Clear Scraps Blog

Embellishing Acrylic Halloween Style

Happy Halloween everyone! Today is one of my favorite holidays and I am happy to share a Halloween layout I created!  Did you know you can make your own acrylic shapes?  The 12x12 Clear Scraps Acrylic Sheet is perfect to cut into any size to use in your die cut machines. 

For my layout, I first cut a 4x6 piece of acrylic to use with the Tim Holtz Movers and Shapers Mini Bat and Skull die. 

 

After running the die and acrylic through my Vagabond, I now have two fun acrylic shapes to incorporate into my layout!

For the skull piece, I used Glossy Accents and Tim Holtz Distress Stickles Clear Rock Candy Dry Glitter. I applied a light coat of Glossy Accents around the edges followed by sprinkling the dry glitter. 

FYI, the glitter goes everywhere so use it sparingly! :)

For my bat piece, I used Tattered Angels Glimmer Glaze in Oil Slick.  

I applied a light coat and let it dry. It is helpful to stir the solution beforehand to ensure you get lots of glitter on your brush. Also you will need to let it dry for at least 30 min.  

Here are close ups of my finished acrylic skull and bat:

Check out my blog here to see more pictures!  As always you can find a lot of great techniques on the Clear Scraps blog!

Thanks for reading! -Jennifer

additional supplies:  paper and cardstock sticker letters:  Authentique and Making Memories; baker's twine:  Whisker Graphics; flair:  {a flair for buttons}, kraft tag: Jillibean Soup; bingo card:  Jenni Bowlin; stamp:  Pink Paislee; ink: Ranger; journaling pen: American Crafts; misc: thread. 

 

 

Fall Memories Layout

Hello once again fellow scrappers!  Kay here presenting a Fall themed page that I recently finished.  It's no secret that Fall is my absolute favorite season.  The crisp weather, the apple cider, the pumpkin pie, muffins & scones--the pumpkin lattes!!  It's all good!  Plus Fall has another meaningful significance for me--it's also the season that I was married 5 years ago.  So that's exactly what this page is about.  Here is my husband & I celebrating our 5th wedding anniversary.  We decided to go back to where we celebrated our 1st wedding anniversary--to a quaint little Bed & Breakfast in Pocono Pines, PA.  

I've used the Clear Scraps Small Pennants Banner on this page as well as made my own acrylic flower from a piece of Clear Scraps 12x12 Acrylic Sheet.

First, a close up of the banner.  I've used alcohol inks to give my banner some color--on a few of the banners I applied drops of alcohol inks directly from the bottle onto my banner.  I highlighted the edges of each banner with dots of gold Stickles.  Finally, with my crop-a-dile I punched 2 holes in each banner, inserted eyelets into each hole, strung a bit of green ribbon through the holes and a piece of brown burlap twine to hold my banner together.  

To make the acrylic flower, I put together a brief tutorial.  

Step 1:  With strong scissors (I used Tim Holtz's Tonic Studios scissors) cut out a piece from the Clear Scraps 12x12 Acrylic Sheet that will be used for your flower die

Step 2: Cut out your flower.  I've used Tim Holtz's Tattered Floral die for my flower

Step 3: Remove the protective film from your flower & start coloring your flower in.  As you can see, I used a combination of several alcohol inks to give my flower some color and shimmer

Step 4:  Highlight the edges of your flower with a white Sharpie pen.  I used a white paint based Sharpie pen for my flower--any kind of permanent marker will work.  Just make sure it's permanent

Step 5: This step can actually be optional if you wish.  You can leave your flower as is or add more texture to it by dry embossing it.  I decided to give it a bit more texture by dry embossing it.  So I once again ran it through my Big Shot but this time with an embossing folder

Step 6: You can further highlight your embossed images by smearing a bit of Staz On onto your flower.  Just lightly smear it on and the embossed images will 'pop' a bit more on your flower

Here's your finished flower!  How you finish it is really up to you.  I decided to bend each petal up and added a pre-made organza flower in the center.  I added dots of Bisque Liquid Pearls to the edges to define the edges a bit more & finally added a gold button in the center.  You can add a mulberry flower in the center or you can do several layers of an acrylic flower & make a flower entirely out of acrylic.  It's all up to you & your creativity!

You can find more details & close ups of this layout on my blog.  Enjoy the rest of the week!

Kay Fatula - Clear Scraps Design Team

Halloween Banner

Supplies Used:

Clear Scraps (Mini Bat Album & Large Banners)

Stampendous (Lacey Background cling, Black Glass Glitter)

Bazzill cardstock

May Arts Ribbon

Archival Jet Black Ink

Beacon (Zip Dry)

Copic Refill Ink

Directions:

1. Stamp lace background in black ink on white cardstock. Trim to fit behind Large Banner. Repeat for all three acrylic banners.

2. Trim orange cardstock to fit behind upper scallop part of Large Banner. Repeat for all three acrylic banners. 

3. Trim black cardstock at 2.5 inches. Score every 1/2 inch and create rosettes. 

4. Die cut letters. Apply generous coat of adhesive and cover with glitter. Adhere to banners with foam adhesive when dry. 

5. String banners and rosettes on thin ribbon. 

6. Ink bats with alcohol ink (copic refill). Heat and bend bats to create dimension. (note: I heated them on top of a thick cardboard packing tube. This allowed them to slump over the tube when they heated up and protected my fingers from burning.)

7. Embellish the banner with frayed bows and bats. 

Wendy Price (Paper, Ink and Smiles)

Lacey Mixable Album

Hi there! It's Irene here! Today I would like to share with you all an album which I've created using Clear Scraps mixable Lacey album. This album consists of a mixture of acrylic and chipboard pages which doubled the fun of creating!

To create this heart, I've used Clear Scraps acrylic heart piece and attach a felt heart onto it. Then, I've applied some Viva Decor glass effect gel on it to create this glass look.

This is such a fun album to create. You could play with tons of techniques on the acrylic and chipboard pages in this album. Try it!

Scrapperlicious

Clear Scraps Educator

 

Family Frame...

 Hello Clear Scraps fans!!!  Happy Friday!! Adora here your host for today's blog post.  You probably heard the buzz about Clear Scraps newest release - the brand new "Recipe Stand Kits" and the "Mini Word Album", these are so awesome. Yes, just in time for the holidays, it will make  a perfect hand made gift for anyone.

Here is what I came up with using this product! As you can see I used the acrylic stand alone as a frame and use the word to embellish it.  By the way this is my daughter and her family and one gift down :) few more to go.

How To:  Trace and cut the word family on a patterned paper ( I chose to use a paper with text print instead of images). Adhere the paper and the acrylic word together. Use several color alcohol inks on top of the acrylic (I simply drop it directly onto the acrylic from the bottle of inks).  Last step, use alcohol blending solution to lighten and blend colors. There is really no wrong way of doing this - just play with it until you get the look that will work best for your project. 

 Thank you so much for stopping by and checking us out here at Clear Scraps!

Until next time........Adora!!

 

Spooky time.

Happy Thursday everyone! Tonya here today to share a fun Halloween project with you. I started by taking out one of the banner pieces from the Clear Scraps from the Large Pennant Banners package. The "spooky" tree is a laser diecut from Quick Quotes called Whimsical Tree. The orange zig zag paper, the purple paper that the ribbons are made of, and the hint of striped paper are all from the Quick Quotes Halloween paper pack.

                                            

                                            

                                            

The bats were stamped on the acrylic with Staz On ink.

Hope you all have a Happy Haunt Filled Halloween! 

Tonya Dirk-Clear Scraps Design Team

Trick or Treat Home Acrylic Decor Sign

BOO! Good morning Clear Scraps friends, 

Pinky here with a fun little "Trick or Treat" project today. 

I LOVE how durable and strong Clear Scraps acrylic is and to be perfectly honest it is perfect for making home decor and other crafty wall decor projects. 

I decided to create a cute little acrylic sign to hang on my door this year and the first place I went was Clear Scraps! The Clear Scraps 12X12 sheets are perfect for creating your own size designs. 

  

For this project I peeled off the protective film (from only one side) and painted the edges on the back with black paint. While it dried I created the "Trick Or Treat" using my Silhouette Cameo. I added copper Stickles to the sentiment to make it stand out a little bit. I also used my Purple Cow Pin it to create the copper locks on each side of the die cut before I layered it onto the piece. 

Then I added pearls with my Viva Decor Copper Pearl Pen. You can see small pearls on the corner of the Clear Scraps acrylic as well. The Viva Decor Pearl pens are perfect for Clear Scraps, they really stick on there and last!

Then I used my sewing machine to stitch the fabric to the Clear Scraps acrylic sheet (yes you can sew the 12X12 acrylic sheets) and layered the embellishments.

For the last touch I stapled some vintage lace onto the acrylic and added the same lace as a hanger. I love how it adds a unique flare to my project and how versatile this acrylic really is. 

I love the texture the paint adds and how fun it is to incporpoate fabric into these projects. Using paper, fabric, and Clear Scraps acrylic is a beautiful way to add your own personal touch to the holiday on hand. 

Until next time- Happy Fall Y'all!

Pinky Hobbs- Clear Scraps Design Team

 

Clear Scraps Haunted Castle

When I was a kid my favorite scary movie was Abbott and Costello meet Frankenstein.  By today's standards it is not very scary, but it is still a classic!  This Halloween scrapbook was inspired by the classic black & white horror flicks.

For this project I used Clear Scraps' Sandcastle Acrylic Album.  

When I originally got this album I had imagined something very frilly and sweet, but when I started to gear up for Halloween, this album just cried out to become a Haunted Castle.  And since my kids share my love of Halloween and odd sense of humor, I had a perfect set of photos to fill it with and keep the theme.

As luck would have it, I had recently left the lid off my Black Stazon Ink and dried out the ink pad.  This did not make me happy at the time, but it was perfect for creating the shadowed edges on the acrylic pages.  

After inking all the pages, my castle was already taking on a creepy look.

I went around each piece with a black sharpie to add more definition to each of the layers.

Then I took a fine-line Sharpie marker and added shingles and other architectural elements.  I am a natural-born doodler so this step was a lot of fun for me.  I may do an album just completely covered in doodles or Zentangles.  

Here's a closer look at some of the details.  If you are not a great doodler or free hand artist, here is a really great thing about Clear Scraps....THEY'RE CLEAR!!  I used a printed boarder for the square scroll pattern and simply traced it.  I also used a line grid behind the acrylic to make sure my shingles stayed fairly uniform or at least fairly straight.

The rest of the album was all about pictures.  I took some of the old Halloween pictures and edited them to black and white and printed some titles, years and captions in some fun fonts. 

There are a few splashes of color, like the red glitter "blood" on the Count's page.

I used some bling and ribbon trims from Want2Scrap and added Viva Decor Silver Pearl Pen "pearls" to accent the outline of the castle pages.

These Clear Scrap Albums are so much fun to put together!  I hope I've inspired you to try one!  

Happy Halloween All!

KC

**NEW RELEASE** Friends Recipe Stand by Pinky

Good morning friends, 

Pinky here today with the fun new just released Recipe Stand Kit! I love these kits, they are so incredible!!!

I took the Acrylic Mini Word Album (Friends) and combined it with the Recipe Stand Kit to create this wonderful album I will be giving as a gift. 

For the front word I used Viva Decor Glass Effect Gel and lightly dusted with glitter after tracing the outline with the Black Viva Decor Pearl pen. I love the glassy effect it has. 

I also used Momenta Metal pieces and Jinger Adams paper & die cuts. 

I think the finished look is just beautiful and I cannot wait to fill it with photos. 

Have you tried Clear Scraps acrylic yet?

It's not as hard as you might think and it is just stunning in person!

Until next time- 

Pinky Hobbs- Clear Scraps Design Team

Apple Story Album

Good morning to all Clear Scraps fans and this weekend Elena is going to share with you some Fall inspiration. I adore this time of year and most of all I adore the apple smell in the air. This year we have a great harvest of apples in our country home, so I took many pics in case to feel this spirit in the winter.

 So I decided to make an album and I used Mixable Sassy 8*8 Album for this purpose. I like that it has different edges, and the mix of chipboard and acrylic cascading pages. Part of them are scalloped, the other are circles. so you have an ability to play with texture and shapes.

  I used some Clearly Accent Embellishments 

For the cover I took Leaves Embellishments

which I painted with alcohol inks and added the Glossy accent for a water drops effect

 

  for the next page, which is acrylic I've made some apple 'printed background' , here are some tips:

(Sorry, I took the 1st pic at night, as a preparatory stage)

I daubed the acrylic page with Starburst mist, I made random splashes.

after it has been dried completely I outlined them with permanent pen in a form of an apple. Obviously you can just add the photo, but I decided to add 2Crafty chipboard Tree, painted it with mists, paints and Pearl pen, and here is the result:

 I added Leaves Embellishments   which  I colored and covered with Stickles

and I used Butterflies Embellishments  and added some pearls

 



and just one more tip:

the back cover of this album is acrylic too, so while I was coloring butterflies and leaves with alcohol inks, I used this page as a padding mat, so you can see there are some splashes. I suppose it adds more natural look to the whole page.

  have a great week end

Elena Olinevich

This way or that way.

Good morning! Tonya here to share with you one of the brand spankin' new Recipe Stand Kit. One of the greatest things about these new kits is that they come on a stand. You can choose to use it this way or you can choose to use it as a table top album without the stand. 

I chose to use my Recipe stand as a year in photos review. The acrylic mini word album - family was comined with the recipe stand.

                                         

 

                                         

                                         

I sprayed the back of the word with some Maya Mist, after it was dry I then outlined the word with a Zig metallice silver paint pen.

Then for all of the clear acrylic tabbed pages I embossed them, each in a different pattern and added some simple embellishments.

                                         

                                         

                                          

                                          

                                          

                                         

                                         

Then on all of the chipboard pages I have covered them with patterned paper and will be placing a monthly collage of photos onto each one. (Sorry for the fact that their is only one photo collage done, but I had a major mishap with my old laptop and it's hard drive is holding all of my photos prior to this September hostage.) 

Here are some photos of the album off of the stand so that you can see how it would look just as a coffee table album.

                                          

                                          

 

There are so many different topics you could use this album for...you are definitely not restricted to recipes!

Thanks for stopping by the Clear Scraps blog!

Tonya Dirk-Clear Scraps Design Team

 

 

**NEW RELEASE** And Happy Thanksgiving Acrylic Card by Pinky Hobbs

Good morning Clear Scraps friends, 

Pinky here today with a Clear Scraps Send It Clear card you can use for ANY occasion, since it's fall I thought it would make a beautiful Thanksgiving card. 

I used StazOn Metallic Gold Ink and Avocado Arts stamps to create the fall leaf border on the acrylic. 

For the bucks of wheat I used Quick Quotes paper and my Silhouette to cut the paper files. 

To finish it off I used Viva Decor Pearl pen for some dimension. 

It's so nice these cards from pre-made so all you need to do is embellish and decorate.  GREAT for thos busy holidays and cool fall days. 

Don't forget to check out the BRAND NEW 4X6 Acrylic Recipe Stand Kit from Clear Scraps- just released this week!

Be on the look out for a few of these projects in the weeks to come. 

I have one scheduled for Monday- stay tuned!

Until next time- Keep crafting!

Pinky Hobbs- Clear Scraps Design Team

Pinspiration Album by Jessica Griffin

I am WAY excited for this little album! It was very fun to decorate. When I received it, I knew exactly what I wanted to do, so I got to work! Everyone loves Pinterest, and everyone seems to be inspired by it. One problem I have is, I sit down to the computer to go through Pinterest, and I end up sitting at the computer longer than I had wanted. So I thought I would put my favorite 'pins' in an album. The album is the perfect size, doesn't take up a ton of space, and the best part is, I have my favorite pins right at my fingertips! 

Cover

I started by covering the word "LOVE" and the base with washi tape. I did that because I wanted to paint the base. I used some Yes Paste and mixed it with some Mica Powders from Lindy's Stamp Gang.  I smeared the Yes Paste on with a rewards card that you get from the grocery store, or pet store, just something plastic, that would give me a nice thin coverage. I set the base aside to dry for 24 hours and went to work on the word cut out. After it was wrapped, I took some Delphinium Turquoise spray from Lindy's Stamp Gang and dripped it onto the word. I started at the top, and dropped some along the edges of each letter. I didn't want to make a mess, but, I did want some areas to be darker. Dripping the color on allowed me more control. 

Base

Once the cover and the base were done, I went to work on the tabs. I have these really awesome stamps from KI Memories Verbology stamps. They are no longer available in store, but, I've managed to find some on Ebay. Anyways, I have several sets of those stamps, and they were perfect for the tabs, so I picked five different categories, categories that I was most likely to use, and stamped them onto each tab using StazOn. My tabs are stamped with: Color, Design, Sew, Give and Party.

Color

Sew

Printing the images was a little tedious. But, I was committed! I actually did it using my cell phone. I took a screen shot (with most cell phones you can take a screen shot by holding the home and power button at the same time). Then I loaded the photos into Diptic. From the app, I emailed the photos to myself, then opened them up in Photoshop (but you can easily use Word). I arranged enough onto one page that it was covered. So, there were approximately 30 ideas on each printed page. Since I arranged my photos into Diptic, that was a lot less cutting since Diptic allows you to arrange photos in sets of four.

I used Yes Paste to adhere the photos to each chipboard piece. Once that was dry, I covered the photos with Yes Paste. I didn't want to use Mod Podge because it is sticky when it's dry, and I didn't want the pages sticking together, or sticking to the acrylic tab. And the PPA (perfect paper adhesive) caused my colors to bleed- it didn't work well with my printer ink. 

This is a really fun and easy project, although time consuming! It's theraputic. :) Hope you've enjoyed my Pinspiration Album! You can find me on Pinterest at: pinterest.com/canyoupixelthis. You can see all the pins I have in my album, on my boards! :) And don't forget to Pin my album! 

Jessica

Capture the Good Times Layout

Hello again, Kay here bringing you my next project featuring Clear Scraps versatile acrylic.  For this layout I used one of Clear Scraps XL Deco shapes.  Again I used a couple of techniques to give the acrylic a bit of texture.

Not many know, but I suppose this is as good time as any to tell--that I'm expecting my first child & am due in a few weeks time.  This photo was taken just two weeks ago.  My little fur-pup Toby or as I lovingly refer to him as my 'eldest' son was curious about my growing belly.  He acted as if he was actually feeling around my tummy to try & figure out what's going on.  My husband ended up snapping this photo which I thought was very cute.

I once again decided to make the border of my large acrylic shape stand out.  So I went with alcohol inks.  Other than acrylic paint or permanent markers--I find alcohol inks to be the best for making borders & edges stand out.  I did not use a mask for my border--I just randomly went around the edge with my alcohol ink applicator.  Once dry, I added dots of Silver Stickles to further define the edge.

The next technique I used to add more texture to my acrylic was stamping.  I used a combination of three different stamps with black StazOn ink.  When stamping on acrylic, always remember to use a permanent solvent ink.  Using another type of ink will cause your image to smear.  Here is a close up of my stamping.

I also did a bit of random stamping with splatter stamps on my background paper.  That's the beauty of acrylic...you can stamp either right on the acrylic or on paper behind it--either way your image will show through.  In this close up you see both types of stamping...the black image is stamped right on the acrylic and the brown splatter stamping was done on my background paper.

Doesn't that combination of stamping give a fabulous effect?  The rest of my page is composed of various elements, flowers, ribbon, twine, trinkets and embellishments.  I also included several Autumn themed embellishments since this photo was taken in Autumn--which just so happens to be my favorite season!

You can find more details & close ups on my blog.  Hope this project inspires some of you to break out your stamps & alchol inks with your acrylic.

Have a great week!

Kay Fatula - Clear Scraps Design Team

Halloween Mummy

Hi everyone! Wendy here and I'm back to share a layout I created for Halloween. 

supplies used: Clear Scraps (Mini Bat Album, Small Pennant Banners), Stampendous (Owling Good Time Cling, Aged Silver Embossing Enamel ), Basic Grey pattern paper, Reminisce Pattern Paper & Stickers, May Arts twine, Ranger Distress Inks (Black Soot), Beacon Adhesive (Zip Dry)

Directions:

    1. Acrylic works great as a mask. Lay down your acrylic bats and ink over them with Distress Ink. I continued to ink the entire piece of cardstock, moving my bats around and overlapping them. Because Distress Ink is dye base, you can rinse off your acrylic bats and they'll be good as new ready to use on another project. Your hands might not look quite as good. ;) 

    2. To distress the background further, flick some water onto the inked paper. The Distress Ink will react with the water and create splatter marks. 

    3. Another way to further distress the background is to randomly sprinkle embossing powder onto the paper. Since there is no ink for the paper to stick to, heat from underneath. I added a bit of Aged Silver to my paper. 

    4. Add pattern paper, stamped image photo and alphabet stickers to the paper. Add a bit of machine stitching at random points on the layout. 

    5. Cut pattern paper to fit behind the acrylic pennants and adhere. Embellish pennants with alphabet rubons, cut out stamped images and twine. 

Here is another peek at the cute owl image and sprinkled embossing powder specks. 

Check back later this month as I share with you a banner created with those adorable bat pieces! 

Wendy Price (Paper, Ink and Smiles)