Don't Stress... DISTRESS!

Today’s project is a little more complex, but don’t let that scare you, the steps are all easy to do.

I wanted to jazz up a plain canvas tote bag I had purchased, and decided to use MORE canvas to accomplish that.

Clearsnap’s Crafter’s Inks work great on fabrics and are colorfast and washable as long as you heat set them. I wanted the project to have a “spring rainbow” color scheme, so I selected my ink colors and stamp with that in mind. The stamp is from Hero Arts and features four flowers in the negative with swirl accents. I wanted to see some blends of colors in the flowers. So I cut my canvas in squares a little larger than the stamp, and used a different color ink to color each quadrant, letting the colors blend where they met. Then I stamped over my inked canvas in black so the colors would really POP.

The fringe was fun to create, and by using the selvage, something you’d normally cut off and discard, I was able to utilize ALL my canvas.

I’ve included photos in with the directions to make them a little easier. There is some simple sewing involved, but if you don’t sew, you can still make this project, just use fabric glue instead. If you are an accomplished stitcher, you might want to make your own canvas bag instead of purchasing one.

Here's my tote all decked out flowers...

And here are the supplies and directions you need to make your own...

"Rainbow Wash" Tote Bag

Skill Level: Moderate

SUPPLIES:

Clearsnap: Crafter’s Ink: Black (High Top), Canary, Pink, Lime and Turquoise (mini size)

Hero Arts: Floral Garden Clings Stamp

Other: canvas tote (purchased or handmade – sample tote measured approximately 13 ½ X 13 ½ X 4), ½ yard of canvas and buttons (new or vintage)

Tools: acrylic block, scissors, tape measure, iron, white paper towels or blank newsprint and sewing machine, needle and thread OR washable fabric glue.

DIRECTIONS:

***NOTE, please click HERE for complete directions concerning preparation of fabric, and heat setting. It is important that you follow these directions in order to make the ink permanent and your project washable.

1) Cut 4 – 4 ½ X 4 ½ pieces of canvas (do not use selvage). 3 pieces will be stamped with flowers to cut out; fourth piece will be stamped but left whole for pocket trim.

2) Ink each corner of each square with a different color ink, allowing them to blend together at the edges. Hold the pad upside down and apply the ink directly to the fabric, gently swiping the fabric in one direction.

3) Ink Floral Garden stamp with black and stamp image over inked canvas, matching the flowers to the corners of the canvas. Trim each to about ¼” from image.

4) Cut a 5 ½ X 5 piece of canvas for pocket and ink each side with a different color ink, blending the colors at the corners.

5) Measure the top of your tote from side seam to side seam and add 2”.

6) Measure that length along both selvage edges of your fabric and mark.

---- selvage

7) Measure 3” width from both selvage edges and mark.

8) Cut out strips for fringe. We’ll be using the selvage as the top of the fringe since it won’t shrink or unravel.

9) Begin inking fringe at one end, gently swiping ink pad down from selvage edge.

--- ink in about 2” sections, blending and overlapping colors slightly.

---Until the entire length is inked.

---inked fringe

10) Clip fringe in ¼” strips, stopping about ½” from top of selvage. Make sure you are clipping the NON-selvage edge.

--- clip entire length of both pieces.

--- clipped fringe

11) Heat set all pieces as directed.

12) Cut out flowers from 3 of the 4 stamped squares, leaving a ¼” border around them.

13) Safety pin or staple the flowers to the pocket and pocket trim, then wash all pieces, including fringe, in a cold water on a quick cycle (no need to add detergent). This will “distress” the canvas and fray the edges of all the pieces. Lay the pieces out to dry overnight or place in a pillowcase and tumble dry on low.

14) Iron all pieces, using starch if desired, then trim away some of the excess threads.

15) To assemble tote, first stitch buttons in flower centers on pocket trim. (I DIDN’T do this and it was HARD to sew them on after the pocket was attached!)

16) Center and pin pocket trim to pocket, then zig zag around pocket trim (if gluing, just glue pocket trim to center of pocket)

17) Pin pocket to tote and zig zag around sides and bottom to attach (if gluing, just use a thin line of glue around sides and bottom edge)

18) To attach fringe, work one side at a time and start pinning fringe along top of tote, beginning and ending at side seam. Trim any excess fringe. (or attach with glue)

19) Use a zig zag stitch along the top of the fringe to attach it to the tote.

20) Scatter flowers on tote as desired and pin in place. Attach flowers by stitching buttons at centers. (or glue on flowers, then glue buttons at centers)

Then you are DONE and are ready to enjoy your tote!

---tami

Pretty Petals...

I've got another spring themed project for you today, and it's bursting with soft, pretty pastel colors: pink, lavender, blue, yellow and spring green.

Often it’s difficult to find printed papers or embellishments in color combinations that match your photos. But since Clearsnap has so many different types of inks in SO many beautiful colors, its easy to make your own papers and or embellishments that will match your photos PERFECTLY.

Here’s today’s project, a layout titled “Spring Fair”...

(Special thanks to Laura E for the photo of her beautiful girls!)

This 8 X 8 scrapbook page features a pretty bouquet of inked and "smooched" chipboard flowers. The flowers, part of Hampton Art's Flower Press line, started out as plain white chipboard. First they were tinted using ColorBox Pigment Inks. Then they were stamped with a coordinating stamp - made to fit each flower – that was inked with Fluid Chalk Ink. Finally accents were added or filled in using Smooch Accent Inks.

ColorBox Pigment Inks were the perfect ink to use to “paint” the chipboard; they are easy to blend, are very opaque and cover well. I decided to use the ColorBox Fluid Chalk Ink to stamps the designs on the flowers with as they add a soft but crisp look and dry quickly. And to add a bit of color AND shimmer, the Smooch Accent Inks were the obvious choice. They are opaque and cover in one coat, so there was no bleed through of the base ink color, and they have a fabulous precision applicator built into the top so that I could get into all the little nooks and crannies of the stamped designs.

It was easy to ink the chipboard flowers as the surface is nice and smooth and since they are bright white the inks really "pop" once you apply them. I placed each flower on a clean white paper towel, and working one at a time with the ink pad held upside down, I dabbed the ink onto the chipboard until I had the coverage I wanted. I used the Pigment Inks in the mini size as they are very easy to handle.

After the flowers were dry and I stamped the accents on them and then used spring shades of Smooch Accent Inks to fill in some of the designs of each of the flowers.

Here's a few closeups of the flowers:

I used some pretty pearls, from Hero Arts, to embellish the centers of the flowers. I also used them to "dot" the "i's" in my title:

Once all the flowers were done, all I had left to do was stamp the title and assemble the layout.

Here are the supplies and directions you'll need to create this project yourself:

"Spring Fair" 8 X 8 scrapbook layout

Skill Level: moderate

SUPPLIES:

Clearsnap: ColorBox Pigment Inks: Orchid, Aqua, Sunflower and Heliotrope (mini or full size), ColorBox: Fluid Chalk Ink: Chestnut Roan and Blue Lagoon (mini or full size) and Smooch Accent Ink: Carrot, Pool, Taffy, Grape Soda and Sundance

Hero Arts: Curly Alphabet Clear Design Stampsand Accent Pearls: Pink, Light Yellowand Light Lavender

Hampton Art: Flower Press: White Chipboard Flowers, Large White Chipboard Flowers, Petal Patterns Clear Stamp, Petal Words Clear Stamp, Large Petal Patterns Clear Stamp and Large Petal Words Clear Stamp

Bazzill: Lime Sherbert, Coconut Swirl and Banana Blis cardstocks

Tools: acrylic block scissors,paper trimmer and adhesive

DIRECTIONS:

1) Select 3 large, 3 12pt and 3 chipboard flowers and ink them using your choice of ColorBox Pigment Ink colors. Place the flowers on a clean white paper towel, and then holding the ink pad upside down, dab ink onto chipboard until desired coverage is reached. Set flowers aside to dry.

2) Using Chestnut Roan Fluid Chalk Ink, stamp flowers with your choice of coordinating stamp design and set aside to dry.

3) Use your choice of Smooch Accent Ink colors to fill in portions of the stamped designs and set aside to dry.

4) Cut an 8” X 8” piece of yellow paper.

5) Cut a 1 ¾” X 6 ¾” piece of white cardstock. Stamp “spring fair” title near the top using Blue Lagoon Chalk Ink. Adhere piece about 1/8” from the left side of the yellow background, having the top and bottom evenly spaced.

6) Cut a 6 ½” X 7 ½" piece of lime green cardstock and adhere about ¼” from the right side and from the top and bottom of the yellow background cardstock.

7) Adhere photo about ¼” from upper right corner of layout.

8) Arrange and adhere flowers on layout.

9) Cut apart your choice of size and color pearls and adhere them to the flower centers. Select 2 pearls to “dot” the “I”’s with.

You can also make these pretty little flowers to use on an altered project or card – they’ll be cute on whatever you use them on!

Welcome!

Hello and welcome to Clearsnap's BRAND NEW BLOG!

I'm Tami Sanders and I'll be one of your hostesses here. I hope that you will find this blog to be a place full of the three I's: inspiration, information and ideas!

For the next few weeks, the theme for the blog will be SPRING! Spring is such a beautiful time of the year, the flowers are blooming, the birds are singing and the trees have a fresh set of shiny new leaves.

Here in Texas, the wildflowers are blooming. There are flowers everywhere, blanketing the roadsides and meadows like a colorful quilt, red, blue, purple, yellow, pink and white. The wildflowers haven't been this pretty in years! I've enjoyed the gorgeous Texas spring landscape so much this year that I decided to use it as inspiration for the very FIRST project for this blog.

I started by selecting the colors I wanted to use: blue for the bluebonnets, red for the indian paints, yellow for the bitterweed and purple for the wild verbena. Then, because the scattered patches of colors reminded me of a quilt, I decided my project should reflect that too. So I looked through my stamps and found one of a butterfly shaped in a rough square. I planned to stamp 4 squares, each in a different color and "piece" them together. After having decided on my direction, I started working on the elements.

Here's the finished card...

I started with white cardstock squares and spritzed each one with a different color of Smooch Spritz; which is a gorgeous shimmery ink that you can spray. It comes in 16 fabulous colors and is easy to use and covers very well. To use Smooch Spritz, just sweep your hand slightly while depressing the top. Use short quick spritzes for scattered dots of ink, or longer sweeping spritzes for full coverage. You can layer several coats to intensify the color, but I just used one coat in this project.

After the Smooch dried, I stamped and embossed the butterflies using Top Boss Tinted Embossing Pad and White Embossing Powder. I like using the tinted pad so I can see where I stamped! Top Boss Embossing Powder is nice and fine so you can really see the details in the stamp.

Here's a closeup of the stamped and embossed squares...

Here is a list of the supplies you'll need as well as the directions to complete this project:

"Quilted" Butterfly Card

Skill Level: easy

SUPPLIES:

Clearsnap: Smooch Spritz: Pink Sprinkles, Sea Kiss, Gingersnap and Grape Burst, Top Boss: Tinted Embossing Padand Embossing Powder - White, ColorBox: Fluid Chalk Ink: Chestnut Roan (full size or mini) and Lime Pastel (cat's eye)

American Art Stamp: Butterfly Square 2 X 2- cling mounted and Spring Words Set #2

Bazzill: Tanner and Coconut Swirl cardstocks

Tools: heat gun, acrylic block, scissors, paper trimmer, dimensional foam squares, adhesive and Clearsnap's Color Catcher,

DIRECTIONS:

1) Cut a 5" X 10" piece of brown cardstock and fold in half to make card.

2) Cut 4 - 3" X 3" squares of white cardstock. Place one square at a time in the Color Catcher and spray each of the 4 squares with a different color of Smooch Spritz. Let squares dry completely before proceeding to the next step (otherwise the embossing powder will stick to the "Smooched" areas).

3) Working on one square at a time; ink butterfly stamp with Top Boss Embossing Pad and stamp and emboss with White Embossing Powder in the center of each square.

4) Trim each of the squares; cutting just outside the border.

5) Stamp "Spring has Sprung" with Chestnut Roan Fluid Chalk Ink on a scrap of white cardstock. Trim close to sentiment in a rough square. Ink edges with Lime Pastel Fluid Chalk Ink.

6) To assemble, place the 4 stamped and embossed squares so that the butterflies are all "flying" outward from the center of the card. Make sure they are evenly spaced and then adhere.

7) Use a dimensional square to adhere the sentiment to the center of the card.

I hope that you enjoyed this FIRST project, and that you will come back often to see what new ideas we have for you!