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Bubble Word Magnets

Long time no tutorial. :D

I love magnets. I think these ones look a little more modern than the bottlecap ones. They are also super easy to make. Be sure to work in a well ventilated area, as the glue for adhering the magnets has quite strong fumes.

You will need:

- Glass pebbles

(from the floral section of the craft store)

- Clear adhesive such as Tombo, Diamond Glaze or Glossy Accents

- Scrap paper

- Circle punch (optional)

-Scissors or file

- Round magnets (strong earth magnets are best)

- Epoxy or other strong adhesive for the magnet.

First, let's start with the base.

Take your circle punch (reccomended if it is bigger than your pebble) and punch out a circle of paper.

The point is to make a mini collage. With this set, I went super simple and just went with paper and a journaling strip. You can make a more fancy collage, but try to keep it as flat as possible. If you want an image with lots of layers or even dimension, I would reccomend scanning your collage and printing or photocopying it so you have a single layer of paper to work with.

After I punched my circle, I went into my word processing program, picked a font and a size and began to type words/phrases that I liked.

I printed onto regular cardstock and then cut out the individual phrases.

I used my trusty gluestick to adhere the journaling strip.

After that it's time to grab your pebbles. Look for ones that have no/few air bubbles or flaws and no grit trapped in the glass.

Take your clear liquid adhesive (in my example I use Tombo, but all of the ones I have listed work just fine) and, holding your pebble in your hand, schmear glue across the surface. Try to coat all of the pebble with your adhesive.

Flip the pebble over and position your collage underneath. It is okay if you get the glue on the collage. Press down with your finger to eliminate air bubbles and to spread the glue evenly across the pebble.

Once your clear adhesive is dry, take your scissors and just cut the excess paper away from the pebble. Don't worry about being fancy, who looks at the back of a magnet?

Note: if you want the backs to look fancy, you should go ahead and use a file to file the excess paper away. But it takes way longer. I'm just saying....

After that, place a dollop of strong adhesive on the back of the paper, in the center-ish of the pebble. Don't worry about being exact.

Okay, now, if you want this to be waterproof, or are going to make a necklace or coaster or mosaic or some such, go ahead and seal the entire back of the collage with your epoxy. I reccomend the E6000 clear. It is super stinky, but awesome. If you are just going with the magnet plan, you can skip that part.

Time to grab your magnet. Go ahead and press the magnet into the adhesive. I like to swirl mine around a little, to help center it, and also make sure the whole magnet gets adhesive on it. And now, the hardest part.... waiting for your glue to dry... again.

Here is a try of finished pebbles, awaiting their future home on some magnetic surface.

Let's see what you come up with. If you end up using this tutorial, link back here. I would love to see your creations.

Happy Crafting!

computers. not just for surfing the internets.

I use my little computer all the time for "hybrid scrapbooking." And to be honest, I use my word processor more than I use photoshop. I use my home computer for journaling, to print up custom patterned papers and elements... the possibilities are endless.

Also, free. Hello clip art and dafont

This layout was made using my computer and a few scraps. I used a T-shirt as my inspiration.

1. Find cool vector graphic (clip art or wallpaper) and print on cardstock.(or use some cool stamps!) Here I adjusted the opacity so it was a little tranparent.

2. Find cool picture of yourself and alter with Photoshop Actions until it looks like a cartoon or vector graphic (I used a free action dowloaded from the internet called Vector Art)

3. Attach patterned paper and doily in a pleasing manner.

4. Stamp or print out title.

5. Stamp around edges

6. Adhere rubons and attach soft charm and brads (I actually made the prongs lie flat and attached them with glue dots so they looked like they had little wings)

Another thing I like to do is make my own patterned paper. Mmm typography.

With this one I made my own patterned text paper in Word with a free font called Trashed that I downloaded from the internet. Lots of fun possibilities here. Custom journaling tags, alphabet "stickers" made from internet fonts.... think of all the cool stuff out there....

Happy crafting!

"real life scary stamping"

I love me some stamps. Some would say, to a rather unhealthy degree.

I say pshaw. Not possible.

My favorite stamps are the ones that feature design elements and words or even phrases (and of course my beloved date stamp).

Even though it's old school, I think that sometimes people are intimidated by stamps. (I know that as a beginner I was.) I think it comes down to the fact that once you put that stamp down, whatever is there, is there for good. You are committed. Sometimes that's a good thing, and sometimes, it's not. And you know, even if it's not perfect, I'm finding lately that I like the results for their very imperfectness.

But, for those of us with perfectionist tendancies here are some of my best tips for stamping onto stuff.

*Scootch down so you are eye level with your stamp and the paper. Sometimes it's best just to eyeball it. (Thanks Dina Wakely!)

*Try to stamp your image onto a clear package scrap or spare transparent item first. That way you can play with color and placement. I often use the plastic wrap that my thickers come in, although I have also used other things, including plastic wrap and a clear plastic scrap from a pasta package window... See what you can find.
*When stamping with paint, use a a brush to apply the paint to the stamp first, so you end up with a more even distribution of paint (for a clearer impression). Be sure to clean your stamp right away, especially if it is a rubber stamp.

*I like to use an old toothbrush to clean my stamps. It really helps to get the paint out of the tiny spots like in between letters on a text stamp.

*I like using my clear acrylic ruler for stamping with clear acrylic stamps if I am wanting something to be lined up evenly. You could probably alter an acrylic block with a marker and use of a ruler as well (if you don't want to spring for a fancy ruler like I did) :D

Double-sided tape works just fine for adhering an unmounted stamp to a flat object for stamping.

If you stamp in white and the paint or ink is too faint (like on a darker colored background) use a white gel pen (I use a uniball signo) pen for touchups.

Those are my favorites. Do you have any good tips to share? I'd love to hear them.

Thanks for reading. Happy crafting!

Craft Lovin.

So, since I am totally feeling the craft and creative love I am going to pick THREE people.

According to the random number generator:

Rianne
Bekka
and Susan

are going to get real life craft love. Send me your emails ladies.

christina (dot) clouse (at) gmail (dot) com

But if you were not a "winner" please do not fret. I will do many of these type of giveaways in the future. And of course there will be plenty of crafty ideas as well.

Also, if anyone wants to set up a craft exchange, or has techniques to share I'd be down for that too.

Happy Wednesday.

Welcome

Hi.

Welcome to my new tutorial blog. This is going to be where I will store all of my fun tips and tricks for making pretty things and pretty messes.

Thank you for visiting.

Leave me a comment on this post by Sunday April 27th and I randomly pick one person as a winner.

The prize: I will make you something. Or send you a RAK. Your choice.

Happy crafting!