Spring Birthdays Are So Sweet

I have a number of Birthdays in Spring so I find myself making cards when I have craft time instead of getting other projects done, but I don't mind, I am enjoying these little pops of creating.

Today I wanted to share with you the card I made for a special Birthday that occurred at the end of September.
My daughter and granddaughter both love the colour yellow so when I saw this new Butter Mini Collection from 49 and Market I just had to grab it for making my daughter a card and when I turned around at the shop they had a bulk bag of lovely big flowers that were mostly yellow and perfect for cards so I grabbed that too as I was just about out of yellow flowers, or so I thought.

To make my card I selected this gorgeous piece of paper and trimmed it to fit my card base (still working through that pack of 100 I bought 2 years ago).Then I edged my card front with Scatter Straw Distress Ink. 
I took it outside and gave it a coat of Helmar Crystal Kote Matte Varnish

I adhered my card front to my card base with Helmar Acid Free.
 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I selected one of the lovely big yellow flowers I bought and some smaller flowers from my stash and played around until I liked how I had them and then I adhered them down with Helmar 450 Quick Dry Adhesive.

To finish the card I added a wodden flower using Helmar 450 Quick Dry Adhesive to adhere it and then grabbed out some big number stickers to add her age.

 

I love how the card turned out and my daughter was really happy to receive it.

 

Health Potion

My family loves playing board games and tabletop roleplaying games today, some creative people have created health potions by putting red resin in the bottom of a cool looking jar and then adding the required D4 dice to it to hand out to players when the buy or find health potions.  I really wanted to make some but I don't use resin due to the health risks so I decided to try creating it with Helmar 450 Quick Dry Adhesive instead.

It was really simple to do though has a really long dry time.
I just poured my Helmar 450 Quick Dry Adhesive in, added a drop of red paint, stirred with a toothpick, popped as many bubbles as I could and left it sit to dry.
I checked on it after a day and it wasn't solid, I check on it after a week and it wasn't solid, at 2 weeks the dice were still sinking slightly so I just packed it away in a box as we now knew we were moving and forgot about it.  I honestly don't know how long to get solid but when I unpacked it it was solid and a awesome little prop so now I need to make more since my first experiment worked. 

Do you know someone who loves playing Dungeons and Dragons or any other tabletop roleplaying game that utilises potions in the game play?  Why not make them some cool props with your Helmar 450 Quick Dry Adhesive it is much safer than resin and the results are worth the time it takes to solidify when you are putting such a think amount in.

 

 

Journal Keeping - Helmar Creative Team

You may remember my post in October last year where I shared my October Daily and how I was trying to get back into keeping a journal as I found it really helpful, well with the move my journal keeping fell by the wayside until now.  I decided to try something new and combine a simple Bullet Journal (BuJo) with journal keeping to make life a bit easier on myself with my memory keeping and planning.  Today I want to share with you a couple of my most recent journal entries.

I just grabbed a cheap dot journal from Officeworks to give this new planning style and journal keeping style a try, but the problem with grabbing a cheap journal is the paper is thin and has a lot of bleed through so I have been gluing in printables on some pages with the bleed through is bad or using my journaling to cover the bleed through.

A big part of my change is I am no longer typing my journal entries as I know if something were to happen to me my kids would like to have much of me recorded as possible, including my handwriting so I am now hand writing my entries, due to how this impacts my hand I need to get my entries done more regularly so initially I tried printing photos daily and journaling and I was using photo paper but it's thickness meant that my journal got really chunky very quickly so I have switched to printing on basic 80gsm printer paper and instead of using scrapbooking paper I instead print digital scrapbooking supplies on the same paper.

I started my August 1st entry by gluing in a page I have removed from the back and trimmed the bottom off onto the page with bad bleed through using my favourite memory keepting glue, Helmar Acid Free Glue.

  

Once I had the bleed through covered I grabbed my little photos (my printer shrank my print job for some reason so I wound up with some tiny photos, not one to waste things I went with it) and some embellishments that help tell the story and played with them to figure out how I wanted to glue them down with my Helmar Acid Free Glue.

 

My next journal session I was doing August 2nd and 3rd but got distracted and journalled August 3rd first, I realised when I was about halfway down the page so I left a space to glue in a tip in to quickly journal my August 2nd memories.
I had a journal card that had some white space at the top so I folded the white space down and trimmed it a little to ensure I didn't glue it to my photo that was going to be beside it.
I applied Helmar Acid Free Glue to the flap and glued it down to my journal page.

    

I then folded the tip in open and covered the edge with some copy paper that I had stamped with a circuit board themed stamp as my journalling for August 2nd was about using technology during covid.  I wound up covering the spot I had cut away to make it look more aesthetically pleasing.

I filled in the blank space under the tab by gluing in a fussy cut row of books on a shelf that I used to represent board games and added a cat sticker, this helped define that August 2nd was on the back of the card and the rest was August 3rd.

There are many ways to journal, if you aren't currently keeping a journal I hope this post helps you consider giving it a try.

Ikea Lekman Repair - Helmar Creative Team

I found myself needing a 2x4 Kallax instead of the 2x2 that I had for my scrapping stash, so I browsed Facebook Marketplace regularly in the hope of finding a bargain nearby, finally I scored a white 2x4 that came with 5 Lekman inserts (4 white which I gave to my daughter and 2 smokey), 1 of the smokey ones was broken at the back (the lady had felt pads on the side that faced the walls, which saved me doing that myself).  I contacted Ikea to see if you could get a replacement part and unfortunately you can't so Helmar came to the rescue as I really didn't want to send this to the tip if I could save it.

I grabbed out my Helmar Silicone Adhesive and Sealant and applied it to the break on the parts poking out and the inside. 
Note - I would later realise with the way this had to be forced back in place that I should have worn gloves and had some turpentine at the ready to clean up the excess when done.

 
I don't have photos for the next part as my photography assistant was off in Uni class.
Basically I pulled and pushed at the 2 sections that needed to go back together until I had them together, this is why I overdid it with the Helmar Silicone Adhesive and Sealant, I wanted to ensure some wound up in the break once I had it together.  This is also why I should have worn gloves, if you get it on your skin wash immediately.
This is when you need the Turpentine, so you can wipe off the mess you made when trying to get the 2 sections to click back together.



As it's at the back you can't tell it was repaired when it's on the shelf, it is now a perfectly functional Lekman to stash away goodies in.

Quick Birthday Card

June and July are hectic Birthday months for me so I need to make some quick cards.  Today I wanted to share with you the cards I made for my nephew's Birthday

My nephew loves cars so I wanted to make him a car themed card, I had this car themed 3D punch out sheet in my stash so decided to use this as the inspiration for my card.  I carefully popped out the layers and then adhered them together with Helmar Liquid Scrap Dots, they really are perfect for this as I can adjust the height of my layers by using this awesome adhesive.

I set this aside to dry and started working on my card base.
I cut a piece of red A4 cardstock in half and then scored and folded that piece in half.
Then I went through my stash and found a cool piece of black embossed paper, trimmed it to size and adhered it down with Helmar Acid Free Glue.

To finish off my card I adhered my 3D car to my card base with Helmar Acid Free Glue and then raided my alpha stash for a nice big number 5 and some alphas to spell out Happy Birthday.   Tip stick down your alphas with Helmar Acid Free Glue to ensure longevity and if you have the time give your card a coat of Helmar Chrystal Kote Matte Varnish to protect it from anything little fingers get on it.

 

I am really happy with how my card turned out and best of all my nephew loved it. 

New Adventures - Helmar Creative Team

My brain was needing my to scrap so I went through my photos and found one I was in the mood to scrap and then I started pulling out supplies from my stash that might work with the photo.

I started by playing with my papers and supplies, working out what would suit this story best, once I had decided on my papers I started adhering them down with Helmar Acid Free Glue.















When selecting my embellishments I pulled out this key hole chipboard and a key.  I coloured them with metallic Distress Crayons and then gave them a coat of Helmar Crystal Kote Matte Varnish to ensure if it ever got wet the colour wouldn't run.  

Note it is best to use spray adhesives and varnish outside but the weather wasn't great so I just opened up my double sliding doors and a window.

I adhered my embellishments down with Helmar 450 Quick Dry Adhesive.

I selected some chipboard alphas, the plain ones split when I was taking them out so I adhered the layers back together with some Helmar Acid Free Glue.

When adhering the chipboard flower down I put a glob of Helmar 450 Quick Dry Adhesive in the middle and sprinkled some tiny glass seed beads to form a flower centre.

I finished off my layout with a doodle boarder to match the scrap of doodle paper.

My daughter loves the layout, she said she loves that I chose stuff to match her clothes and the tarp in addition to some house embellishments.











I hope this has inspired you to get some scrapping done and tell your stories while playing with glue and pretty supplies.

Garden Junk Journal - Helmar Creative Team

Since starting my potted veggie garden I have found myself frequently looking up the same information for my plants and I felt I needed a notebook with quick references to this information.  I downloaded various printable Garden Planners but couldn't find one that was just right.  After Jeanette's Easy DIY Two Hour Planting Journal post I found myself really inspired to create a Junk Journal style notebook/garden planner for myself.  So I started collecting various free printables, sorting through my stash to create a Garden kit to play with.

I printed out the printables I liked, some I printed on nice thick paper and other's I printed on standard 80gsm copy paper.  The tags and library cards that I printed on 80gsm paper I decided to back onto a manilla file folder.  I simply ran some Helmar Acid Free Glue onto the back of each tag and Library card, adhered them to the file folder, cut them out once dry and then touched up any gaps in corners or edges with a drop of Helmar Acid Free Glue.

Once they were dry I distress the edges of the printables and the back with a variety of Distress Inks.  While I had the inks out I distress the edges of all the printable pages and the papers I had cut and distressed the backs to if they were blank.

Some printables I didn't want as pages but rather I wanted to glue them onto pages that I had given a Tea Dye look using Distress Inks.  I simply glued them where I needed them with Helmar Acid Free Glue.













I have been really concerned in the Junk Journal groups about the safety of the methods some are using to adhere napkins to paper so I wanted to share how safe and easy it is to use Helmar Acid Free Glue to do this.  Great minds think alike and Jeanne recently did a post Decoupaging Napkins with Helmar Acid Free Glue, our method was very similar but I will share mine too.
I simply squirted some Helmar Acid Free Glue onto my work surface, spritzed some water onto the glue and mixed it with a old brush.  I then brush it on evenly to where I was decoupaging my napkin, placed the napkin down and then gave it a coat over the top with my watered down Helmar Acid Free Glue, set it aside to dry while I worked on something else.  It was very quick and easy to do and much safer than melting cling wrap or ironing plastic backed paper.  Please, please don't melt plastic in your craft room, Helmar Glues are much safer.

When cutting my cover I cut it a fraction too short, so I cut a strip from the left overs and ran some Helmar Acid Free Glue along the strip and used the strip to hold 2 pieces together.  Bonus it gave me a little bit of contrast on the busy paper I had chosen for my cover.   Sorry I didn't get a pic of the process but here is the finished repair.

I decided to use the left over paper from my cover to make a pocket inside the cover.  I ran a bead of Helmar Acid Free Glue around the bottom and 2 sides and adhered it inside the cover, once dry I had a great pocket for my tags, library cards and embellishments I want to have on hand to use when needed.

As I add information into my Garden Junk Journal I will give finished pages a coat of Helmar Crystal Kote Matt to ensure if it gets wet no ink will run.

I want to try protecting my cover using Jeanette's method of upcycling cereal packaging and using Helmar Silicone Sealant to seal it, it is a brilliant idea, check it out.

I am really happy with how my Garden Junk Journal has turned out and I have been using the information I have added regularly to remind myself of when to water which plant, what plants I want to use in companion planting and what fertiliser needs each plant has.  It has been so handy. 
I am looking forward to printing out some photos of my garden and adding them in as a way to document how the garden is progressing and the things I am learning.