Hand Made diary

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Today I’d like to share a couple of pictures of a diary I made.

Hand made diary: 2013

The layout I created from scratch using Craft Artist software v1, the cover is made from white hammered card. The binding style is Coptic stitch, so that the book lays flat in use.

Best wishes and thanks for reading, see you soon

Billie

PS: Yes I know there aren’t any numbers on it, that was intentional, I’ll write them in, so I can use the same template each year without having to retype so much

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Christmas Card 2012

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Today I’d like to share a quick picture of the Christmas card I designed with the help of Serif Craft Artist digikits.

Christmas Card 2012

The digikit I used was called Season of Giving Bumper kit. It has the most wonderful classic images I associate with Christmas and you can alter the color ways of many of the elements to make it your own. I combined a number of images and altered them to create my own project design.

The best thing about digi crafting like this is that I was able to use the same layout and alter the size, so I used the same image on toppers for gift boxes and bags, you could even make the design really small for gift tags.

A great way to get a really coordinated, professional yet still personal look for your holiday gift wrapping.

Best wishes and see you soon

Billie

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Video Tutorial; Mini Gift Box great for Christmas Gifts

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Funds being over stretched as ever, I wanted a way to present a little gift to neighbours without it costing the earth. So I measured the size of a cake case and designed the box around that. This will also fit standard size individual mince pies so will be ideal for little treats for Christmas too. If you make handmade jewellery or want to give neighbours a few sweets to know they are thought of, these boxes are ideal.

Small Gift Box. Ideal for sweets cupcakes or mince pies

You Will Need

• A4 cardstock 260 gsm or above. You can also use 12 x 12″ if you prefer
• Scoring board, I’m using a Scor It board.
• Steel Ruler
• Scoring Tool
• Cutting Mat
• Bone Folder
• Scissors
• PVA glue
• Brush or scrap of sturdy card (white or pearlised to prevent colour transfer)
• Decorative ribbon to co-ordinate with your card
• Topper of you choice (or you can emboss off cut card to decorate the panels of the box)

Method

This is a simple project but it will be much easier to show you how to create it with a video.

Part 1: Card size and Score Lines

Part 2. Assembly and Finishing

Options/Added Extras

In the film I was demonstrating with printer paper for high contrast. For your own box I’d advise cardstock of 250 gsm or above. The boxes look superb made in pearl cardstock such as Centura Pearl available from Crafters Companion.

If you have a cardstock friendly printer, why not design your own background patters with Craft Artist or your favorite crafting CD. For your first box, start with plain card, just to get the hang of where all the folds appear on the box. Once you know your way around use your favorite patterned card.

Christmas Gift Box; great for cupcakes & sweets

Links

I used Serif; Craft Artist software and the digikit; Season of Giving to design the topper seen on the front of the box. Both are available from Daisy Trail.

Best wishes and thanks for reading see you soon

Billie

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Mother’s Day Card

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Today I’d like to share a picture of the Mother’s Day card and mini book, I made for my MIL

Mother's Day Card and Mini Book

Created using Serif Craft Artist and a selection of digikits

Hope she likes it and you do too.

Best wishes and thanks for reading, see you soon

Billie

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Floral Birthday Card

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Today I’d like to share a picture of a card I made using Serif’s Craft Artist programme.

Floral Birthday Card

I do like the versatility of the programme and that you can be just as creative as if you made the whole thing on your desk from the various elements.

With Craft Artist I chose papers, elements which I altered and duplicated so there is a lot of scope for adding your own mark to projects. When times are lean and budgets are too, digital kits are a fabulous way of making you pennies go further. They even offer a free trial of the software and some of the digikits are available for free. So trying it out doesn’t have to cost you anything but the download time.

Hope you give the programme a try, its amazing. I still love my inks and getting messy but I am also a fan of digital crafting like this too.

Best wishes and thanks for reading, see you soon

Billie

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Tutorial: Birthday List with Craft Artist software

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For those of you who like to make New Years Resolutions, and those like me with bad memories. Perhaps you want a quick n easy way to remind you when birthdays are coming up. A short tutorial today, that is quick n simple to do but should help you to remember the birthdays of those you cherish.

Birthday List with Serif Craft Artist

You Will Need

• Computer
• Serif Craft Artist
• Digikit: Season of Giving
• 160 gsm card stock
• Printer

Method

• Open Craft Artist Program
• Go to Blank Projects and select your paper size, I wanted A6 so I went to the custom section and typed in the dimensions there.
• From the digikits choose: Season of Giving
• Add the ‘Gift log’ from the embellishment section of that kit, by doing a single click onto it, you could add the whole digi kit if you wish or just the specific items you want. Also add a material in the colour of your choice.

You will now see a blank page on the work area of Craft Artist, this is where you put the items you want to print. On the left of your screen, the items you added from your digikit will be in the tabbed sections marked; Backgrounds, embellishments etc.

• Drag the gift log picture from the embellishments tab area, on the left, onto your blank page. As you ‘drop’ the embellishment will stay on your page, you can move it around, or resize it, till it is where you would like it to appear.
• Next go to the materials section and bring over a piece of material. Click on the SCISSOR tool, then choose PUNCHES and the square punch to cut a narrow strip from the material. Place the strip of material over the words Gift Log and drag on the corners of the piece of material until it fits the area you want.
• Go to the TEXT tool at the top of the page, click it once, then click on your page, this activates the tool. If you go back to the top of the screen you can select from any font on your computer. Type the words ‘Birthday list’ on top of you material. When the text is selected like this, you can also drag the corners of the box around it, to resize the text larger or smaller. Move the text to where you would like it on the page by dragging it there using your mouse.
• Click save and then print onto your chosen cardstock.

You can create this project any size. The original is for you to list all the birthdays on one page. If you have lots of people to buy for, an alternative would be to make a separate page for each month. Like this one.

Birthday List with Serif Craft Artist.

Hope you can follow this tutorial ok and I’d love to see what you make, do leave me a link to your projects with your comments. If I can work out how to add pictures from screenshots, I’ll try to share more complex tutorials with Craft Artist.

Links

I highly recomend the Craft Artist Professional Program and the Photo Project software too. If you haven’t got the Craft Artist software yet, get in touch with Serif as I believe the PhotoProjects programe includes Craft Artist Professional and gives you even more tools.

• Serif Software
• Daisy Trail
• Craft Artist Professional
• Digikit: Season of Giving

There will be more projects from me using these programs, so if you want to join in, rush over to Daisy Trail and get some software and digi kits

Best wishes and thanks for reading, see you soon

Billie

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Favorite Products of 2011

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As the year comes to a close I thought it would be a good time to look  back at some of my favorite things of 2011. Today I’d like to share;

My favorite products of 2011

Like last time there are two products that stood out for me this year.

First place by a country mile is; Serif Craft Artist software.

Craft Artist Platinum Edition by Serif

I adore this product as it is so simple to use but has so much versatility and superb digikits. It has a lot of the features of products like Adobe Photoshop Elements but without the HUGE learning curve.

My wonderful husband gave me a copy of this and I’ve had so much fun with it this year and have collected lots of digikits. I love to use it to try out ideas and techniques and especially love that all the wonderful elements can be used over and over again, which when you are on a small budget makes a big difference. Serif have digi kits on their Daisy Trail site and some of them are even free Perfect when you want to treat yourself but the budget says no.

In second place; Brittany Birch knitting needles

Brittany; Birch knitting needles

Trying to knit with RSI is foolish! It hurts, but if you are mad enough to risk it, try these birch needles. I can only knit a row or two at a time and have to rest for some time between attempts but these needles are warm to the touch and so much kinder to the hands than anything else. Super smooth like metal no drag like plastic and they are nice and light to hold too.

How about you?

Those were my favourites of the year, but how about you, what product have you tried this year and now love? Would love to hear about it.

Links

To find out more about the items I’ve mentioned, follow the links below to their original posts.

• Craft Artist includes links to Daisy Trail from which you cam buy the software and digikits
• Brittany Knitting Needles

Best wishes and thanks for reading, see you soon

Billie

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