My Bookatrix and Projects

How To Make A Paper Tortillion

A tortillion is a rolled up piece of paper which resembles a pencil. These can then be used to blend colors together using prismacolors and sansador. By making your own you can save some money, just follow the steps below.


TIP

You may find that your tortillion becomes stained after some use, you can clean the tip using a normal nail file and gently file the tip.


You Will Need

A Piece of Paper (A4 is recommeneded)
Ruler
Pencil
Tape
Scissors
Slim Knitting Needle/Wide Wire

Get an A4 paper (optional, you can use ordinary paper). At the top left corner, use your ruler to mark one inch down. Down at the bottom right corner, mark one inch up.

Connect the two points and cut across the line using scissors. Now you have two slabs of paper for two tortillions.

Beginning at the small end, roll the paper as even and tight as possible, working your way towards the wide end. Once this is done, hold on to it nice and strong.

Push a slim knitting needle or a fat wire into the open part of the tortillon so it takes the shape of a pencil.

Protect the paper with tiny strip of tape. Trim any extra paper around the top.

Crafty Pad Blog Candy

Val a very talented lady at the Crafty Pad has some lovely blog candy available so pop over and have peep at her wonderful projects.

Crafty Pad Blog Candy here

Wow 76th Wedding Anniversary

My second project this week was a 76th wedding anniversary card all I can say is wow that is some achievement 76 years of marriage. The couple in question are 100 and 98 years old. I didnt want to go over the top with this one so tried to keep it special but simple. I used the bookatrix board to make the bells and agin I used Fred She Said flowers to embellish, I think I must have an obsession with Fred She Said flowers, I just love them and usually cannot resist using them on my cards.

Hello Kitty

After a mad week last week trying to help my husband lay a new wooden floor in the kitchen (first attempt) in all that heat too, here is the results which even though I say myself its not to bad but it was hard work. After nearly six months of decorating and diy around the house I now only have two rooms left to do - hooray nearly there. So this week I have made time to do some craft work and have a break from diy.




Now getting to the more interesting stuff like crafting :-)

I have had two projects to complete the first one was some favour boxes for my grandaughters friends birthday party and the theme was Hello Kitty. Using the Sizzix Hello Kitty die cuts this is was I came up with, I must say they were rather fiddly to put together but all turned out OK eventually. This is a great way to use all those small scraps of papers you cant bear to part with ;-)

My First Horeshoe Attempt

This project didnt start off to well at all, Cricut decided to play me up and I thought it was going to end up a complete disaster, but i plodded on and things turned out pretty much ok. So it pays to carry on even when you dont think things are going to well. Anyway my customer was extremely pleased so thats what counts really...

To make this horseshoe I used pink pearlised card and cut two shaped pieces from a SCAL file on my cricut. The gathered lace I placed between the the two layers of card and then embellished with some gorgous peel offs and babies breath flowers from Princess Favours



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More Freebie Papers

As promised two more freebie background papers to download, these are quite rich colours. Just click on the picture and save to your pc.

Cows Curiosity or Steven Maybe

This is my youngest son Steven, who now lives in Bristol. He came home last week for a few days and this picture was taken by his older brother Mark in the fields at the back of our house.

I just had to share this photo with you, the cows look quite bemused I thought, either that or they were pleased to have their photo taken with Steven hahaha. Click on the picture to enlarge and see the looks on their faces....

This one is my family, not such a good photo...

Unfortuanatly I couldnt find the 23 year old cat...

Free Backing Paper

I have been learning how to create background papers in paintshop pro and really enjoying the flexibility of creating my own papers. It has been quite a journey needless to say quite alot of stuff I have done has ended up in the waste bin but here is one that I would like to share with you. Please feel free to use this paper for your projects all I ask is that you leave me a comment to say you have downloaded it... and if you get chance send me a photo of your work so i can display it here for you.

Hope you enjoy it and have fun.

To download double click on the image and save to your PC





I made this card using Fred She Said digital flower downloads and the background paper i created in paintshop pro

Daisychains Blog Candy

While blog hopping today I found Christines (great name lol) blog Daisychains, please take a look she has some very inspirational cards but if you visit before June 8th you can be enter into her blog candy. There is some lovely candy for you in the Forever Friends range. So dont wait visit Christine at Daisychain here

The Craftypad Stamp Giveaway - Final Day

The final day for the Craftypad giveaway,to be in with a chance to win a Craftypad stamp visit the craftypad blog here

Todays stamp is a gorgous teddy stamp, so all you teddy bear lovers pop on over to have a look, just scroll down the page a bit to find the stamp

Spellbinders

I know yet another video lol....

But I just couldnt resist blogging about this video which I found today on the spellbinders, which im sure you must all adore like myself. I just wish I could win the lottery and buy them all, imagine that a complete set of spellbinders, just a dream for me im afraid. Hope you enjoy watching this as much as I did.

Squidoo

Just a quickie today, as I am really tied up decorating the downstair rooms at the moment and I really wanted to share my Squidoo with you. I think some of you already use squidoo but for those who have never heard its well worth having a browse around to see if it is for you. Squidoo is a fabulous way to promote your projects and designs so pop along and have a look her is a link to my Bookatrix Projects & Ideas Lens.

Cover A Notepad

This is a great little video tutorial on how to cover a spiral notepad I found on You Tube. For those of you who dont own a Bind It All machine this is a fabulous alternative way to make some personalised notepads. Have fun...

More Fairy Doodles

Some more fairy doodles here.... yes im still playing with my new stamps. Just in case you are wondering about all my LILAC cards, I have a neighbour who buys all her cards from me and her favourite colour is lilac so I seem to have rather alot of left over papers and card in lilac, well i need to find some way to use it all up. It may also have something to do with that i also like lilac to, lol.

Anyway, again i have watercoloured the fairy doodle image and highlighted with sakura glitter pens but I also shaded with dovecraft shimmery chalks, which gave a lovely effect, unfortuantely the picture has not picked this up. The flowers again are from Fred She Said collection, I do love her images. I then used a crystal clear lacquer on them. Stamped sentiment is also from the fairy doodle range from The Pink Shop.

Fairy Doodles

I just recieved these Fairy doodles Stamps from The Pink Shop today and they are soooo cute, ive been playing with these all day, even though I have a awful cold at the moment.

I watercoloured the image and highlighted with Sakura glitter pens and the embellishment is from Fred She Said.

Bird House

While blog hopping yesterday i came across this bird house on Kaths Blog and fell in love with it, just had to make one as they are so cute. Kath very kindly left a link on her blog to Nicole Headys blog where you can download a free template for the bird house, so here is the download link for you.... scroll down to find the download.

I made the birdhouse with Bazzil cardstock and embellished with Fred She Said flowers.

These are a great gift idea.

A Bit of Quilling

I just learnt how to make these lovely fringed flowers so now im hooked you may see many more. These are great for using up your bits of papers and with the help of Susan i managed to make a decent flower. You can check out Susans blog here

You will need a strip of paper measureing 3cm by 30cm long to make a large flower like this.