Tricks of the Trade

Adding Tin Storage Jars in your scrapbook - Click here for picture

There are a few different ways to use these:

1. You can place the lid upside down on your layout and fill it with embellishments such as buttons, charms, sea shells, beads, whatever coordinates with your layout, simply glue your items in the lid starting with the bottom layer and working your way up! This makes for a great collage!

2. You can place it right side up on your paper for a see thru look by simply tracing the lid on a sturdy piece of cardstock, cut the circle you just traced out, then again working from bottom to top glue your embellishments to the cardstock, when finished glue the cardstock to your page then glue the lid over the top with metal glue. For a shaker box effect like the one that Peggy K. made do not glue your embellishments to the cardstock but simply lay them on top of it.

3. You can even use the entire jar! Just fill it and glue it to your page! This works great for that piece of hair from baby's first hair cut! You can also line the bottom of the jar with your favorite patterned paper or cardstock too! And don't forget to decorate the sides too, you can glue seed beads to them, cover with cardstock let your imagination take over! Then just glue it to your page with metal glue.

Hermafix Tabs - Cut Hermafix tabs in half diagonally that way they fit perfectly in the corners of your mats, & last twice as long.

Thank You to Linda O. a.k.a. vnmom from our yahoo group for this great tip!

Xyron Machine & Die Cuts / Punchies - Run Die Cuts / Punchies through the Xyron Machine upside down to apply adhesive to the front, then add tiny beads or glitter to jazz them up!

Thank You to Linda O. a.k.a. vnmom from our yahoo group for this great tip!

Ink Pads - Just stamp your ink pad/pads randomly around on your paper to create a splatter like look. Or, lay a plastic template over your paper and then tap your ink pad over the image just move the template around on the paper to create a pattern. When you are done simply wipe your plastic template off with a damp rag.

Plastic Templates - These can also be used for paper piecing. Just trace your image, cut it out and clue it on your page!

Paper Tearing - When tearing paper try using a wet Q-tip to outline where you would like to tear. It will make tearing easier especially on Mulberry Paper.

Stickers -

In order to help you align your sticker letters, you can use the backing from any sticker sheet and use the edge to line up your title or saying by placing the bottom of each letter on the sheet.
The tops will hang over the edge, but don't worry this is how you transfer them to your layout page.
Set the backing paper down where you want your title to go and your letters will be straight and spaced nicely.
This backing then comes off the sticker bottoms very easily.

If you have a sticker that you want to use as a special element on your page, (especially the more transparent type)
Place it on white cardstock first or a complementary color and then trim around it. Then you can use it anywhere on your page, even overlapping one or two elements without changing the appearance of the sticker.

Also if you want to stop the stickiness of the sticker in order to allow it to float on the page... like dangle from fiber or wire.
You just take some baby powder and apply it to the back of the sticker and it absorbs the adhesive and renders it neutral.
I like to do this sometimes just so I can move a sticker about my page until I decide where I want it to go, then I use adhesive to stick it to the page. :)

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