbin case screw worked fine. Each time I re-loaded the bobbin - I had to make minor adjustments. April 2014 Size: 60 x 72"

A couple of weeks ago I mentioned that I had bought these, the new Tim Holtz Embossing Diffusers. You have probably seen, like me, the DIY versions that people have posted on You Tube, and they looked like a really cool idea. So when I saw these, I thought they had to be worth a try. This has #1 on it, so I assume he will be bringing out some other shapes somewhere along the line. What you get in the pack is 3 frames, for want of a better description, and the 3 inserts that are cut from them. A large oval, a small long oval and a circle. So effectively you get 6 options for changing around what you can do with your embossing folders. To try them out, I used the large oval. The idea is that you get an un-embossed area with the frame, or just a small embossed area with the insert. You can stamp into the un-embossed area, or even double emboss-adding a different texture to that blank area. Now, I did have a look around the net to see what sandwiches people were using with these and the 'bug, as Tim obviously uses a Vagabond in his demos. I did find a couple of different sandwiches for the 'bug, neither of which worked in my machine. So WARNING & DISCLAIMER here: If you've had your 'bug a long time, you will have a good idea what will fit through it, and what won't. To those who are not so familiar with their machine, NEVER, EVER try to force a sandwich through- you WILL break your 'bug. Err on the side of caution and start with a really thin sandwich, and gradually shim up till it will go through with reasonable ease, and produce a good embossed piece. Better to throw away poorly embossed cardstock, than a Cuttlebug! The sandwich here worked for mine. It may be too thick, or too thin for your machine. One video I saw the lady used an A plate, B plate, folder with cardstock, Diffuser, then B plate. Went through her machine perfectly, and came out well embossed. This sandwich was WAY too thick for my machine, but hers was fine with it. So be warned! According to Tim, the Diffuser replaces one cutting plate, and as for embossing folders I would usually use A plate, B plate, folder & cardstock, then B plate,I put one B plate aside, and my sandwich was: A plate, B plate, Folder & cardstock, Diffuser. Like I said, this worked just nicely in my 'bug. The first time I tried it out, I discovered that its a bit difficult to get the folder/Diffuser to stay where you want it to- so I recommend low tack tape to hold everything together while you feed the sandwich through. The first piece I did was with one of the Tim Holtz Alterations folders , Retro Cirque set. You can see my sandwich on the left. This is what you get- an embossed piece of cardstock, with a central oval panel left plain. Meaning you can stamp onto it, or use it as a base for a matted piece of stamping. You don't get a crisp outline around the embossing, by the way, it just sort of fades out. So now, the oval shape that is cut from the frame. Its layered up exactly the same, on top of the folder, and this time you definitely need the low tack tape to hold it in place- otherwise the minute you try to feed it, it slides everywhere. You have lots of options as to where you place it, or the orientation, as it just sits on top. I'm just going for the central oval here. I also tried feeding it through upside down, just to see if it made any difference- it doesn't, . So here are the two pieces together- the top one is the frame Diffuser, the bottom one what you get with the Oval. The thing Tim demo'ed with this is that you can place one type of embossing with the frame part of the Diffuser, then another type within the plain area using the oval insert. This time I have used the Swiss Dots folder, with the Diffuser frame for the first bit. The first embossing.Looking through my folders, I found one that I thought would go perfectly with this: I tried the frame over it, and it does indeed seem like a perfect fit. It's a Sizzix folder, by the way. This was layered up exactly the same as to get the embossed oval with a plain frame: Folder with cardstock, Oval Diffuser on top. Its not too difficult to get everything in the right place, as you can see enough through the folder to place your design. As you can see, lots of tape this time, I really didn't want it to move at all. The oval plate just puts the pressure on the words in the folder, and adds it to the blank area. The three pieces from the various combinations.

Here we are again...in the *Industrial* Guest room! I'm slowly getting each little corner of the room completed with a wealth of treasured *things*! Awhile back I found these Tim Holtz boxes (yeah, I love his stuff) at Michael's and knew they would be perfectly perfect to hold all the *littles* that I've gathered over the years. It's a lot to look at....but, confined all in one place, it works. I found this old rusty light fixture and never knew what to do with it....after I got the boxes nailed to the wall, it looked unfinished...so, I rummaged around and there it was waiting for me. PERFECT! Then added the chain to give the illusion that the boxes are hanging. Thanks for stopping by.... Have a happy weekend..... xoso Sandy

Crafter & Tim Holtz Addict

this demo features an overview on the differences of distress ink and distress oxides. learn about the importance of various…

12 easy techniques to use Distress Inks on craft or paper projects like art journal pages, cards and scrapbook lyouts

Distress Inks, by Tim Holtz are some of my favorite inks to use. They are water-based dye inks that have incredible color stability. Unlike ...

At the Creativation show this past January, Tim Holtz introduced a really cool technique you can do with Distress Oxides. He was playing ar...

So you know how you just stumble upon things sometimes? Well, that is sort of what happen to me today. I finally got the chance to play with my new Gelli Plate and I had a great time. Well, everyone seems to use regular acrylic paint on theirs (well I've seen some use sprays too) but I started thinking... hmmm... what if I tried Tim's new distress paint with it?? (this could be a lightbulb moment LOL) Since these are paint dabbers, I went ahead and shook them up and unscrewed the top and just poured a little here and there on my Gelli Plate. I used Barn Door, Chipped Saphire and Mustard Seed (the only few that I have haha!) Sorry the picture is a little dark, I was rushing. So this is the really cool part. I started to spread it with my brayer and it magically just moves on its own. It's so neat and makes this really cool effect, all on it's own. You really need to work fast and press paper or something into it at this point if you want how it looks in the first picture here... The second picture here is what it looks like after a few seconds of sitting on the plate. HOW COOL!! I really like how it just moves on it's own. So then, I pressed a piece of white card stock onto the plate and brayered it into the paint. Here is what it looked like... I really am loving the background that I got. I had some leftover paint, which didn't seem like much. I pressed a tag into the plate to soak up the rest of the leftover paint and this is what the tag looked like. WOW, look at how much color was still left here. I love this too. Both backgrounds came out really neat looking. I can add stenciling or whatever on top to make a layered look. So, you know me right? I had to do something for the challenge over at Simon Says Stamp and Show - The theme this week is "Ever After".. you are to do something Fairy Tale inspired. I decided to use the first background I made and make a card. I used my digi stamp from the The Octopode Factory and colored her with Tim's distress markers. I also used a cut out heart from Tim's movers and shapers Valentine set to cut out the heart. I used a stencil and some Black Soot distress ink to make the brick wall in the upper corner. One reason I really love the distress paint, well really my favorite part about this paint is that when it's dry it is permanent. So when I wrote over it with the white gel pen, my white stayed white and didn't bleed into the paint color under it. I used my white gel pen to color around each of the bricks so they would stand out. Lastly, I wrote the words "Some Day My Prince Will Come" from Cinderella :) Look at how beautiful those paints are and how they just pop off my background here. I cannot say enough about them. If I weren't on a budget I would get many, many more. haha!! Eventually, right? Since I'm using them on my gelli plate I need them in larger bottles.... (ehhemm hint, hint Tim lol) Note: I have no idea why my font keeps getting larger and then smaller, sorry about that.

Here's an insider look at how my Tim Holtz ring-bound junk journal took shape. I hope my flip through is full of ideas and inspiration.

i’m beyond humbled to be the cover feature of the latest issue of craftposium magazine. i want to say a sincere thank…

Hi folks...it's my turn to post over at the Craftwork Cards Blog today and I thought it was time that Mr Tim Holtz was introduced to Craftw...

Hello crafters! We had a weekend with lovely warm autumn weather. Unfortunately, many leaves are falling, so the trees aren't quite as pret...

12 easy techniques to use Distress Inks on craft or paper projects like art journal pages, cards and scrapbook lyouts

Hi friends! TGIF! We’re so happy to welcome back the fabulous Paula Cheney to our blog as a guest today! …