I love recycling. It is no news to you. What can I say, giving something a new lease of life just before it was about to be tossed away is magical to me.
Paper towels or a heat gun. (I actually prefer the paper towels for this purpose)
How To
[Watch on You Tube & while there, please rate, comment and subscribe]
Step-By-Step Instructions
First Flower Style -
Cut your sheet into strips of about 1″ wide. It doesn’t have to be precise. The wider the strip, the larger the flower would be. For a Two layered flower, make 1 strip wider than the other.
Dye your strip with Glimmer Mists and Perfect Pearls mixed with water.
Dry your dryer sheet completely. You may use a heat gun to dry the strips, but be careful not to get too close and not to concentrate on one zone for too long, or the strip will rip from the heat. You may also use a paper towel to blot the excess liquids.
Pleat the strip around the button and make sure all the ends are tucked underneath the button. Secure all the pleats with a button and embroidery floss.
Tie both ends of the embroidery floss in a double knot and cut off the excess.
Second Flower Style -
Take a couple of sheets and lay them together. Fold them into thirds and cut out an imperfect circle to create a stack of dryer-sheet-circles.
Dye each circle with the mists. To make it more interesting, use different colors on each circle.
Let the circles dry completely.
Stack them together again in an order that appeals to you and secure them with a button and embroidery floss. Alternative: Sew them together with embroidery floss threaded with small beads.
Tie both ends of the embroidery floss in a double knot and cut off the excess.
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If you have any question, suggestion or remark – don’t hesitate to contact me – either leave a comment here, use the contact form or start a new thread on the Creativity Prompt Flickr Group!!!
I would also be very happy to see your own creations, so don’t be shy and share
This year you can really make your dream come true!
“Capture Your Dream” workshop is a self-paced, six weeks long workshop, that will walk you through a journey of capturing your biggest dream and making it come true.
In the process of making your dream happen – with lots of inspiration and guided self-exploration, you will also create a mixed media mini album from scratch and learn many tips and techniques – including some photography pointers that will add character to your photos and will help you take better pictures of your projects.
The workshop includes 30 printable PDF lessons with step-by-step pictures and instructions as well as several printable templates you may use in other projects too.
I am confident you will enjoy it and find it helpful so I also offer full money back guarantee while the workshop lasts.
In light of the coming new year, I backtracked a little bit and gathered the most popular posts on creativity Prompt in 2009.
Without further ado, here are the posts which attracted most of your attention and sparked a wonderful conversation – either on the blog or privately, via e-mails.
What Creativity Prompt did you like the best? What types of projects are pulling you to create?
What project have you tried yourself? Share a link!
Happy New Year!!!
This year you can really make your dream come true!
“Capture Your Dream” workshop is a self-paced, six weeks long workshop, that will walk you through a journey of capturing your biggest dream and making it come true.
In the process of making your dream happen – with lots of inspiration and guided self-exploration, you will also create a mixed media mini album from scratch and learn many tips and techniques – including some photography pointers that will add character to your photos and will help you take better pictures of your projects.
The workshop includes 30 printable PDF lessons with step-by-step pictures and instructions as well as several printable templates you may use in other projects too.
I am confident you will enjoy it and find it helpful so I also offer full money back guarantee while the workshop lasts.
This week I have a cool project – super duper simple and the results are fabulous. For a no bulk notebook that you can carry around freely, without worrying about wear & tear, I have a cool masking technique for you with a color spray and some chipboard letters.
I also have a fantastic tip for threading your embroidery floss through the needle in a split second, you wouldn’t want to miss that…
Cut your papers and cardstock to size & fold in half. Burnish the crease with a bone folder.
Lay the paper stack over the cardstock piece and center it.
Mark the placement of your piercing holes. Find the center and mark at ½” on each side and then go on and mark in 1″ increments.
Pierce all your marked holes, all the way through the papers and the cardstock. Make sure they are aligned together and that the piercer goes through the crease.
Thread your needle with the embroidery floss. TIP -To thread your needle in a split second (no exaggeration here) simply stick a small piece of tape to the end of your floss, fold it over and cut the excess. That will prevent the fraying of the floss and will also provide a slight stiffening effect for a quick and smooth threading.
Start stitching your notebook from the top hole, from the inside – out. Make a simple running stitch, going through each hole – once in and once out. After you go through all the holes, go back through the holes, switching direction, so the stitch will look like a backstitch. When you go through the last hole, tie the ends together in a strong knot.
For a no-bulk embellishment, adhere the chipboard letters with a temporary adhesive. Make sure the adhesive isn’t protruding outside or it will affect the impression of the letters.
Lightly spray from about 10″ above your notebook cover. Spritz the color mist as many times you want until you get the effect you are looking for. [The chipboard letters may be reused in another project, by the way...]
Before removing the letters go over them with a black or white marker, that will create a nice outline and will add visual interest. Just make sure to hold your letters tight, as the temporary adhesive isn’t strong enough and they may move around.
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If you have any question, suggestion or remark – don’t hesitate to contact me – either leave a comment here, use the contact form or start a new thread on the Creativity Prompt Flickr Group!!!
I would also be very happy to see your own creations, so don’t be shy and share
Check out the new “Make Your Own Planner” workshop and you may solve this year’s holiday gift shopping problem. An affordable workshop that keeps on giving…
“Capture Your Dream” workshop is relaunching as a self-paced workshop. Isn’t this the perfect time for you to capture your dream and make it happen?
Sending handmade cards is a wonderful and well appreciated gesture, but with a recipients list as long as eternity, who has the time to make them?
What if most of the work was already done? The basic design has been laid down. The greeting has been “stamped” and all you had to do is cut, score, punch and paste? That would really give the push you need to accomplish your goal of sending handmade cards to all your acquaintances.
Search no more. I have sorted out your Christmas cards dilemma for this year.
Below you can find a printable template (PDF file format) that does most of the work for you. If you are interested, keep on reading.
Tools & Supply
Printable cards template. [Right-click on the link and opt for "save link as..." OR "Save target as..."]
Print the template on a cardstock of your choice (8½” by 11″). Make sure your printer’s setting is on “No scaling”.
Cut your cardstock at 5½” and score each half at 4¼”.
Cut 1¼” by 1¼” squares from the patterned paper of your choice. Use a punch to make this step super quick.
Adhere your patterned paper squares to the squares on the template, using dimensional foam adhesive.
Either stop here, right a personal greeting inside and send the card OR embellish some more.
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If you have any question, suggestion or remark – don’t hesitate to contact me – either leave a comment here, use the contact form or start a new thread on the Creativity Prompt Flickr Group!!!
I would also be very happy to see your own creations, so don’t be shy and share
Check out the new “Make Your Own Planner” workshop and you may solve this year’s holiday gift shopping problem. An affordable workshop that keeps on giving…
That means that part of the book is designed digitally and part of it – traditionally. Together it’s a great mix of new & old.
Using digital elements, such as patterned papers, word art and other digital embellishments helps in keeping a theme and a color scheme for the book. If you want to make this book as a gift, in multiples, then starting on your computer also allows you to include all your journaling on the pages and then printing them either once or a million times, with no extra effort.
Start this project on the computer. Open your photo editing software and either crop or resize the digital patterned papers to the same width and height of your board book.
Don’t forget to count the spine while making the pages for the cover, leave a gap the same width as your spine between them.
Print your pages on cardstock. Plain paper won’t be opaque over the altered pages of the board book.
Use the borderless printing setting, otherwise the printer will scale down your images to allow a white border around them and it’ll distort your measurement.
Start working on the cover – trim off the excess paper and score your spine’s fold lines to get crisp creases. You may also go over the folds again with the bone folder, for an even crisper look.
Adhere the cover by applying a generous layer of glue stick on the board book cover and burnish with a brayer. Let dry.
In the meantime, start cutting the pages and your photos and any other digital element you have printed (word art, embellishments, journaling tags, etc.)
Once the glue has dried, turn your page around and cut off the excess with a very sharp craft knife. If you get uneven edges, you can file them down with sand paper.
Repeat the same process with the rest of the pages: adhere, go over it with a brayer, let dry and trim off the excess.
Make sure you trim off the edges of a page before adhering the printed cardstock to the other side.
Some ideas for embellishing your mini altered book:
Adhere your titles with foam pop-dots to give some extra dimension.
Stick to one type of embellishment (buttons in my case) to maintain cohesion.
Use different sizes of pen tips to create interesting handmade word art.
Outline your pictures, letter stickers and other elements with your journaling pen to anchor them to the page and add dimension.
Using 3D embellishments can make dents in your photos, so make sure both pages have the same “elevation” so the elements won’t touch the pictures themselves.
Have fun!!!
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If you have any question, suggestion or remark – don’t hesitate to contact me – either leave a comment here, use the contact form or start a new thread on the Creativity Prompt Flickr Group!!!
I would also be very happy to see your own creations, so don’t be shy and share
Check out the new “Make Your Own Planner” workshop and you may solve this year’s holiday gift shopping problem. An affordable workshop that keeps on giving…
This week’s project is also quick and easy to put together. You decide how much time you want to spend embellishing each page later on…
All you need is a bunch of envelopes, 2 pieces of chipboard and a long piece of ribbon. Pretty straightforward.
You can take your time and decorate each page individually, or just adhere a photo on the back of each envelope and insert your journaling in each corresponding envelope. The sky is the limit for you.
Cut 2 pieces of chipboard – ½” taller and wider than your envelopes.
Stick a strong double sided tape at the center of each chipboard piece. You can use the markings of your cutting mat for easy alignment.
Adhere your ribbon to both pieces of chipboard, while leaving a ½” gap between them.
Adhere each envelope to the next at the base with plain packaging/wrapping tape. Make sure you keep the orientation of the envelopes.
Cut the excess tape off the sides of the envelopes stack.
Adhere the envelopes stack to the chipboard with some more strong double sided tape.
Cut the envelope inserts out of cardstock. Make them ½” shorter and narrower than your envelopes.
Insert a piece of cardstock into each envelope.
Embellish and… Voilà!
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If you have any question, suggestion or remark – don’t hesitate to contact me – either leave a comment here, use the contact form or start a new thread on the Creativity Prompt Flickr Group!!!
I would also be very happy to see your own creations, so don’t be shy and share
I loverecycling and every time I manage to turn trash into treasure, I am happy. Maybe too happy, but that’s for the professionals to judge
If you are as jubilant about recycling as I am and would like to make a fat journal out of cardboard and packaging paper used for padding – then keep on scrolling.
I’ve got a video tutorial just for you.
Tools & Supply
Packaging material – cardboard and padding paper (or plain copier paper)
Cut cardboard at: 5½” by 4½” | 5½” by 4½” | 5½” by 1″.
Cut 2 pieces of patterned paper for the cover, at: 8″ by 6″.
Adhere the cover pieces to the center of the patterned paper with glue stick.
Cut the corners of the patterned paper and leave a gap from the cardboard corners – a gap as long as the cardboard is thick (between ½” to ¼” depending on the cardboard).
Fold the remaining patterned paper flaps over and adhere to the cardboard with glue stick.
To cover the spine, cut a 6″ by 6″ piece of patterned paper diagonally. Cut it 2″-1½” away from the corner on each side.
Fold and adhere the top patterned paper flaps to the cardboard spine with glue stick.
Apply strong double sided adhesive to both edges of the patterned paper and attach the cover pieces to it. Allow an 1/8″ gap between the spine and each of the cover pieces.
For the inside cover, cut your patterned paper at: 5¼” by 4¼” | 5¼” by 4¼” | 5¼” by 1″.
Adhere the patterned paper to the inside cover with glue stick. Optional - To secure the adhesion go over the cover with a brayer a few times in different directions.
Punch 2 holes in the spine using a Crop-a-Dile.
Cut the insert pages (from the packaging paper, or any other plain paper you have) at 8″ by 5″.
Fold the insert pages in half.
Optional - Use a T-Square ruler to straighten up the inserts (or leave them looking rustic).
Position your folded pages where they should lay inside the journal and mark the placement of the holes, then punch the inserts accordingly.
Thread your string through the inserts, from the inside – out.
Thread the ends of the string through the spine and secure in a knot or a double bow.
Write your secrets and deepest wishes in the pages of your new handmade journal.
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If you have any question, suggestion or remark – don’t hesitate to contact me – either leave a comment here, use the contact form or start a new thread on the Creativity Prompt Flickr Group!!!
I would also be very happy to see your own creations, so don’t be shy and share
A good quality art journal with sturdy signatures may burn a hole in our pocket. However, by using just 5 high quality cardstock pieces, you can make your own art journal for a fraction of the price – not to mention the cute foam cover you get…
If you are interested in watching how to make one of these cute art journals, than keep on scrolling…
Tools and Supply
Heavy weight cardstock (5 sheets of 8½” by 11″ will make 10 signatures = 20 pages)
Fold the signatures in half. For a sharp crease use a bone folder.
Poke holes along the crease line of each signature. Start at the center and then continue each inch below and above the center.
Sew your signatures together. Start at the top hole and go through each hole with a plain running stitch, after you went through the bottom hole go back through the top hole again.
When attaching the second signature (and the ones after it) secure each stitch by going through the stitches on the spine before threading the needle through the holes.
After you have made the last stitch on the last signature, secure the ends with a few knots.
Cut the fun foam at 9″ by 5¼” for the cover.
Attach the signatures to the fun foam with a generous layer of glue stick. Apply pressure on the journal for an hour or so to ensure good adhesion.
Start painting and sketching in your new art journal…
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If you have any question, suggestion or remark – don’t hesitate to contact me – either leave a comment here, use the contact form or start a new thread on the Creativity Prompt Flickr Group!!!
I would also be very happy to see your own creations, so don’t be shy and share
How would you like to put together a beautiful mini album – from start to finish – in about an hour?
Sounds good, doesn’t it?
You know what, let me throw in a special feature that will turn your mini album from a beautiful albeit simple board-book into an intricate gate-album that is guaranteed to extract some “oohs and ahs” [I am pretty sure it's a technical term. Please correct me if I'm wrong].
Are you interested? Yes? Then keep reading.
Oh, wait. Have I mentioned there’s a video tutorial included in the package?
Tools and Supply
2 Heavy-weight acetate or acrylic sheets – 4″ by 6″ each.
5 pieces of heavy-weight chipboard (about an 1/8″ thick) – 4″ by 6″ each
[Music with permission is by Josh Woodward from his album "Here Today"]
Step By Step Instructions
Cut all your acetate and chipboard pieces to size and arrange them according to the following chart:
The top and bottom acetate (or acrylic) pieces protect your photos. You may leave those pieces out if you wish.
Mark a 1/4″ line – lengthwise – on the respective edges and mark 3 dots on that line – 1 dot in the center and 2 other dots 1″ above and below the center one. Punch these marks with a Crop-A-Dile.
After you have punched 3 holes on each side on one piece, you may use it to mark the holes on the other pieces and punch them accordingly.
Adhere each photo to the chipboard with a generous application of glue stick. Start with one side, use a brayer to insure strong adhesion, and re-punch the holes before moving on to adhering the photo to the backside.
You may replace each photo with a 4″ by 6″ sheet of patterned paper or cardstock – whatever works best for your needs.
If the photo is bigger than the chipboard piece, trim the excess with a sharp craft knife.
Double check the orientation of each photo, before you adhere it.
Assemble all your layers, following the chart above, and attach together with binding rings.
Embellish!
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If you have any question, suggestion or remark – don’t hesitate to contact me – either leave a comment here, use the contact form or start a new thread on the Creativity Prompt Flickr Group!!!
I would also be very happy to see your own creations, so don’t be shy and share
This week’s creativity prompt is more of an idea on how to reuse drier sheets after they have made your laundry smell fresher and become softer. You know how much I love recycling, so this project is right up my alley.
It takes merely seconds to make this flower and it has a fabric-like texture. Think of it as a tissue paper that won’t rip.
The added bonus of the drier sheet is that even after it does its job inside the drier machine, it still holds its smell. That means that you are not only adding cuteness to the project but a scent too!
Add color by rubbing ink directly onto the circles. If the ink pad falls off, no worries. Stick it right back with a glob of Diamond Glaze.
Cluster the circles together and adhere with Diamond Glaze – a dot of glue will do. (dry adhesive, like a tape runner or glue dots will not work)
To finish off the look, thread an embroidery floss through a button and adhere to the top circle with another dab of Diamond Glaze.
Let dry. After the adhesive has dried up and hardened, you can go ahead and attach the flower to the project with a glue dot. (Position the glue dot directly on the hardened adhesive).
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Share your thoughts and your own drier-sheet creations by leaving a comment!
This time I revisit an oldie, but a goodie – 
How would you like to put together a beautiful mini album – from start to finish – in about an hour? 
This week’s creativity prompt is more of an idea on how to reuse drier sheets after they have made your laundry smell fresher and become softer. You know how much I love 
