Archive for June, 2010
“Clean”
Paper Posies and Tombow partner up this week. Be sure to come back and check the Tombow blog for inspiration all week from the other design team members.
Someone gave me this little plaque as a gag gift of sorts and I needed a little home decor project for Tombow using the Paper Posies kit that they sent me.
It has fun paper by October afternoon that I used as well as this little tag that was attached to a mini chipboard ticket album, so I decided to alter it too.
Our bathroom is in SERIOUS need of being redone. But money and time is tight right now. Even if you have a room (or whole house LOL) that needs redone, you can still do little things to make it look nice until you can get to it. Now I know of what I’m talking about cuz ours seriously needs regutted. I could get discouraged by how bad it looks OR do little things to keep it looking as nice as possible considering all that needs done.
Okay, I digress, back to my project. 
It is soooo easy and yet adds a fun little element to the room. I cut patterned paper to fit inside the frame and attached it with Tombow’s Mono Adhesive Power Bond. Then I used the same adhesive to attach these fun letters that were in my Paper Posies kit.
Perfect word for a bathroom don’t ya think? Ü I could have left it just like that, but it needed just a little bit more.
I printed the verse out on cardstock and attached it to the chipboard tag with the Power Bond adhesive and then stamped a flower from Darcie’s set and grunged the edges a bit, added some vintage rayon ribbon and there you have it. 
Here is a tip for cutting smooth rounded edges: It is hard to cut rounded edges to look nice. Just cut and adhere to chipboard and then sand the edges with an emory board. Makes it smooth and look more professional.
Super easy, super fun and super cute. What do you have around the house that you can alter with some pretty papers to pretty up your home?
Paper Posies is a monthly scrapbooking kit club dedicated to bringing theirmembers the hottest and newest scrapbook products on the market. The kits are chock-full of patterned papers, specialty papers, cardstock, always two alphabets, ribbons/trims, tons of embellishments, and an alterable project (and this month, some added Tombow gifts!). Their Design Team gallery is ALWAYS full of inspiration and ideas on ways to use the product in the kits. They have challenges (and PRIZES!) going on ALL month long to keep creativity readily flowing. Add to that a fun and friendly message board with a live, online chat every Friday at 11am PST and a regularly updated blog and you can see exactly why we are so excited to partner with them this month!! This week we’ll be featuring projects from our DT using the Paper Posie’s July kit. Of course we’ll be doing our amazing giveaway at the end of the week so don’t be shy, you won’t want to miss out!
Old Fashioned Picnic Invitation
The Paper Posie package arrived and I was immediately motivated by the sizable assortment of paper and superfluities – a beautiful collection of soft, romantic colors that quickly inspired a vintage project. With Independence Day coming up I thought an old fashioned picnic was called for, complete with a fun invitation.
The invitation includes a pocket in the front, held down firmly with MONO Adhesive Permanent. Place the i
nvitation, chipboard tickets or even a menu into the pocket.
The ruffled ribbon accent is super easy to make. Lay down the MONO Adhesive Power Bond and a very thin line of Mono Multi Liquid Glue onto your project. Take a length of ribbon (I usually work right off the roll), and pleat it down the adhesive in a back and forth fashion. Don’t worry about being perfect, the irregularities in the size and direction of the pleats are what make this embellishment so endearing. The adhesive holds the pleats in place as you work and the Multi Glue holds it forever, especially when working with wider ribbons.
The chipboard tickets were colored with the Dual Brush Pens, with the easiest and fastest way ever to finish ‘raw’ chipboard! I used #723 pink and #126 light olive to match the Paper Posie package. Scribble the colors onto a piece of plastic and spritz with water. Place the chipboard down into the color and lift. Repeat until it is covered with color. To give the antique edge, and while still wet, run a #977 saddle brown Brush tip around the edge. The brown will blend as the chipboard dries.
I finished the pieces by stamping details with brown ink.
The Paper Posie package was not even dented – so I created a page ready to add favorite photos and journaling after the picnic! I would most likely antique the photos before printing to match the theme of the page. I mirrored the pocket from the invitation and kept the design simple with a quad panel showing off the pretty papers. This would also make a fun gift for an honored guest at your picnic.
-Marie
Do you want to make $25 for testing a new Tombow product? What a silly question; of course you do! We will be hosting one-on-one interviews from June 29 to July 1 at the Tombow offices in Suwanee, Ga. for those who would like to participate. So if you live in the Atlanta area and have 20 minutes to spare, take our questionnaire to qualify to be a genuine Tombow product tester!
We promised you a manga illustration and a Tombow Tale in our May 27 post, and that’s exactly what you’re going to get! This illustration, created by Nate Morris, is featured on the packaging for our Shojo Dual Brush Pen Set.
We were so inspired by the illustration that we created a Tombow Tale to tell the story of how this wonderful drawing came to be. Check out the story below and tell us what you think of Yumiko and her magical Shojo Dual Brush Pen Set.
“tangle” supplies;
Tombow MONO Adhesive Dots , Tomobw Dual Brush Pen – N15 black , Tomow White Gel Pen
the idea of the “ZENTANGLE” is interesting to me. all those doodles in
the notebooks of my college classes actually have a name now! well, unfortunately i am
not much of a doodler now, but i took inspiration from the zentangle
and put it toward my scrapbooking.
this layout was inspired by the doodling now called zentangle. Both the pattern paper blocks on the page and the title were a result of the research i have done concerning zentangle. the result is a fun technique that fits my style. i’m coining my own phrase and calling it a “scrap-tangle”!
using coordinating pattern papers (all of mine came from OCTOBER AFTERNOON’s recess line) i cut (mostly) straight lines from one of the pattern papers. then using the other coordinating patterns i filled in a 4″ square piece of white cardstock. the final result is similar to the different doodling one might do with they were creating their own zentangle.
*tips* (because i tried this three different ways)
*you can doodle a zentangle first.
i took my 4″ square piece of white cardstock and drew directly on it first.
then using a piece of vellum i laid it over the design and traced it.
next i flipped the piece of vellum over onto the pattern paper i wanted to use and re-traced the lines on the back side of the vellum.
this will transfer the lead from the front side of the vellum to the pattern paper.
now you have a guide to cut out your shapes out of patterned paper.
a suggestion with this method – number each piece that is traced on the vellum AND on the pattern paper. so when all of your pieces are cut out you can fit it together like a puzzle with a pattern.
*another way to do this is to use scraps pieced together
generously apply adhesive to the background you want to use, again mine was the 4″ square, and then apply pattern paper. i used the Tombow MONO dot runner, as it is a little more forgiving if the pieces need to be adjusted.
then after laying down the background pieces i covered the seams, where the pattern papers came together, with the bold strips.
*keep all of your “bold” strips the same pattern paper. it will keep a cohesive feel to the final piece.
*try to make your bold lines wavy, not always straight
*use your Tombow Dual Brush Markers and ink the edges of the pieces being put together. it makes the “scrapped zentangle” have more definition.
“scrap-tangle”!
A few weeks ago, we asked you a question – “How do you choose correction tape?” It’s not an easy question to answer, especially since we make such a large variety of applicators. So let us help you. We’re going to give a quick tutorial on each our correction tape applicators. First up is top application.
Top Application:
• Compact applicator is great for beginners
• Convenient size fits in planners and pencil pouch
• Space saving – ideal for using it on the go
• Economical for students or the occasional user
So, can you see yourself using the top application correction?
Ever heard of it? I had never heard the word til the end of last month when Joanna with Tombow challenged us to create a project with this technique. Basically it’s a fancy word for doodling, but with more detail. You can read more about it here.
I found some tutorials on YouTube and someone had doodled a paisley, so I went with that.
This month Tombow is also partnering with Basic Grey (I know!!! One of my all time favorite paper companies!!) and I rec’d a lovely Cappella packet. So very vintage and lovely!
For this card I used their paper, brads and some lovely vintage lace from my stash that matched perfectly! To keep with the scallop and circle theme in my “zentangle” drawing, I punched one edge of BG paper with an eyelet scallop punch.
Here is the inside:
I colored my image with Tombow’s markers and put the whole card together with Tombow’s Mono-Adhesive Dots. I am pretty pleased with how it turned out.
A sneak preview of what I have been working on – coloring Zentangles with Tombow Dual Brush Pens. What is a Zentangle®? It is basically a doodle – a doodle that reduces stress and improves your focus while you create a beautiful piece of art. Traditional Zentangles® were developed by Maria Thomas and Rick Roberts. They use Zentangles® as a ritual way to meditate and give you a sense of well being. Their mantra is “Anything is possible one stroke at a timeTM”
Although not a traditional zentangle technique, I love to color the Zentangles® with the Tombow Dual Brush Pens. Tombow offers 96 different colors and a colorless blending pen to provide an endless array of color combinations and shades. I used a permanent black pen to create the tangles and then choose my colors.
The Dual Brush Pen palette used in this Zentangle® are:
173 – Willow Green 195 – Light Green 245 – Sap Green 451 – Sky Blue 452 – Process Blue 493 – Reflex Blue 761- Carnation 723 – Pink 743 – Hot Pink N00 – Blender
All this week the design team will be posting their take on Zentangles and the many ways they were inspired by this simple, relaxing process so check back often, you’ll be amazed at all the different ways Zentangle can show up in your everyday creations!
Irina Troitskaya is a freelance illustrator and tutor at the British Higher School of Art and Design in Moscow, Russia. Her artwork has been commissioned by Elle, Afisha, Popular Finances, Kids, Hewlett-Packard, Alfa-Capital, Yandex and BMW – to name a few. Her works are in private collections in Russia, Spain, China, Argentina, USA and United Kingdom.
Irina is a big fan of our Dual Brush Pens, which she frequently uses to do everything from sketching in her notebook to creating priceless pieces of art. Visit Irina’s website to see her editorial, personal and sketch work.
i have been on a frame kick lately. i love frames, and i keep buying them, but i don’t always fill them right away. this frame i’ve had for quite sometime, and because of the odd sizes and the number of pictures it needed i never felt like i found what i wanted to use it for.
so fast forward to last week, when i got a fun box filled with basic grey’s max and whiskers line! i don’t have animals, but i immediately was impressed with how masculine the papers looked. then the ideas started flowing…pictures of my husband, with the kids, in the frame, just in time for Father’s Day. so i used some of the pattern paper as the background, letter stickers, the paper ribbon and some embellishments. because i wanted to use the lumpy embellishments i took out the glass and made sure it would last with Tombow MONO POWER BOND Adhesive. the end result was totally unique and very quick to come together. once i had the idea it was put together in 15 minutes. thank you basic grey for having a paper for every occasion. happy father’s day!
-sarah
