DIY Dice Tray - Helmar Creative Team

Today I have a quick DIY gift idea for the Board Game lover in your life, or you could just make it for yourself.   A cool Dice Tray, the boys made these Dice Trays for their Dad for Father's Day and I thought I would share how they created them so those of you needing gift ideas for the Board Game loving people in your life can get started creating gifts for Christmas if you wish.

The purpose of a Dice Tray is to not lose you dice under the couch and to reduce problematic rolls like the dice being cocked, etc.  Keeping this in mind I kept my eye out for some nice deep frames that weren't too big so they didn't occupy too much table space.  I would have loved to upcycle a old frame but after 15 months of scouring op-shops I had no luck so bought the frames from The Reject Shop and I am trying to come up with something to use the glass for or find a artist who will use it and give it to them.
So here is what you need.
Helmar Fabric Glue
Helmar 450 Quick Dry Adhesive
Felt in your preferred colour
2mm and/or 3mm Craft Foam
Deep Photo Frames
Scissors
Pen or Pencil.









Remove the back piece from the frame, this is the part you will be working with. 
You won't need the glass or hanging hardware so save them for something else if you wish.

Place the back piece down on your foam and trace around it.  
Cut on the line. 
Do the same with your felt.

Run some Helmar 450 Quick Dry Adhesive around the outer edge of your back piece and a squiggle in the middle and adhere your foam down.










Once your Helmar 450 Quick Dry Adhesive is dry run some Helmar Fabric Glue around the edge of your foam and adhere down your felt.

Put your frame back together without the glass or hanging hardware and you are ready to role.

E made a mini Dice Tray with Green felt so our awesome DM has something a bit more compact when needed.    He had to test it out with his favourite D20 and he was pretty happy with his role.

Why not make a Dice Tray as a gift for the board game loving person in your life?  They will love it.

A Stranger Birthday Afternoon

My daughter loves Stranger Things so when it came to a Birthday Card for her I decided to make her a Eggos themed card.

I started by designing a cut file for it that would enable it to look like 2 eggos were overlapping.
I cut 1 base, 3 of the full waffles and 2 of the waffles with a section missing.

I then coloured the base and top layers randomly with Distress Ink in Wild Honey and Fossilized Amber to give it a more toasted look.

I then started gluing my layers together with Helmar Acid Free Glue.

I then added my eggos to my card base.

My next step was adding the red lettering for Eggo, I grabbed out some really old Creative Memories alphas and added them to my card.

I then sealed my card with Dorlands Wax Sealant to ensure the alphas wouldn't peal off.







As the boys and I were traveling down on the train for a week long stay with my daughters the week before my daughter's birthday I decided to just pack the card and instead organise everything else once down there.  I arranged some awesome Stranger Things and Spiderman cupcakes to be made by her housemate who has her own cake decorating business in Brisbane (My Sweet Addiction)
I also got my eldest to pick up Christmas lights and I used her scrapping stash to make a box to fit a pack of waffles for a mini themed afternoon tea with just us and her housemates as she prefers small events.

Here is a quick how to of how I made the box.

I glued 2 sheets of yellow cardstock together with a line of Helmar Acid Free Glue.

















I then measured my waffle pack and cut my cardstock to size and then scored it which was difficult as my daughter's scoring tool was missing so I had to use the back of a knife and her trimmer.  I did slip and cut through one section so I just taped it back together with washi tape.
I then cut down the sections that would form the ends.














I then used my Helmar Acid Free Glue to glue my box closed around my waffles.











The card turned out so cute.

At the afternoon tea I sat the card on top of the box so it looked like a box of Eggos.

Darling Girl - Ruby Rock-It Creative Team

Before I got around to doing my next layout with my kit I created for scrapping photos of my Granddaughter at a wedding earlier this year I received a lovely box full of new Bella Mini Themes from Ruby Rock-It so I decided to add the gorgeous PFF06 Fancy Florals Blossom and PFF90 Fancy Florals Bouquet to my left overs from creating my Sweet Bubbles layout as I loved the little hints of blue in the flowers of both papers, I thought it would be a good way to help pull in the blue from my daughter's hair.

So I could use the gorgeous florals in PFF06 Fancy Florals Blossom and PFF90 Fancy Florals Bouquet I cut away a section of the papers and used my Silhouette with the Pixscan mat to cut as much as possible and then fussy cut the pale flowers as it had trouble detecting them when I used the tracing tool.

I decided to create a background on my white cardstock using the packaging technique with Distress Inks in Vintage Violet and .
The packaging technique is a really easy way to get a lovely background.  You dab your ink or watercolour paint or watered down paint onto a nonstick surface, spritz with water, place some plastic packaging and then dab the packaging onto your cardstock.

I used Victorian Velvet first, dried it with my heatgun and then added Broken China.
I love the results you get with this technique.

I was having trouble deciding which way I wanted the embellishments to be so I started with adding my heart die cut white I cut from a lilac coloured card from the Francheville Cards & Envleopes Pastel Pack to my photos and gluing them down.
I selectively cut my heart die cut to spread it as much as possible, even cutting a single heart out that would have wound up behind a photo, which I added to my florals later.



I had 2 layout options I loved and couldn't decide which was my favourite so I shared them with my fellow team members to see what they thought, I love that I can bounce creative ideas off other team members.  I also left it sitting on my desk in each design for a day and walked past it regularly to see what I liked the most.

When building my clusters I added in some of blue flowers I made when I created my kit in my previous post as I wanted to include some more blue into the project.  Instructions for these flowers are in my Sweet Bubbles layout post.

My title was going to be created with a darling wood veneer I got from a destash I bought years ago and some chipboard alphas from Ruby Rock-It to spell out GIRL.
To colour my chipboard I gave them a rough base coat of gesso and then experiemented with colouring them with Distress Inks in Victorian Velvet, Faded Lilac and Broken China.
I dabbed my ink onto my alphas, spritzed with water, dried and then used another colour and repeated until I had something I liked.

Now I was ready to stick down my embellishments, I decided I wanted to add some dimension to the layout so I glued together some scrap cardstock and adhered it to the big sections of my florals.

I tucked that single heart I cut away from my die cut into the big floral section on my layout.  I helped pull those hearts further into the layout.


















I love the flowers from PFF06 Fancy Florals Blossom, they were perfect for these photos of my Granddaughter and I think if I had some of the Blush floral left they would work beautifully together so if you have some photos that need gorgeous florals then check out Blush and Fancy Florals from Bella, they are just gorgeous.

Father's Day Card and Manly Sea Eagles Bookmark - CraftOnline Creative Team

This year due to circumstances beyond our control we had to celebrate Father's Day with my Father In-law a couple of weeks late, so today I am sharing with you the projects I created for him for Father's Day.

I always struggle with ideas for my Father In-law so when creating a project for him gathering together a sort of kit that could work for something that suits his interests really helps me create something for him.  So keeping in mind what his career was and his love of the Manly Sea Eagles I decided I would need some products that could work with a grungy sort of travel theme or some sort of Sea Eagles project.





Check out my video to see how I created a bookmark and card for the person in my life that I struggle the most for gift ideas.

Items used.
Poppy Crafts Stitched Labels die set
Poppy Crafts Gear Set 3 die set
Poppy Crafts Gear Set 2 die set
49 and Market Captured Adventure 6x6 paper pad
Poppy Crafts A6 Cards and Envelopes Kraft
Poppy Crafts A4 Kraft Cardstock
Poppy Crafts A4 White Cardstock
The Stickmaster Heat Resistant Double Sided Tape
X-Press It Double Sided Foam Tape
Universal Crafts Blending Tool
Tim Holt Distress Mini Ink Pad Storage Tin
Mini Distress Ink Walnut Stain
Mini Distress Ink Aged Mahogany
Mini Distress Ink Brushed Corduroy
Mini Distress Ink Hickory Smoke
Helmar Acid Free Glue
Helmar Liquid Scrap Dots
Helmar Crystal Kote Matte Varnish
Universal Crafts Embossing Tool
Dorland's Wax Medium

The X-Press It Double Sided Foam Tape and Helmar Liquid Scrap Dots really helped give my card dimension.
The Helmar Crystal Kote Matte Varnish sealed the distress inks so they won't run if the bookmark or card were to get wet.

The Dorland's Wax Medium sealed my alphas beautifully, they aren't coming up now.













I love how the card and bookmark turned out.

Sweet Bubbles - Ruby Rock-It Creative Team

When I saw the gorgeous Blush Floral paper in the new Bella papers I felt I had found the perfect paper to start a little kit for scrapping some photos taken of my granddaughter at a wedding earlier this year.  So I pulled together a kit to suit creating a few layouts that consisted of the Blush range, PL197 Pink Lady Montage, Francheville Cards & Envelopes in Pastel, Francheville Mini White Doilies, Distress Mini Ink in Vintage Violet and as I hadn't decided which photos to use I also included Distress Mini Ink in Salty Ocean to work with the photo that includes my daughter as she had blue hair at the time.

I decided to prepare everything first.
I cut what cards I wanted from THE654 Blush Quarters and PL197 Pink Lady Montage, so I would know what I would have left over from Blush Quarters.
Then I used my Silhouette Curio to cut the floral frame from the card that is second from the right on the middle row of Blush Quarters, the champagne bottle & glasses and some bits from the Botanicals range.  I then fussy cut flowers from THE Blush Floral.

I then went through my embellishment stash and grabbed out some lace, chipboard, flowers and a Charms Creations Heart along with a pack of Francheville Mini White Doilies.











Using my Curio I cut the word Bubbles and some other items from some Francheville Cards & Envelopes in Pastel.
I matted all my photos that I was trying to decide between so they would be ready to grab and go.
I then punched out some lacey borders from the card scraps and made some flowers from the card scraps.

To make my flowers I punch out a assortment of flowers from the cardstock scraps with some old flower punches I have in my stash and I inked the edges, the pink flowers I inked with Vintage Violet and the Blue with Salty Ocean.






 

I shaped them with a ball tool and a scrap of foam.

For my flower centres I grabbed out my Just Beat It SB15 Glass Seed Beads in Rose and JBX84 Round Brass Beads in Silver as I love using glass and metal beads for flower centres, they are a more archival option and they give you a gorgeous result.

I simply put a drop of Helmar 450 Quick Dry Adhesive into the centre of each flower and then placed my beads into the glue, if they needed adjusting I just used my pokey tool to move them.

I was now ready to scrap.
I worked out my photo positions and glued them together.
I split 2 of the 3x4 cards from THE654 Blush Quarters in half to create layers that extended both sides of my photo stack and then glued them to my photos.
And then I trimmed a section of Blush Quarters that I had decided not to use the cards from and glued it along the bottom.
This is how my stack looks from the back, so you can see how I trimmed out the middle of my matts and cut the cards.


This square photo is popped up with 4 layers of cardstock scraps to give it some lift.

This 3x4 card was perfect for representing the bubbly fun my granddaughter was having.

I also cut up a doily to poke in around my layout to add some lacey texture.

And I stamped my white cardstock with a bubble stamp from my stash in Distress Ink Vintage Violet.

Here you can see the other 3x4 card that I chose for this layout.  I felt this card also added to the bubbly fun of the page.

For these big gorgeous florals I put layers of cardstock scraps behind them, the main one has 4 layers and the on near the page edge has 2 layers.
I then used some Helmar Liquid Scrap Dots on the smaller parts to give them lift to.

I added some leaves from the Botanicals paper to the bottom right corner to sort of pull the florals into the corner and added some of them throughout the main section of the layout.

For my title I decided to use this Sweet chipboard from Memorymaze combined with the Bubbles that I had die cut from a pink card from Francheville Cards & Envelopes in Pastel.
I base coated it with Gesso and then coloured it with Distress Ink in Vintage Violet.






I love how this project turned out.  The floral colours in THE Blush Floral were perfect for these photos of my Granddaughter as they matches her dress so well.
Now to scrap my next layout with this little kit I have put together.