It's that time of Year to start making Christmas gifts!

I have 2 cats, who seem to eat their way through a large amount of wet cat food packets. Linked to this then, is also my collection of the boxes these sachets are sold in. Why did I keep these boxes? Because they are STURDY, well-made, and a thick cardboard. I mean, as a crafter would you not also keep these boxes? I had more than enough boxes to organise a craft class in how to make a Desktop Pen/Pencil Holder. This is my sample ... (side edit note, I am still using this same box 6 years later!)

Instead of doing a lengthy text description, here is a collage of how to make it. The fun part of this craft is that the pencil/pen holders can be customised for the person receiving it, based on the scrapbook paper used. We have since make countless gifts just like this one.

 My Calligraphy Project

This year I started learning calligraphy. My first lesson was difficult to say the least - I seriously thought that we were just going to spend the next 2 years doing mathematics!! Yes, calligraphy does require angles and distance to perfect the craft, but I soon learnt that my initial fear was uncalled for. After each lesson we were given a 'project' to complete, using the lessons learnt to date. This project was to write on vellum so that a light could shine through, and the writing would be visible. I made this little luminar with a removeable lid. I think it came out OK, although I probably spent more time making the luminar than doing the actual calligraphy!

 Colouring in a Digistamp

This was my first class teaching students how to colour in, using aqua pencils and Odourless Mineral Spirits (OMS). After completing the colouring in, we made up a card with the image. The digistamp was one of Digistamps4Joy's images, drawn by me.

The use of OMS makes the pencil lines blend into one another, creating a smoother look. The OMS dries up fairly quickly, with no evidence of having been used on the paper. We added a few gems and white pen lines to create highlilghts.

 Making a Cutler Holder and decorating it with Pewter

A few people attended the class on "How to decorate a wooden item with pewter, and also how to make your own glass tiles". This is the sampe that I made for the class.

Each participant was given a wooden cutlery holder, some pewter, and a few clear glass mosaic tiles. I provided all the tools needed to complete the project.

Glass Tiles

After cleaning each tile,we cut out and glued a small image from a serviette, onto the back of the tile.

Cutlery Holder

Everyone painted their wooden item with acrylic paint, and let it dry.

A piece of pewter was cut to fit onto one side of the cutlery holder, then an image was traced onto it, and using an embossing tool, the image was gently raised.

The pewter was treated with patina, and then the black was rubbed off with brasso cleaner. The treated pewter was glued onto the wooden base.

The glass tiles were glued onto the wooden base in position.

How to use the Ivytree Studio Easy Scrap Printable Kit

Hi everyone,

As a Design Team Member of Ivytree Studio, my latest brief was to test run the new "e-zee Scrap Printable kit" called "Wild & Free Precious Moments" - a digital, double scrapbook layout kit - now available in the Ivytree Studio store. I was asked to create the layout exactly as in the provided sketch - no fancy alterations - to enable YOU to see how easy it is to use this kit.

As I work extensively with digital products from my own Digistamps4Joy shop, I was excited to try out this digital scrapbooking kit, having never created a scrapbook page with anything other than bought papers! Bit of a long post, but worth the read if you are using this kit.

Wow, what fun I had! This is my completed double page layout.

Instructions for using the downloadable kit
Once purchased and downloaded to your computer, the kit is in a PDF file format, with 9 pages of guidelines, a good sketch photo of the completed layout, and the exact sized elements needed to complete this double layout (with your own photos of course!). I used my regular colour Deskjet printer to print out the pages.

1. Print out pages 4 to 9 on plain white card - preferably 180 or 200gm (the same you use for card making) - so that you have the same thickness of printed elements as you would have had, if you had cut them out of bought scrapbook paper.
TIP ..... If you want to create the layered flowers like I did, then print out another set of pages from 5 to 9 (you do not need to double page 4).

2. Using a guillotine or craft knife and cutting board, cut out the pieces on page 4.

3. Using sharp-pointed scissors, take pages 5-9 and go and plonk yourself in front of the TV and cut out all the pieces on these pages (including the double pages if you printed them). I found this the most time consuming as there are lots of little bits - BUT definitely worth it - and if you had "bought paper" you would have done the same anyway!

3. Once cut. I chalked all the edges of the flowers (only the top one in the doubles) with a colour slightly darker than the actual printout, just to create that little bit of depth. Then I curled the edges of the petals. Each layer was raised with foam squares.

4. My base is 2 pieces of plain light green cardstock, which I taped together at the back. Following the sketch on page 3 (I printed this out on paper so had it in front of me all the time), start laying down the pieces from page 4, and then layering the pieces of page 5 on top of this.

5. If you are only doing one layer of the frames (page 6), then put these in place as shown on the sketch. If you - like me - decided on the double layer, paste the first layer down (no need to cut out the white centres), but you must cut out the white centres of the second set of frames. And this is where I messed up! I thought it would look nice if I used Glossy Accents on each frame to make them shine, so did them all before I left for work. When I came home however, ALL the edges had curled up - just too big an area for GA! So - and HERE IS THE BENEFIT OF USING A DIGITAL KIT - I printed out another sheet, then pushed this through my laminator, cut out the centres and the frames, and perfect!

6. Following the photo size guidelines in the kit, I printed the photo area the correct size, but cut about a 4mm white edge around them all, to make sure that the photo edges were well hidden behind the top frame. If you are only doing one layer of frame, obviously you would make sure the photos fit exactly into the frame. I raised all the frames with foam strips before putting into position.

7. The last thing to do is to place all the flowers and other elements in place as per the sketch. Again, I double layered using foam squares. I did make one more "blapse" and that was pointed out by my daughter whose baby shower it was - I had spelt the name of my granddaughter wrong with an additional "E" at the end, so instead of printing out a whole page again, I just stuck a little spare flower on top of the E - oops - no one knows except you LOL.

8. Mmmm this 'glitter queen' could not resist adding some glitter to the layout, but I am happy I did.

So what do you think? Reasons to try this kit.

• It is VERY reasonably priced - cheaper than if you had driven to the store and bought all the papers and elements
• You have the benefit of being able to print another page if you make a mistake (like I did)
• You have instant access to a product, especially if you cannot get to a local store
• The images are perfectly sized in this kit and all fit together beautifully.

 Ivytree Studio Kit used

Code	Link
SKU ES/163/1	Precious Moments Printable Double Layout Sketch Kit

Additional materials used
2 x cardstock for base
glitter glue
double-sided tape
foam squares
foam strips
lamination sheet and laminator

This fabulous KIT is available from Ivytree Studio

Visit Ivytree Studio to see more of what they are up to: www.ivytreestudio.co.za

Buy some of their pretty paper here

Connect with the team on their Facebook page here.

Share your Ivytree Studio layouts with us here

Vintage Lodge 3D project

Woohooooo! My favourite craft is playing with paper to create 3D items, and this specific project has been the biggest challenge to date - BUT I achieved it!

I absolutely LOVE the 3D cutting files available at SVG Cuts, and when this one was made available I knew I had to try it. Funny thing is that when I started cutting all the various pieces out, I suddenly realised that the end product is going to be much much bigger in size than I envisioned! It is 41cm (front width) x 27 cm (side width) x 27 cm (height to top of chimney). There were so many pieces of shaped papers that I had to sort them out into different sleeve packets so I would not lose them. This is what my desk looked like - a HUGE mess!

After spending 20 hours putting this all together, my daughters and I created a scene with:

• a draped white tablecloth
• a snowman made out of polystyrene balls (granddaughter helped with that one)
• a pathway made by spraying glue onto a strip of paper and sprinkling pool filter sand on it
• two trees made by cutting branches of my fir tree and putting them into pots with sand and glue and then spraying them with snow spray
• Christmas decoration made by stringing small red beads onto cord
• just about covering the whole area with white flower soft (I was dreading that someone would sneeze over the display) 
• and finally fastening a small LED battery-operated light set inside the house (the roof lifts off easily). 

Between us we managed to take 100 photographs of this scene, from various angles and close-ups!!!!

So, here it is - my masterpiece with the lights on at home.

Now for the 'cherry' .... the basic construction of the house was built solely using 6 sheets of the fabulous pure white Ivytree Studio paper from the  Hadeda Garden Collection for the base elements of the house and roof. Why? Because this paper is thicker (240gm) than standard cardstock, is pure pure white, and does not have any texture. I was wondering how it would stand up to being scored, folded, cut on the Cricut, and glued, but it surpassed ALL my expectations! It cut absolutely beautifully either with scissors or the Cricut, scored beautifully, and folded so well without any little nicks or tears. (Thanks Ansu and Surita for producing this great paper).

Front door with kitty cat (kitty as per granddaughter's instructions!)

Bay window showing snow and Christmas decoration

Side window and shutter, also showing embossed panneling piece

Night time!

Ivytree Studio Elements used

Code	Name	Collection
161/39	Solid colour (white)	Hadeda Garden
172/10	Rosy Wood Panel/Dotty Blackboard	Love

Additional materials used
green cardstock (4x)
cream glitter paper (for snow on roof) (4x)
brown cardstock (3x)
black cardstock (6x)
grey cardstock (3x)
red beads and chord
LED battery-powered lights
pool filter sand
spray glue
Flower soft (white)
small pebbles
cotton wool (smoke in chimney)
tiny snowdrops flowers
ribbon and bell
craft glue
embossing folders (2x)

The white and wood-panel papers are available from Ivytree Studio

Visit Ivytree Studio to see more of what they are up to: www.ivytreestudio.co.za

Buy some of their pretty paper here

Connect with the team on their Facebook page here.

Share your Ivytree Studio layouts with us here

Vintage Dress Mixed Media

Hi everyone,

I have been dabbling with mixed media for a few year now, and love getting stuck in on a new project. By chance I landed on the You-Tube site of Gabrielle Pollacho and absolutely fell in love with her "Vintage Dress Mixed Media Canvas". I bought a small canvas and then closely followed her video tutorial of how to make it. Her version is of course waaaay nicer than mine, but I am happy with my end result.

I used two different Ivytree Studio elements for the background layer, and two for the dress.

First step was to tear one of the Ivytree Studio papers to create a torn look, then modged this over another layer just peeping out underneath. A piece of serviette was glued in the top left corner, as well as a diecut swirl top right. Using a generous dab of modge I added some seed beads to the swirl edges. The dressform was inked, then embossed with a white-glitter embossing powder.

The skirt of the dress was made by scoring the paper at various intervals, then creating valley and mountain folds, modging a piece of lace underneath the bottom hem, and adding gold seedbeads on top. The top edge of the skirt was very tightly bunched together to form the waist, covered with a small piece of ribbon, and then hot glued in place over the bottom edge of the dress top. Pearls were added to the neckline of the dress and two tiny roses to the waistband. The clothes hangar was bent from a small piece of florist's wire.

Sequins were dotted all over and modged over, and finally a super little rub-on I found in my stash was added bottom left. The whole board, including the skirt and top received another good dose of Modge Podge!

Ivytree Studio Elements used

Code	Name	Collection
162/1	Floral Friends/Floral Trim Shabby	Friendship Begins in the Heart
171/12	Pretty Washi/Schoolfrock Speckles	Seize The Day
171/19	Mapped Life/Blackboard Charcoal	Seize The Day

Additional materials used
Modge Podge and paintbrush
Blue and Gold seedbeads
Diecut swirl shape
Serviette
Dress form chipboard
Rub-ons
Lace
Gold flower sequins
tiny daisy punch
Tea dye distress ink
Florist wire
Flat-backed pearls
Flower roses

All these fabulous papers are available from Ivytree Studio

Visit Ivytree Studio to see more of what they are up to: www.ivytreestudio.co.za

Buy some of their pretty paper here

Connect with the team on their Facebook page here.

Share your Ivytree Studio layouts with us here

Ivytree Studio Paper party - 22 April 2017

Ivytree Studio is celebrating its 1st BIRTHDAY

with a Paper Party!

When: 22nd April 2017
Where: Online at Ivytree Studio Facebook page
Time: 16h00 South African time
What to bring: Yourself, and the Party Pack if you were able to purchase it. If not, definitely yourself!

Obviously as a Design Team member I cannot participate in the challenge - it would not be fair if a DT member won the prize would it! BUT, I was able to make some creations with digital Ivytree Studio Layout Sketch Kits.

The first Ivytree Studio layout I used is this one ....

 "Paper Party Double Layout Sketch & Template Pieces ISDLS001"

These kits come with a detailed sketch, full measurements, digital line images of the elements, and Silhouette cutting files for those of you who own this machine. I was able to print, scan, and cut with my Brother machine, and it worked fine.

My first layout - using ISDLS0018 January 2017 was a special HAPPY day for me, as my 3 eldest grandchildren were all baptised as followers of Christ. (I hope my husband is smiling down from Heaven as this is also the day he died 15 years ago). MY daughter made the lovely cupcakes for the tea and cake afterwards.

(Click on image to enlarge).

I decided to go with a blue and white monochrome coloured Ivytree Studio papers from the Hadeda Collection theme, to represent the symbolic washing of the water, burying of the old life, and starting a new life. The background paper is from the Seize The Day Collection. I added Glassy Accents to the title, and glitter glue to the leaves.

Ivytree Studio Elements used

Code	Name	Collection
161/18	Chrysanthemum/Polks Dots (small)	Hadeda Garden
161/22	Agapanthus Blooms/Geometric Stripes Texture	Hadeda Garden
161/27	Sprigged Agapanthus/Polka dots (medium)	Hadeda Garden
161/33	Solid color	Hadeda Garden
171/14	Shabby Gallery Frames/Charcoal Speckles	Seize The Day
161/6	Hadeda Gardenia elements/Organic Dots	Hadeda Garden
161/53	Double Twins	Hadeda Garden
161/20	Chrysanthemum/Geometric stripes texture	Hadeda Garden

Additional materials used
gems
double-sided tape
glitter glues
Tim Holtz distress ink pads
Glossy Accents

My second layout - using ISDLS003

This is the Ivytree Studio "Paper Party Single Layout Sketch and Template Pieces - ISDLS003"

I felt this lovely layout deserved a really unusual photo, and I found one of my granddaughter, face-painted as the Snow Queen at the recent CANSA fete. The flower elements were cut with my Brother Scan 'n Cut machine after printing out the sheet, and scanning in.  This time I used all the pink Ivytree Studio papers from the same Hadeda Collection, and the background paper from the "Love Collection". I added lots of bling gems to the centres of the flowers.

(click to enlarge)

Ivytree Studio Elements used

Code	Name	Collection
161/3	Hadeda Gardenia/Chevron	Hadeda Garden
161/13	Hadeda Flock/Chevron	Hadeda Garden
161/38	Solid Color (Blossom)	Hadeda Garden
172/5	Flower Accents/Dreamy Pink	Love

Additional materials used
light blue cardstock
gems
double-sided tape
glitter glues
Tim Holtz distress ink pads
Rubons

Aaaaand then - just for FUN, I also made the Cupcake Gift Box, which was the freebie when the Party Pack for the party was purchased!

The papers used are from the Wild and Free Collection.

Ivytree Studio Elements used

Code	Name	Collection
163/7	Zebra Dazzle/Zebra Candy Stripes	Wild & Free
163/8	Feather Free/Quills	Hadeda Garden
163/38	Solid Color (Blossom)	Hadeda Garden
172/5	Flower Accents/Dreamy Pink	Love

Additional materials used
feathers
glitter glue
ribbon

All these fabulous papers are available from Ivytree Studio

Visit Ivytree Studio to see more of what they are up to: www.ivytreestudio.co.za

Buy some of their pretty paper here

Connect with the team on their Facebook page here.

Share your Ivytree Studio layouts with us here

Lesli's wedding

Hi everyone,

This layout is of my niece who married in 2015. Her flower theme was succulents - so unusual  yet so absolutely beautiful. When I saw these Ivytree Studio papers I immediately knew I had to use them to create a layout of her wedding! (click on the image for a larger view).

One of my favourite crafts is creating 3D decoupage pictures (or paper-piecing), and I have done this for many years already. The fact that this particular paper has this gorgeous border of succulents, made it so easy to paper-piece 3 layers of the same border. Photographing this however never portrays the real life beauty and depth. Here is one close-up showing the 3 layers.

This little Enmarc chipboard was sprayed  with 2 different colour Glimmer Mists.

A very fine netting/organza was added to the left page, to represent the organza in the wedding dress.


Here you can see how I tore the Ivytree Studio paper (172/3) to create a wavy effect, the edging of the apricot cardstock with a gold pen, and the addition of some flat-backed ivory pearls.

Ivytree Studio Elements used

Code	Name	Collection
171/2	Flora Flair Red / Flora Flair Charcoal	Seize The Day
171/15	Flora Accents / Pencil Gray Speckles	Seize The Day
172/3	Endearment / Love Script	LOVE
172/4	Lacy Delights / Rosy Wood Candy Stripes	LOVE

Additional materials used
flat-backed pearls
double-sided tape
ribbon and bow
clear glitter glues
gold pen
doily
foam pads
Enmarc chipboard
mirror tape
KCraft glimmer mists (Misty Rose and Mandarin Blue)
Perfect Pears mist (Sunflower Sparkles)

All these fabulous papers are available from Ivytree Studio

Visit Ivytree Studio to see more of what they are up to: www.ivytreestudio.co.za

Buy some of their pretty paper here

Connect with the team on their Facebook page here.

Share your Ivytree Studio layouts with us here

Family

Hi everyone,

Here is another single page layout put together with some absolutely fabulous Ivytree Studio papers. This layout is of my eldest daughter and her youngest daughter. Isn't this just one of those gorgeous "aaah cute" photographs?

I cut out 8 circles from the papers listed below, using both sides, as long as the paper had pink colour on it. Then I decided to go a little overboard with the embellishments and added flowers and leaves punched with an Olba punch out of the same papers, and hand sewed a running stitch around the edges of two of the circles.

The quilled leaves and flowers were made by cutting thin strips (about 3mm wide) of Ivytree Studio papers, and I then chalked the white edges of the 'leaves' with Tim Holtz Spun Sugar distress ink. Flat-backed pearl drop gems were added as the bling (yes, I'm still bling mad).

This is the punched flower in the bottom-right corner of the layout, with a pearl added in the centre - eek and more bling.

I discovered this Enmarc chipboard in my drawer while I was looking for something else, and thought it would work very well on this layout. I chalked it up with pink then added Glossy Accents to create the 3D depth and shine.

Flower at bottom-left of the layout was created with punched pieces, and the large one cut out of Ivytree Studio papers. The centre is a brad holding everything together.

I am very happy with the end result of this page!

Ivytree Studio Elements used

Code	Name	Collection
161/13	Hadeda Flock/Chevron	Hadeda Garden
161/22	Agapanthus Blooms/Geometric Stripes Texture	Hadeda Garden
161/26	Sprigged Agapanthus/Polka dots (medium)	Hadeda Garden
161/30	Scallops/Polka dots (small)	Hadeda Garden
161/38	Hadeda Garden Collection - Solid (Blossom/Pale pink)	Hadeda Garden
162/5	Natural linen/Shabby Stoep - Moss	Friendship begins in the heart
162/15	Flower accents/Polka dots shabby	Friendship begins in the heart
163/17	Blushing Bride/Ixia turquoise	Wild & Free

Additional materials used
flat-backed teardrop shape gems
flat-backed pearls
double-sided tape
brad
glitter glues
light brown quilling strip
pink embroidery thread
flower punches
circle cutter
Tim Holtz distress ink pads (Spun Sugar)
Olba punch and glue
quilling pen
Enmarc chipboard

All these fabulous papers are available from Ivytree Studio

Visit Ivytree Studio to see more of what they are up to: www.ivytreestudio.co.za

Buy some of their pretty paper here

Connect with the team on their Facebook page here.

Share your Ivytree Studio layouts with us here