Make die-cuts “POP!”

October 21, 2010October 21, 2010 | thefrugalcrafter Lindsay Weirich

Since my son is having his birthday party this week I decided it was about time I scrapbooked the photos from last years birthday party. He had a bowling party last year so I used my new Bowling fun Clip Art & SVG set and Bowling Fun Papers which are 40% off today only along with everything else at Lindsay’s Stamp Stuff {mygrafico shop only} and made this:

Want to print 12″ pattern paper but only have a standard 8.5″ wide printer? Here’s how: Use legal size paper (8.5″x14″) and use the legal size setting in your printer. Click “center on paper” and set the scale to 100% and select landscape orientation if your paper will be used horizontally or portrait if the design will be used vertically. Then pint, think of all of the cool borders, titles and papers you can make. You can get a 12″x8.25″ printed piece of paper this way!

bowlingdiecuts — It's easy to give your die cuts dimention. Ink, layer and highlight! Thes svg die cutting files are included in the Bowling Fun set!

Now lets talk about die cuts. You can use your cricut machine and scal software to make cute paper pieced embellishments. To give them more dimension try inking the edges with brown chalk ink (I like chestnut roan by colorbox-the small cat’s eye size) before piecing then adding white highlights with a gel pen (Ranger Inksentials is the best!) You will have a custom multi layer look that is so cool! Here are some close ups of the bowling fun die cuts on the scrapbook page:

The word “Strike” was simply cut from a font (LD buttercream) I just typed it in scal, clicked weld and cut to get my letters to link together…that was all there is to it, easy peasy!

And here is a quick journaling tag I made with one of the clip art designs in the set, you get so much in this kit!

This project qualifies for the following challenges: Corrosive (no white paper), Craftilicious, Inky Impressions, PaperKutz, PearTree (anything goes), Crafty Calendar (birthdays), Cupcake Craft (boys and their toys), Kabers Challenges (kids) and Raise the BAr (hobby/sport/interest)

And here is a look at the 2 sets I used today, I just released them in the Lindsay’s Stamp Stuff shop this week, grab them today and save 40%!

And now here is your freebie, a fun little wizard owl click he pic then right click to download 🙂

Now let’s see what the Lindsay’s Stamp stuff DT has in store for us today:

Cheryl Gorka DT Coordinator

Don’t forget the 40% off sale is today only-ends at midnight, don’t miss out!

Thanks for stopping by and til next time happy crafting!

30% Off & a Freebie!

October 13, 2010October 14, 2010 | thefrugalcrafter Lindsay Weirich

It’s about time for another sale don’t you think? Now until Saturday save 30% on everything in the Lindsay’s Stamp Stuff Shop at MyGrafico, I have lots of new goodies in store for you so pop over and stock up during my Spooktackular sale! Speaking of spooktackular have you ever been “Booed?” It is fun, you simply fill a bag of treats, sneak it onto a neighbors porch and run away, they do not know who left the treats, in the basket you ask the neighbor to fill a basket and place it on another neighbors porch and so forth and see how far it spreads. I used the door hanger cutting file and the cracker file from the Fun Favors set to make this Boo set:

I also made some little cards that say you’ve been booed with my Vintage Halloween Labels set, the recipient of the goodies can place one in her window so she won’t get booed again. How fun!

This project qualifies for the following challenges: Aly’s Sunday Challenge, Bee crafty, By the cute and girly, Crafts & Me, Creative Craft, Double Dutch, Easy Craft Projects, Everybody Art Challenge, Fussy & Fancy, I did it creations, Karber’s Challenges, Scrappy Frogs, SSDS, Stampin Royality, Stamp n Doodle, Suchins, (Halloween), Elephantastic, MyGrafico, (anything goes) and Paper Minutes (pumpkins).

If you want some other favor packaging ideas check out my new SVG set called Pretty Packaging, you get 8 boxes you can use for any occasion:

Now for the freebie, If you want to boo your neighbors you need a little sign, right-click on the image to download.

Now let’s see what the Lindsay’s stamp Stuff DT have for us today. *Note: I am posting early because of the sale, the DT posts will be up by 10am ET 🙂

Cheryl Gorka DT Coordinator

Thanks for stopping by, don’t forget that the 30% off everything sale at Lindsay’s Stamp stuff is going on now through Saturday! Happy shopping and crafting too!

Christmas in September and a Fond Farewell

September 30, 2010September 30, 2010 | thefrugalcrafter Lindsay Weirich

It seems we crafters start to think about Christmas as soon as the leaves start to fall off the trees. Maybe because we want to be sure to have time to make our hand-made cards and gifts before the holiday crunch arrives. This week I played with the poinsettia stamp from the brand new Natures Christmas set:

pointsettiaset — Digital Stamps: Lindsay's stamp stuff (Nature's Christmas SET), Rubber stamps: inkadinkado (text), Papers: Oldies from a provocraft stack, Templates: Lindsay's stamp stuff (Envelope Bonanza, Fun Fair) other: Copic Markers, Ribbon

I printed the poinsettia twice on cream cardstock (Staple brand, no kidding!) and on one layer I carefully colored the green leaves and trimmed out the four petals and center. I colored the remaining petals cardinal red. On the other copy I carefully colored the red petals with Cardinal, lipstick and coral. I Cut out the red petals and threw the leaves away. on the small cut out petals and center from the first layer I colored them a bit lighter red (more coral in that layer) and the center was yellow. To assemble the flower I first hot glued the bottom layer with the hole in it to my card. Then I glued down the middle layer rotating it so it gave me the look of more petals then finally I glued in the center. I curled and fluffed the petals a bit for dimension.

Of course I made a homemade envelope with the Envelope Bonanza kit, I like to make the envelope first so I can use the scraps as accents on my card and in this case the box that I cut with my Fun Fair SVG set. Both templates were cut with my Cricut and SCAL software. Very little went to waste in this project!

This card qualifies for the following challenges: Aimees Challenges (Christmas Wishes), Color Throwdown, Incy wincy& OSSAT (anything Goes), Scrappekammeret (2 papers and a text stamp), Sentimental Sundays (dimension), Totally gorjuss (Christmas), Humble Pie (shaped card), YNS Challenges (Handmade flowers), Christmas Stamping All Year Long, Christmas Blog Challenge (red, holly green color) and the sketch from 2sketches4you.

Here is a look at the new Natures Christmas set and the other sets I used in this project:

Now for your freebie, It is a vintage Santa holding a parchment, you can write, type or stamp a sentiment on it, it would make a cute tag too, right-click on the pic and choose “Save As” to download.

This week we bid farewell to two of your very talented DT members Lisa Jurecek and Melissa Craig. The have both wowed us every week with their creations and they will be missed, but I wish them the best of luck! Now let’s see what the LSS DT has been working on this week:

Cheryl Gorka DT Coordinator

thanks for stopping by and til next time happy crafting;)

Dingbats for Dummies!

September 13, 2010September 13, 2010 | thefrugalcrafter Lindsay Weirich

Hello, my name is Lindsay and I’m a font-a-holic. I can’t resist funky fonts and adorable dingbats. It seems my habit has been getting out of hand as I can’t even remember all of the dingbats I have. It all started when I got Sure Cuts a Lot (SCAL) software more than 2 years ago. With SCAL I can cut my fonts and dingbats with my cricut machine and it is $15 off right now! I found some adorable doodlebats at Lettering Delights and began my awesome dingbat collection. All of the Lettering Delights products including all of the doodlebats and dingbats are on sale for a dollar right now so you can build your collection too! I devised a way to keep track of my collection of dingbats and I’ll show you how but first here is a 2 page layout of my niece’s wedding, my daughters were the flower girls:

sarahwed2pagelo — Digital stamp: Lindsay's stamp Stuff, Rubber Stamps: Inkadinkado, Rebecca Sower, Die cuts: Cuttlebug and Lindsay's Stamp Stuff. Paper: DCWV, Ribbon: SewTrue

See the frame around the group shot, that is a from a doodlebat font (DB Frilly Frames) now before I came up with my binder system to organize my dingbats I would have to hunt and peck through several dingbat fonts until I found a frame that would work but now I can just look through my binder and see at a glance what I have. Here is an example of my binder pages:

a dollar tree binder holds printed sheets of my dingbats/doodlebats.

being able to see all of the images in a dingbat is very helpful (and time-saving) when designing a project.

The Lettering delights doodlebats come with a printable reference sheet (right side) if you download the zip file but I usually just downloaded the font file only so I used an online dingbat character map to print a contact sheet (left side).

The online character map could not read all of the fonts so for the ones that It could not work with I simply typed put all of the characters of the font (a,b,c,d,e,f,g) and printed it out for my reference. I saved the file so I can just highlight it and change the font if I come across another dingbat I want to print. (see right side of the photo below)

Another great thing about this is I can take the binder to my craftroom where my cricut and laptop lives for a die cutting reference and take it back to my desktop when I want to work on a printable craft!

Here are close-ups of the wedding pages, I used my crinkle seam binding and some die cuts including my new ticket svg die cuts from the Fun Fair SVG set, those tickets are versatile! The dress digital stamp is a freebie you can snag here.

This project qualifies for the following challenges: Alotta Rubberstamps (fairytale), OTWC #24 (photo inspiration), Oldie but a Goodie (new beginnings theme-the small ticket stamps are a year old and the large ticket stamps-dominoes really are pushing 7 years old!), Stampin For the Weekend (shabby/vintage), Cute Daisy May and Really Reasonable Ribbon(flowers), Wild Orchid (Pearls & Pins) and the sketch from Sweet Peach Crop Shop.

Thanks for stopping by and til next time happy crafting!

“Scare” Mail!

September 9, 2010September 11, 2010 | thefrugalcrafter Lindsay Weirich

OK, my project today is more cute than scary but I can’t resist a good pun! Here is a card and paper mailbox made with the 3-D mailbox SVG/Printable template set and Creepy Crow, Cute Halloween and Vintage Halloween Labels stamps from Lindsay’s Stamp Stuff:

creepycrowmailboxset — Don't you want to start your Halloween crafting? This was loads of fun to make!

The card was done by first coloring the swirled crow with 3 shades of purple Copic markers then I rubber stamped a row of trees in the background with clear embossing ink, I stamped the ground area with a large crackle background stamp (with the clear ink as well) then I simply rubbed colored chalk over the background. Notice how the color stuck to the clear ink, nifty huh, and since the ink is clear it does not show up on the crow. I love fast and easy techniques!

crowcard — To make the moon in the packground I simply punched a circle and placed it on my stamped panel before I used the chalk and applied the chalk over it. Easy peasy!

Here is a peek at the 3-D mailbox closed, you could fill it wish candy, cards or other favors:

I used my Cricut and Sure Cuts a Lot (SCAL) software to cut the template. (SCAL is on sale for $59.95 -regularily $75- right now BTW) Assembling the box is easy but the first time it can be a bit tricky so I made a video to show you how, hope you like it 🙂

Well, that was fun, wasn’t it? Here are the sets I used in this project:

I Bet you are looking for your freebie, huh, well here you go, enjoy 🙂

Now let’s see what the Lindsay’s stamp stuff DT has up their sleeves this week

Cheryl Gorka DT Coordinator

Tamara Bennett *back from the shortest maternity leave ever! She had a baby a week ago and she still got a project done, that’s commitment folks!

One more thing: This project qualifies for the following challenges: Crafts & Me and My Time to Craft (card-gems & sparkle), Ginger Loft (anything goes), Lollipop Crafts (monsters and such), Gingersnap creations (3-D) and the card is based on the sketch from 2sketches 4 you:)

Thanks for stopping by and til next time happy crafting!

Surprise!!! Its a boy!

September 2, 2010September 2, 2010 | thefrugalcrafter Lindsay Weirich

I can’t believe we kept this under out hats all week but one of the designers on the Lindsay’s Stamp Stuff team is having a baby today! We are having a surprise virtual baby shower for Tamara who is expecting her new baby boy tonight! If you want to wish her well you can leave a comment of support on her blog Scrapcation Getaway. We love you Tamara, and wish you the best! Here is the card I made for the second time momma, I used Babies and bows, Baby Bingo card freebie and the new Sweet Stitches paper pack. The text frame around the baby shoe is today’s freebie.

tamara_babycard — Stamps, paper: Lindsay's Stamp Stuff

I used the sketch at Mojo Monday to layout this card, it was easy to use the sketch and digi-paper. I cut a circle from the brown polkadot paper using the circle selection tool and pasted it in a new document, then layered the bingo card over it (I cropped out the one I wanted from the sheet) and added a drop shadow. I printed a strip of the yellow plaid and a scallop circle of the large blue dot and layered a white scallop over that and added my frame and shoe stamp. Then I cut the 3 pieces out and layered them on a 6″ circle card, stitched on a few buttons and added some homemade crinkle ribbon. Want to make your own crinkle ribbon? Here is a video, I used 100% Rayon Hug Snug seam binding from Sew True and colored it with my homemade ink sprays:

This card qualifies for the following challenges: Mojo Monday (sketch), Crafty Emmas Store (anything goes), Corrosive Challenges (masculine card), Die Cut Dreams (soft shades of vintage), In Style (baby, blue/white), Lily of the Vally (circles), My Sherri Crafts (babies)and Practical Scrappers (white pen)

I colored the baby shoe with my Copics and added highlights with a white pen, I see this technique a lot and love the look, this is my first attempt at it, me likey!

The “Sweet Little Baby” text frame is your freebie, download it here.

Now on with the VBS {Virtual baby Shower!} Check out what the other DT gals made for Tamara:

Cheryl Gorka DT Coordinator

Thanks for stopping by and til next time happy crafting!

Free Collage Sheet & 30% off Sale!

August 26, 2010August 26, 2010 | thefrugalcrafter Lindsay Weirich

“It’s the most wonderful time of the year…” No, not Christmas, back to school time! I decided to mark the last week before school starts in my neck of the woods with a big sale, everything in the Lindsay’s Stamp Stuff shop at MyGrafico is 30% off through Saturday!

I was inspired to make a back to school set using my new Teacher’s Helper SVG set, it has tabs, clips, pockets, folders and a sliding box plus 2 digital stamps all for $4! (that’s on sale for $2.80!)

study_set — Stamps, papers, diecuts: Lindsay's stamp stuff

I used a bunch of LSS kits on this set: Uptown Houndstooth and School Papers Digital Paper Packs, School Bingo Cards form School Rules Kit and of course the die cutting templates from Teacher’s Helper SVG set. There are printable templates in the kit too if you don’t have a cricut and SCAL software (BTW, I just saw on the Craft Edge website that SCAL is on sale for $59! SCAL allows you to cut SVG files AND your computer’s fonts with your Cricut machine!)

study_card — This card took minutes to make! you could also use the idea for a belated birthday card and stamp "Happy Birthday & past due" on the library card!

This box is about pencil box sized but you could make a mini slider box to fill with treats or candy!

This is jut a fun tag made from leftovers, you could use it as a book mark or a backpack ID tag (you might want to laminate it first though:) This set qualifies for the following challenges: Creative Inspirations (bookmark), Cutie Sunday and HandStamp Creations and I Did IT creations and One Stop Craft Challenges (anything but a card), Double Dutch (make your own DP-Hey I designed all of the pattern paper-does that count?), Frosted Designs and Lil Red Wagon (back to school), Gingersnap creations (red and black), Incy Wincy and Lollipop crafts (buttons/bows).

Here is a look at the new sets at Lindsay’s Stamp Stuff this week, remember everything in my shop is on sale for 30% off through Saturday!

And now for the free collage sheet I promised! You get an 8.5″x11″ 300dpi printable sheet of card elements! Click the pic to download, Enjoy 🙂

This week we welcome a new designer to out Team. Laurel Seabrook is a very talented crafter and we are so glad to have her on the LSS DT! Let’s see what the DT has for us today, please note all of the new projects will be live by 10am ET 🙂

Cheryl Gorka DT Coordinator

Thanks for stopping by! Remember everything at Lindsay’s stamp stuff is 30% off until Saturday at midnight! Happy crafting!

DIY coasters!

August 19, 2010August 21, 2010 | thefrugalcrafter Lindsay Weirich

Have you ever had a great idea and then realized a flaw in your plan when it was too late to do anything about it? I planned to have a tutorial on photocopy transfers today, I went to the library yesterday and had the Vintage Halloween Label stamps I wanted to transfer onto tile coasters photocopied only to realize that I forgot to mirror image my designs before they copied them…and of course I realize this AFTER the library closed 😛 (I would have had backwards words if I did that so with no time to come up with a new project I decided to revive the art of Decoupage and venture onward with this project:

tb_lweirichcoasters — Craft this set in no time with the Vintage Halloween Labels set from Lindsay's stamp Stuff!

Here is how to decoupage your very own coasters:

Print out your designs on a LAZER printer or print them out on an ink jet printer and have them photocopied. The toner in lazer printers and photocopy machines won’t bleed when you paint over it with mod-podge.
Color your images with ALCOHOL based markers such as Bic Markits, Copic, Sharpie, Promarker or Prismacolor. Avoid using a xylene based marker like Chartpack, it will lift the toner.
Closely trim around your designs.
Use a brush to paint a layer of decoupage medium such as Mod-podge or white glue (not the washable kind) on a ceramic tile then place your colored cut out image on top and paint another coat of decoupage medium over it.
Let dry. If you like you can add additional coats of Mod-Podge for added durability.
Put felt, cork or foam pads on the bottom of the tile to protect your furniture.
Enjoy knowing you have the coolest coasters on the block!

This project qualifies for the following challenges: Bunny Zoe’s & Creatilicious (vintage), Cards For Men (decoupage), Craft Your Passion (anything goes) and Lil Red Wagon (altered item)

Now how about a freebie? Here is add-on to the Vintage Halloween Labels set, Spider Cider anyone?

lss_spidercider_preview — Click the picture to download 🙂

Now let’s see what the LSS design team has for us today.

Cheryl Gorka DT Coordinator

Thanks for stopping by and til next time happy crafting!

This one’s for the guys!

August 12, 2010August 12, 2010 | thefrugalcrafter Lindsay Weirich

Howdy crafty folk 🙂 I decided to make a few cards for guys to have on hand since most of my cards tend to be, well, let’s say a bit feminine. I used my Steampunk Style and Seaside Sketches stamps as well as the Steampunk SVG cutting files to make this set:

3_bday_steampunkcards — Stamps and Die cuts: Lindsay's stamp stuff

I love how by using the Steampunk SVG set (I cut the designs with my Cricut and SCAL software) I could add some decorative details to the cards without making them fussy looking.

I colored these images with my ProMarker andPrismacolor markers, I deliberately did not try to blend, rather I went for more expressive strokes.

the papers I used are from Graphic 45 and K&co, I printed my digital images on Neenah 80# super smooth cardstock. These cards qualify for the following Challenges: Aly’s Sunday Challenge (under the sea-beach card), Cards for Men (Adventure-truck card), The Crafty Pad (chocolate and cream-truck card), Order of Opus Gluei (summer-beach card), Pear Tree Designs (male card), Pile it on (a little bit country, little bit rock n rool, I think Steampunk cards fit this there:), Practical scrappers (summer) and Your Next Stamp (birthdays)

Now how about a freebie? I’ve got my sights set on Halloween these days. Here is a creepy little freebie for ya. Click the pic, the right click, save as, to download.