DIY easy shaker cards with Evelyn Wolff

Hi everyone, Evelyn here and today I am going to share with you how to make some easy-peasy shaker cards.

For my cards I used the My Mind’s Eye Just Sayin’ transparent sheets and some of the beautiful papers from this collection.

For the shaker element  you need foam tape or pads. And of course you need some sequins or glitter or whatever you would like to use.

The transparent sheets are perfect because the phrases are so nice to use on cards.

I’ve cut out a frame with one of my dies. You could use every shape you’d like or you have at hand.

You need to glue down the transparent sheet on the backside of the frame. I always use double sided tape for this.

And then you need to put the foam tape on it and you have to be careful because you need to make sure that there are no gaps.

One more piece of paper for the backside and of course don’t forget to fill the shaker box.

Your shaker box is now ready to create a card with it.

I hope you enjoyed my small tutorial and I can’t wait to see what you’ll create! Have fun!

Materials used available at Mei Li Paperie:

My Mind's Eye Just Sayin' Transparency Frames

My Mind's Eye Just Sayin' 6x6 Paper Pad

My Mind's Eye Just Sayin' Paper Posies

My Mind's Eye Just Sayin' Paper Beauty

My Mind's Eye Just Sayin' Paper Garden Party

The Art Journal Starter Kit with Caylee Grey

Hello Mei Li Paperie darlings. It's Caylee here and I'm sharing a paper art form that's close to my heart. Art journaling. A while back, my internet bestie, Lauren, and I, had a chat about two things - that we had all these creative classes that we never finished, and how we wished that we were creating continuously. That's how we came up with the idea of art journaling every single week. Initially we used our art journal classes to guide us, but we passed the prompts, and we've been posting for 25 straight weeks now. We each have books bursting with art journal goodness, and are on our way to a mini art journal library.

Art journaling is great because it has no rules. I mean, I know scrapbooking has no rules, but you really feel so free when art journaling. If you want to paint a smear across a page and call it a day, you can. Art journaling also helps my creativity in other realms. It has helped me make better layouts, better mini books, and better Project Life pages. I've had a lot of emails asking about starting art journaling. The toughest part of most things is getting started. And so I put together a "starter kit" including the tools I use for art journaling. You only really need a paper, pen, and your brain, but these tools will make it easier.

First things first, you need a place to put these gorgeous pages. You can simply bind loose sheets of paper together in a way that you like, or you can use a bound book, or binder. I'm currently using a Moleskine and it's been my favourite choice... but I'm pretty much biased.

Old second hand books are one of my favourite backgrounds for my pages. 

Pages from super old books give a beautiful vintage look.

Dictionaries, thesauruses, and silly books are some of my favourites.

And then you get old school illustrated books. Birds and flowers are my favorite. You've got to really search for treasures like these that are still cheap.

Oh, how I love old book pages.

Other great paper bases are magazine cuttings. My favourite magazines for these are Flow, Molly Makes, and National Geographics.

Whenever I visit the hardware store I take a bunch of paint chips. They're free and they're freaking gorgeous. Natural ombres.

I don't have many pages because I'm always moving homes, so I keep everything in a clear plastic envelope.

Wrapping paper makes for some great solid backgrounds.

Doilies bought from a grocery store are my favourite embellishments. They add a soft, feminine touch. 

So I have a thing for alphabet stickers. I honestly can never have enough. They make my pages a bit more cohesive and tied together. I could use my handwriting, but little stickers are just so much prettier.

Speaking of handwriting, this is a very important part of my art journaling. Sometimes the art can't say everything you want it to, and then you use words.

Plain paper and vellum are fantastic for adding extra dimension. Often I write a heading onto the plain paper, and cut around it and stick it onto the page.

Washi. I mean. Of course this list would include washi. You can create entire pages with just washi. I like using it as something to write on, or to hold an image down. I also loate using glue, so I like to use double sided tape as often as possible.

Ribbon and lace also looks beautiful on pages. I buy my lace from a material shop because it's so cheap.

I use a variety of pens in my journaling. Copic Markers for headings, and Uni Pin Fine Lines for journaling. I've recently started incorporating paint.

My scanner and my Silhouette Portrait are really helpful when making a page. I love the ability of cutting out words and titles easily, and I love superimposing my handwriting onto a digital image. I use Photoshop to add depth.

The ultimate. A great pair of scissors.

Tutorial ~ Handcut titles with Kim Jeffress

Today I am going to share how I create my hand cut titles. Hand cut titles have been my favourite way of creating titles lately on my layouts.

First I will share my layout. I used a combination of papers from Pink Paislee Summer Solstice and Shimelle for American Crafts to create the base of my layout.

  

Now comes the fun part, adding my title and embellishments.

Step 1. To coordinate the colours in your title to the back ground, trim a square of pattern paper from the centre of your base pattern paper. Be sure to place the blade in the centre of your pattern paper not the edge to make your cut.

  

Step 2. Using a lead pencil draw the letters for your title on to the trimmed pattern paper. I prefer using capital letters because there are more straight lines which are easier to cut.

  

Step 3. Using a sharp pair of scissors cut your letters out. Erase any pencil lines still visible.

   

Step 4. For some added texture sand the edges of the letters.

    

Step 5. Add a small piece of adhesive to the middle of each letter and when dry machine stitch through each letter to complete.

 

Kim used: 

Pink Paislee Solstice Paper Trunk Bay

Shimelle Paper Haynes

Shimelle Paper Baxter

Heidi Swapp Project Life Core Kit Favorite Things

Heidi Swapp Project Life Embossing Folder Star

Chic Tags Cloud 9 Clips

Chic Tags Cloud 9 Label Stickers

BasicGrey Kelly Purkey Second City Title Stickers

BasicGrey Micro Mono Alpha Stickers Navy

  

Tutorial ~ A quick & easy mini album...

Hey everyone! Lucia here again – with my last guest post for Mei Li Paperie, and this time I’m gonna share with you a tutorial about how to make a quick and easy mini album.

This month, I spent few days in Sardinia, Italy. It was a lovely but really short holiday (just 4 days!), so I thought that a little mini about these days would be just right.

BONUS – I’ve finally tried one thing that I was thinking about for about a year!!! And it worked. Read on to find out what it is : )  

Step 1: Gather your supplies – 12x12 patterned papers, white tissue/ vellum paper and a few embellishments, like thickers or journaling tags. You’ll also need a sewing machine,  a crop-a-dile or hole punch and a hair tie or fun elastic: )

Step 2: Cut the 12x12 papers in half and mark the center.

Step 3: Sew over the line that you’ve just drawn to bind the pages together.

Step 4: Now fold the pages – and the base for your minialbum is done! I know, it’s not a big deal but quite handy when you need a quick mini such as a notebook or mini album. The fun part is about to come.

Step 5: Cut the hair tie or elastic like in the picture.

Step 6: We are going to attach the hearband to thelast page. In order to do this, I've made that part of the page stronger by adding a stripe of paper and sewed over it few times.

Step 7: Now punch two holes at the top and bottom of the back page, insert the eyelet and one end of the hairband – like on the picture – and bind together.

Step 8: Do the same with the other hole. It’s important that the hair tie goes in the same direction as i have shown in the picture:

I've always wanted to try this, because I like when my notebooks or agenda closes like this and holds everything together – so even if your pages are rich in embellishment, the hair tie will hold everything together : )

Step 9: To keep it simple (and easy), I've only used white tissue/copy paper and white thread for embellishing or to create layers under the photos. There are also some tags from Websters Pages Ocean Melody’s Paper (Storyteller Card Sheet II) and gold glitter alphas from AC on the front page. And finally – I’ve used a pocket with a card from Fancy Pants – Library Cards to write a simple journaling.

And here’s my finished mini album.

Have fun creating!

Lucia