According to the website Brownielocks, today is No Housework Day. Yes, you read that right: NO HOUSEWORK DAY!! So, for those of you with a list of chores to do today – set it aside for tomorrow. Instead, take some time for yourself and get creative!
Instead of DOING chores all day, this week’s challenge is to instead use them as a source of inspiration! Are you super particular about how housework is done? Do you always follow the same order? Do you have helpers that like to get in on the action? Think about what your housework says about you and make a page about it! Then come share your creations at the Challenge Gallery.
Hello - Just wanted to let you in on a secret. One of the fastest selling products in the UK at the moment are Pricking Templates. What are they? Well, they are metal precision grids which allow you to create stunning pricked images on paper. I guess if you are innovative you could use them on Polymer Clay and other materials. I love the border template which is so quintessentially Parchment Craft and the butterflies are amazing. So if you find some stash them under your jumper and use in the privacy of your own crafty den! Enjoy.
Everyone's got their own addictions. Mine used to be shoes. I have an entire basement room full of boxes of heels that I bought in a former life. (Now I much prefer flats and flip flops - weather permitting.) However, cnce I was out of school and had a place of my own, I developed a different addiction: Before and Afters. It's really become quite a problem. Along with my shoe stash in the basement, there is now a 6 foot long buffet waiting to be made over, a set of directors chairs that just need a fresh coat of paint, and more than a handful of misc. frames and decorative accessories just waiting for their day of glory. All of these were pieces I discovered in a "before" condition...and they're just waiting to be made into "afters".
Kristin's challenge this week felt like it had been written for me! A scrapbook page is the perfect way to document a before and after project! I chose to focus this page on our bathroom - which we completely renovated before we moved into our house in '06.
Because the colors in the pictures were so different, I kept the rest of the colors on the page to a minimum. The letter stickers are from a "letter sticker book" by American Crafts. Gotta love how many letters you get in those packs!
What sort of Before and Afters have you scrapped about lately? A new haircut? A clean room? Come over to the gallery and share your finished projects!
I hope you don't mind if I digress from S+P today. The other weekend, I had a funny moment whilst watching the England V Scotland rugby match on TV. My mother handed to me my old French Knitter, recently found in an old box, started with pink wool. She had started to get my daughter interested in knitting (as my Nanna did before her). Well I stared at it completely bemused by this familiar thing and then it all rushed back to me. By the time England had been defeated by Scotland I had a fine rhythm. I cannot begin to explain my determination to see the pink fluffy worm begin to appear. However when it did the nostalgia put an impressive smile on my face. Now I need some ideas what to do with it! Have a great weekend!
Whether you’re an all-digital scrapper or like to create hybrid pages, you’ll know that using digital papers and embellishments is pretty simple. But did you know that it’s easy to do more than just layer and crop? I’ve tried a few digital pages myself, but one thing that escaped me until recently was how to change the color of a digital element. Turns out, it’s really easy!
Take this digital paper, for example. With basic software and just a few clicks, you can change it from green to orange.
To change the color using Microsoft Word, insert your paper into a new document and open up the Picture toolbar. Select the Color Adjustment icon (see arrow below). Adjust the settings until you get the color you want.
To change the color in Adobe Photoshop Elements, open your paper file and go to Enhance>Adjust Color>Adjust Hue/Saturation. Click on the Colorize box and then adjust the sliders until you get the color you want.
Note: I used a Mac for coloring my paper. PC instructions may be slightly different.
Easy, peasy! Want more easy-to-learn digital techniques? Download this week’s free project (a how-to for mixing digital papers) and check out Paper + Pixels by May Flaum and Audrey Neal.
