Antiques Frames
One of my favorite techniques for a vintage looking item is resist embossing. I went through my stash to look for some older looking frames. I stamped the these different frames on cream colored cardstock with VersaMark watermark ink and then applied the ZING! white embossing powder (which is aesome btw!) and heat embossed the frame.
I then took a very light brown stamp pad and stamped lightly around the edges of the frame to give it a distressed look. Then I took a baby wipe (or wet paper towel) and rubbed the ink off of the white embossed areas. The ink doesn't stick to the white, so the embossing shows through. I thne fussy cut out each frame!
My intention for these was to use them as journaling boxes in my mini album.
If you don't have heat embossing tools, try this: stamp with white ink, then use glossy accents or a quick drying clear glue with a pen tip and outline areas of your frame. When dried, the glossy accents or glue will resist the inking, too.
Pleated Flowers with Buttons
I happened to have this great stash of old buttons that I found in a clearance bin at Hobby Lobby. I think they make all the difference with these flowers.
Find yourself some vintage-y looking papers and cut them into strips 1, 1 1/2, or 2 inches wide (depending on the size of flower you want).
Use a border punch to punch one long edge of the paper, or just hand cut some small scallops. It doesn't matter if they are perfect, you won't notice!
Take your punched strip and begin folding back and forth to make pleats. Forget scoring!!! Just use your fingers. I made mine about 1/2 cm big. Pleat the whole strip.
On the un punched edge of the paper, run a needle and thread through the pleats. Tip: I ounched the holes for the needle and thread with a paper piercer first...it made it much easier to thread.
Secure the last pleat over the first pleat with glue and tie off and trim your string.
Add some pretty buttons for centers and you are good to go!
You can also do the same technique with ribbons. Just thread up one side of the ribbon and pull to scrunch. Sew the ends together and adorn with a button in the middle!
Another tip: you might want to cut our a circle our of scrap paper and glue it to the back. It makes it easier to glue onto your project at the end.
Doilies
This is very simple. Remember making cut out snowflakes?? Same idea!
Cut a circle about 3 inches in diameter and fold it into 8ths. I used cream colored cardstock, but it was a bit thick, so I also tried it with vellum and fabric.
Use your scissors to scallop the outside edge and then punch the heck out of it with a crop-a-dile! The more holes you have the better, I think... You might also want to clip the point (which will be the center of your doilie.
After I opened mine, I crumpled them and inked them in a light brown (not shown).
Fabric Flowers
I used some different remnants of fabric and some muslin for these different flowers. Make a mix of some fabric stiffener (which you can buy at a craft shop) and some water. Dip the fabric in the solution and spread out on waxed paper to dry. I use a brayer to smooth it out so there are no wrinkles in it.
When the fabric is dry, it is very easily cut with a die cut machine. You can even use it with your Cricut because it is so stiff…just stick it to your mat and cut away! I used some QuickKutz scalloped circle dies and cut different sizes out of the fabric. I layered the circles on top of each other and ran a needle and thread through them to secure.
You should experiment with cutting out scallops, punching holes in the edges, inking, etc. You can even rewet the material a bit and shape the petals how you want them. Then they will stiffen again when left to dry that way.
To make the center of this flower, I took a bunch of embroidery floss and wound it around my hand. I gathered it in the middle and tied a knot around it. I then threaded the loose ends of the knot string through the center of my flower and tied it off on the back of the flower. Cut the loops on you floss and you have a pretty center! I added some stickles to the floss for some sparkle.
Cameos
I searched the web for some cameo silhouettes and font a font at scrapnfonts.com called Cameo frames. It was $3, and I thought, “Hey, I have spent much more on much less”, so I bought it! I opened a word document, changed my font to my new cameo font (after downloading it from the site), and sent the font sixe to 125 to make some bigger cameos. I created some text boxes and typed in the cameos that I wanted. I change the text color to white because I wanted my cameos silhouettes to be white. Then I filled int the text box with the background color that I wanted. This is what it looked like when done.
I printed this on white cardstock. I then played around with some techniques for these. I embossed some of the faces, but they lost a lot of the detail. So then I just tried some Glossy Accents over the face and I like how that looked. I added some gold Distress Stickles to make the frames around the edge, and on others I tried a gold glitter gel pen from Sakura. I also mounted them on chipboard to give them more height. I was pretty please with the result!
Well, after all that, here are the pages of my finished album. My intention for this album was to be a album of photo of Charlotte’s great grandparents, but I don’t have all their photos yet, so I am waiting for some more of those.
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