Scrapbooking Ideas and Solutions - Know Your Paper

It is so easy to take an everyday material like paper for granted, but it is so versatile that it pays to know your basics, especially if you are an avid scrap booker. Paper is so versatile, as you can tear, cut, crease, crumple, fold or glue it. There are tempting choices of paper available in most craft shops, and if you know the basics on types of paper you can use for a project, you can dictate the end results that you can achieve on your project.

First of all we need to take note of the paper weight. This is measured in gsm (grams per square metre). Slightly stronger papers will be around 150 to 190gsm and this weight will be suitable for making small boxes. Any paper weight above 250gsm is officially classed as cardboard.

Here are a few of the different types of papers that we will be able to use for all our scrapbooking ideas and solutions.

Tissue Paper:

This type is mainly used for gift wrapping or packing of breakables. It can also be used for crafts such as paper mache. Tissue paper is light weight and fragile and can also be used to make embellishments for your pages, or you could crumple it and use it to mat a photograph.

Sugar Paper:

This type is widely available and cheap. It has a slightly grainy texture and comes in a wide variety of colours for all your scrapbooking projects.

Crepe or Crinkled Paper:

This type is wrinkled and delicate and is also great for gift wrapping. It usually comes in a variety of strong and bright colours and can also be stretched slightly. You can also apply droplets of water to this paper to achieve a lovely watermark design.

Japanese Paper:

This type is medium weight that is similar to fabric in the way that it hangs and drapes. It is to springy to fold, but can be torn to create rough feathery edges.

Coated Paper:

This type is usually coated on one or both sides with a gloss or matt finish. This type of paper is great for tearing as it reveals and interesting white layer underneath. Coated paper does not fold well, as the coating cracks and looks untidy.

Tracing Paper:

Tracing paper can be made in different weights and is transparent with a waxy texture. Besides using it to transfer motifs and trace drawings, it could also be used to form windows or frames on your layouts.

Parchment Paper:

This type is high quality and normally only available in white and other neutral colours. It is medium weight and has an old fashioned look and feel to it. Great for fancy notebooks and diaries or creating layouts with old photographs.

Bond Paper:

This is the most used, everyday medium weight paper and usually available in a limited choice of pale colours. Bond can be used for most paper making projects from origami to papier mache.

Watercolour Paper:

This type is medium weight and usually only sold in craft stores. Artists use it to do their water colour paintings, and it has a hand made quality and slightly rough texture.

Brown Paper:

This is a traditional wrapping material and is both cheap and strong. You could also use it for stamping and stencilling.

Handmade Paper:

These are normally highly textured medium to heavy weighted papers with anything from petals and leaves to glitter and grass embedded into them. Handmade paper isn't cheap but is worth the investment to add an exotic touch to your projects.

Acid-Free Paper:

This type is strong and longer lasting as all the acids are removed during processing. It is the ideal paper for scrapbooking, and the storage of old antique books and documents.

For more on Scrapbooking Ideas and Solutions, visit: http://scrapbookideasandsolutions.blogspot.com

Michel Maling
I live in Sunny South Africa in the beautiful coastal city of Port Elizabeth. I love dancing, scrapbooking, Hiking and learning all there is to learn about internet marketing. If you are passionate about scrapbooking, subscribe to my blog, as I regularly update with new ideas and tips that I discover along the way. http://scrapbookideasandsolutions.blogspot.com

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5 Ideas For A Crepe Paper Christmas

How about a Christmas decor that does not cost you an arm and a leg to do your home decor, and any of the parties you will be having, or even some other holiday get together you may be having.

1.  The best place to start will be to decorate your Christmas tree:

First make some paper flowers that are for the Christmas season such as red roses or small poinsettias and have them ready for decorations. You can find instructions on the Internet in articles and in e-books and videos.
You can also make your Angel for the top of the tree out of crepe paper check on the Internet for instructions on making crepe paper angels. 
Next make some crepe paper bows, these are not hard to make simply make a simple bow and tie as you would with ribbon.
Also you can make crepe paper garland to go around your tree. All you need to do to make the garland is to take a length of craft wire and make a loop on each end then wrap it with floral tape which comes in green, white, or brown use the color that goes with the crepe paper flowers that you are going to add to it; these flowers should be small so that they will not over shadow the other flowers etc that you are decorating the tree with, then add your flowers to the garland using your floral tape.
If you are using lights on your tree be sure to not cover them with any of your crepe paper designs. Place your lights on the tree first then add your other crepe paper garland, bows, flowers, and your angel top.
Before you put any of your crepe paper projects on the tree though if you want a little more sparkle or shine you could sprinkle on some sparkles or add a few sparkling beads and spray with a glossy spray that will make them shine. With the lights this will make your tree sparkle and shine.If you do not want to use the lights on your tree you could just shine a light on the tree itself and it will still sparkle and shine.
2.  The second idea is to decorate your home:

You can make potted crepe paper poinsettias to use as centerpieces or to decorate your fireplace mantel or other places that you would with a real plant. Make paper flower garlands to show off your stairways or around the doorways of your home, they can be made the same way as the garland that you made for your tree just make the paper flowers a little larger.
How about making a crepe paper kissing ball to hang in the doorway of your home. There are instructions on how to make these on the Internet. They are not hard to make all you need to do is to make a bunch of mistletoe leaves and you can use beads for the berries put some leaves and some of the beads together then stick them in a Styrofoam ball continue doing this till you cover the ball then add a ribbon to hang it with and a small bow.
3.  The third way is get ready for a dinner party:

The main thing is to make a pretty centerpiece for the dinner table. Make a bouquet of  beautiful crepe paper Christmas roses or a bouquet of pretty crepe paper amaryllis. You can find the instructions and patterns for these in e-books, on the Internet, or sometimes in your libraries, bookstores, and sometimes you can find videos.
Make a pretty paper flower to add to the napkin rings this will make a nice accessory for the table  and you could use a small version of the poinsettia.
You could also add a pretty small paper flower to the name cards for your guests you can use any type of flower just use a Christmas color.
Using decorations for your chair backs is another idea. Just make a large Christmas bow out of crepe paper add a crepe paper flower and you have a very pretty chair for your guests to be seated on.
How about making a paper flower ring for the wine glasses this will add a finishing touch to your dining table for the Christmas holidays.
4.  What about a Christmas party for the fourth way to use crepe paper?

You will need to have a Christmas tree decorated for the center of attention. Use the decorations as above for decorating the tree.
Make sure your home is decorated as in the above suggested ideas or use your own Christmas decorating ideas.
For the dining table you will probably make a buffet table instead of a sit down meal so all you really will need to do is make a pretty centerpiece of paper flowers for the center of the table and add a Christmas table cover.
If you are exchanging gifts instead of adding bows to your packages why not make some crepe paper flowers to adorn the packages this would be something your friends and family can keep as a reminder of your crafty ideas.
You may want to make a crepe paper piñata for the younger children and instead of putting candy in it why not put small gifts that are wrapped so they do not know what they are picking up and will have fun checking out what they get.
5.   The last idea is to make a Santa suit out of crepe paper for a party game.

You will need red and black crepe paper, white cotton, scissors, and a heavy clear tape.
Next divide your guests into teams.
 Have each team pick a Santa and then they will make a Santa suit to fit their Santa out of the materials that they have been given.
You should have someone to be the judge of the best costume and the best costume will win the  prize for the team.
These are just a few ideas to start your imagination working so that you might come up with even more ideas to use crepe paper for your Christmas holidays. 

Jane Morris
For the most and best descriptive book on How to Make Paper flowers since the 1920's go to: http://www.ourpaperflowers.com

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Ideas for Using Various Kinds of Paper For Scrapbooking and Card Making

Scrapbooking Paper

There are many types of paper to use in your scrapbooking and craft projects including vellum, cardstock, labels, and transparencies. Here is a quick bit about understanding these types of paper and ideas of how to use them. When you are buying paper, remember to make sure it is acid and lignin free to protect your pictures against deterioration.

Vellum Scrapbooking Paper

Vellum paper is translucent, meaning light can pass through it, although things cannot be seen clearly through vellum paper.

Vellum paper is categorized by weight. The samller ther number, the light the weight of the paper, and subsequently, the more transparent, or see-through, the paper is. For example 17# is more transparent than 29#. There are many weights and colors of vellum to experiment with.

You can print on vellum using any laser printer. When using an inkjet printer change your settings to economy, draft, or speed depending on yout printer so the least amount of ink possible with be used. This will decrease your chances of smearing the ink. Let the ink dry completly before handling the vellum paper.

If you have only a small piece of vellum to print on, print your message on a regular piece of paper first. Then temporarily tape the vellum over the message on your test paper and run it through the printer again.

To mount your vellum paper to your scrapbooking page, lay your piece of vellum paper up-side-down of newspaper, and lightly spray photo mounting spray on the back. The vellum paper will them mount easily to your scrapbook. Other methods include using clear photo corners, and punching holes in the vellum and using a ribbon or eyelet to attach the vellum to your page.

For scrapbooking, vellum is great for printing titles, and adding embellishments. One simple idea is to stamp or paint a design on vellum paper that is trimmed with a thin metal frame. You can attach the vellum embellishment to the page with a ribbon. This is a good idea for pages where an anitque look is desired.

Vellum Invitations - Great for weddings or other formal events


Print the information for the event on vellum paper.

Select a piece of heavy cardstock to back your vellum paper.

Cut the cardstock to be about half an inch bigger than your vellum paper in both directions.

Place the vellum on top of the card stock so there is a quarter of an inch of cardstock on each side as a border.

Punch two holes in the top of the vellum paper and cardstock that are about an inch or an inch and a half apart. And use a matching ribbon to tie the papers together.



Hint: To keep the ribbon from comming untied use a dab of clear-drying glue.

Another option is to decorate the vellum and attach it over the printed invitation. The velum can be embossed or you can add a a dash of glitter to make it sparkle.

Embossing Your Paper - Embossing is a way to really enhance your pages. Vellum looks great embossed, but you can experiment on other types of paper as well. Here is how it is done.


Stamp or print onto your paper and sprinkle embossing powder on the design while it is still wet.

Shake of the excess powder from the paper.

Use you embossing heater or other heating tool to heat the embossing powder.


Cardstock

Carstock is usually thicker than normal paper, and therefore is good to use as a base for your scrapbooking pages especially if you like to add heavy embellishments. It is also good for matting pictures onto. I like to buy smaller pieces of cardtock to mat my pictures on. That way I don't have to worry about cutting perfectly straight lines. There are many types of cardstock. Two popular types of cardstock are smooth card stock and linen card stock. Both are excellent choices for scrapbooking. Linen card stock is semi-rough and has the look of linen cloth. It is good for adding more texture to your scrapbook pages if you think they are too dull.

There are many grades of cardstock. Remember that the higher the count, the thicker the paper is.

Labels

Before I started scrapbooking I thought that labels were just for business uses like addressing letter and labeling files. I have come to find that they are actually an inexpensive way to make neat stickers. If you have a good printer, you can find pictures you like on the internet and print them onto your label paper. Then just peel them off or cut them into the desired shape and stick them onto your scrapbooking page. If you want to add dimension to your page, mount your sticker onto thick cardstock and use double-sided tape to attach it to your scrapbook.

Transparencies

A transparency is a clear piece of paper. It is competely see-through like glass. You can buy transparencies at office supply stores, and some craft stores. You have likely only seen transparencies used with overhead projectors. But here are some other ways to use them for scrapbooking. Use your imagination, the possibilities are endless.

Transparency Covers


Stamp letters on a piece of paper. Cut them out, and glue them right side up onto a transparency. You can also use shapes of any kind instead of letters.

Paint over the transparency on the same side you glued the letters. You can paint using a splattering technique, streaks, or any other way you can think of. Acrylic paint works great.

Once the paint is dry, remove the letters for a cool effect. This technique is great for page titles.

Optional: Attach the transparency using spray adhesive.


Transparency Tile Accents


Stamp an image on a transparency with solvent ink.

Trim the transparency around the image. You can also cut the image into equal size squares to create a mosaic look.

Completely cover the image with clear dimensional adhesive until it can't hold any more. Let the adhesive dry for a few hours.

When the image is competely dry, apply clear-drying adhesive to the back and attach it to your page.


Transparency Accents


Cut the desired shape of your accent out of a piece of transparency paper.

Cover the accent with crystl laquer until it can't hold any more.

Cover the accent with crystl laquer until it can't hold any more.

When the crystal lacquer is dry, peel the transparency off of the back of the accent.

Lisa Robbins is a businesswoman and an enthusiast for sports, family, and crafts. She is the creator and maintainer of ScrapsAndCrafts.com, a scrapbooking tutorial and wholesale scrapbooking supply website. She is also a contributor to ScrapbookFinds.com, a search tool for scrapbooking products.

In addition to these roles, Lisa is also one of the owners of RobbinsSports.com, a team sports and fitness products store.

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