Time for Cupcakes

A new trend in paper crafting is decorating cupcakes. Candy created this one using American Crafts' City Park papers and the Scalloped Cupcake Liner from Lifestyle Crafts.

On the opposite side, Candy used the button die and threaded the baker's twine through it.

But, cupcake liners are not just for cupcakes. Look at this 12x12 layout Candy did using papers from My Mind's Eye:

The scalloped edge is actually the cupcake liner. The flowers are made from the extra dies that come in the set.

Creatively escape to the islands with Candy

Sometimes paper companies create beautiful papers that are, what Candy calls, "unscrappable." As much as we love to look at them, we cannot figure out how to incorporate photos without either covering too much of the paper or taking the focus away from the pictures.

But, every once in a while, a company comes out with a fabulous line that is perfectly scrappable, like the Sonnets of the Sea Collection by Creative Imaginations.

The collection is small -- with just three double-sided papers -- but it covers everything. There is a sheet with island maps, another with travel words and a third with sand and shells. The backsides offer larger shells and two patterns that could be used as mats, backgrounds or letters.

For this design, Candy used one sheet as her background. Tore and inked two others and attached. Then, she cut out one of the shells from leftover paper and adhered it with dimensional dots as an accent. The title was cut out of another paper using a QuicKutz font and the journaling block was taken from another leftover section, torn and inked. Eyelets and a bit of twine finish off the look.

The final result is inexpensive, but elegant and allows the photos to take center stage.

Accu-Cut Gifts

Did you know that Scrap Tales has a HUGE Accu-Cut die center?

There are envelopes and cards, boxes, frames, mini albums, alphabets and much, much more. All are available for your use at no charge -- as long as you buy your paper at Scrap Tales.

Accu-Cut dies can cut through chipboard, grungeboard, shrink plastic and multiple sheets of cardstock.

Here is one of the projects Candy recently created ...

The chipboard letters are from Maya Road. The dog tags are made with a QuicKutz (Now Lifestyle Crafts) die and metal adhesive paper, cardstock and Alcohol Ink. The stars are made with cardstock, a gold Paint Dabber and a QuicKutz die. The paper is from Creative Imaginations and the doily inside (under the cookies) is from Little Yellow Bicycle. It is all held together with Glue Dots.

The sample, minus the cookies, will be in the store soon ...

For my valentine

This amazing card is from Laura -- she's on staff at Scrap Tales and is one of our instructors. Laura is also on the Dreamweavers Design Team ...

This card started with beautiful Creative Imaginations paper. What is it they say on those decorating shows?  Oh yeah, it was my "inspiration piece".   I really liked it, but thought that it

would be difficult to use. I was wrong. 

The silver foiled patterns reminded me of old fashioned Valentine cards and luxe fabrics. I was considering which materials would be simple and elegant--and an idea was born--velvet paper and metal!  I just love both of these items and use them whenever possible.

Although I was concerned that the Dreamweaver paste might not work well on the velvet material, I discovered that I was, once again, very wrong. The silver paste worked like a dream! I used the Dreamweaver stencil LM 241, which reads "Happy Valentine's Day." I masked out the additional letters with Scotch removable tape and pasted as usual.

The metal is a Quickutz (Lifestyle Crafts) product. I used it in the Revolution machine, but I could have put it through any non-digital die cut machine. It was very easy. I put the stencil, Dreamweaver stencil LM 272 ( Dangling Heart) down, followed by the metal (face down), a rubber embossing mat and the blue plastic embossing mat. The metal is adhesive backed, so once it was embossed, assembly was a breeze.  The Creative Imaginations paper is fancy and flourishy.  It was easy to find a part of this paper that enhanced the elements that I used on it. 

If you would like to see what I am talking about in person, stop by Scrap Tales and check it out.  We currently open at 9 am every day of the week, so it should be a little easier to find some time. 

If you like the Dreamweaver Stencils, check out the Thursday Dream Schemes.  Every design team member (including myself) posts every Thursday.  It is a great way to get some ideas for ways to use your stencils.  You can start with Dreamweaver's blog at www.dreamweaverstencils.blogspot.com  or, you are certainly always welcome to check out my blog at www.rememberinglifesmoments.blogspot.com.