gingerandgeorge

Oh, calico

Have you seen the new Kitschy Digitals kit? Danielle launched it yesterday, but I was lucky enough to get a sneak peek over the weekend. 

As a fabric-obsessed child of the seventies, it turns out I'm entirely powerless to resist the print-y, retro loveliness of the kit, and had way too much fun playing and experimenting, dressing up a few seventies kids of my own to make these cute cards.

 

If you want to have a play yourself, the kit - Calico Dreams - is available here, and for the rest of this week has 30% off as part of the Kitschy Digitals sale. 

As they'd have said back in the calico-loving seventies, groovy.

x

 

Month No.8

Hello, August. 

x

You Are Awesome

To celebrate the fact that one of my favourite Kitschy Digtals kits, You Are Awesome, is on sale today for a measly $1 (that's about 65p), I have been playing. 

Head on over to Danielle's shop if you want to pick up the kit for yourself, or to have a look at the new and super-sweet, Candy Coated Garden. 

Tomorrow? A summery tutorial and two fun downloads. 

x

Happy Sunday

(Polaroid frame from Kitschy Digitals Vintage Cameras kit) 

I've been making . . . (Part One)

If you’ve been reading over at The Copy+Paste Project, you might have seen the illustration mini-series we ran a few weeks ago. 

Five favourite children’s illustrators, lots of pretty pictures and a neat stack of happy blog posts. So happy, in fact, that series – both mini and ongoing – are forming a big part of my little blog relaunch here. The first of them, spread out over the next week or so is ‘I’ve been making . . . ’, and in the spirit of let’s catch up, it’ll include some of the things I’ve been making over the last few months. (Yeah, that title is all kinds of witty and inspired.)

There’s not much to it besides that – pretty pictures of the stuff I’ve been doing by way of a little inspiration and idea-sparking. Things like this:

A set of summery socktopuses (made for Creative Steps magazine) - sweet, simple and one of my favourite projects of the year so far. 

 A pretty present for my mum. (It's a rabbit - don't worry, she had to ask, too.)

A birthday card for my little sister, put together with the help of this new(ish) Kitschy Digitals kit.  

 And a pair of red-and-aqua themed projects for the first Scrapbook Inspirations Idea Book. 
 

I’ll share a few more things later in the week, but in the meantime, I’d love to know what you’ve been up to, as well – links to your favourite recent projects are very, very welcome.

x 

Make the most of your digi-bits

One of the things I love most about being part of the design team for Kitschy Digitals is the freedom to make just about anything that takes my fancy with the kits. As a non-scrapbooker who’s particularly fond of scrapbooking products, it’s a match made in heaven, and it’s largely down to Danielle’s kitschy kits that I’m now a fully paid-up member of the digital fan club. As well as being ridiculously economical (pay for something once, use it as many times as you like), digital products are also incredibly versatile - maybe even more so when you’re looking at them through non-scrapbooking eyes. On the off-chance you’re either (a) unconvinced, (b) yet to try digital or (c) not quite getting all you could from your kits, I’m here to bring you The Rather Large List Of Ways To Make The Most Of Your Digital Supplies (Including Papers, Kits, Elements, Brushes, Fonts And Just About Anything Else That Might Fall Under The Digi Umbrella).

:: one ::

Print elements onto sheets of inkjet-friendly shrink plastic to make charms or buttons. When you're preparing the file to print, bear in mind that images will shrink by around 50% when heated and the colours will also intensify. Punch a single hole near one edge to make charms and pendants, multiple holes for sew-on buttons, or none at all for hole-free charms which you can glue into place. You don’t just need to stick to elements either. Try printing patterned paper sheets onto the plastic and then punching or cutting out shapes to shrink and use in a similar way.

:: two ::

Use layered templates as patchwork patterns. The cushion below was designed using an Ali Edwards template from Designer Digitals. I re-sized it in Photoshop, and then printed out the pieces individually to make paper patterns, adding a 1.5cm seam allowance around all sides. You could just as easily adapt the same idea to create blocks for a patchwork quilt, or to make a patchwork-style collage from patterned paper.

 :: three :: 

While you’ve got your needle and thread out, digital brushes, elements and dingbat fonts can also make great embroidery patterns. The bird on my cushion is from this brush set, and the deer on the scarf below is from the Kitschy Digitals Woodland kit. They were each worked in slightly different ways – the bird was printed onto plain paper and traced through the fabric with a water soluble pen, while the deer was printed directly onto the fabric – but both options make for really straightforward stitching. 

:: four ::

You remember my sellotape tutorial, right? I still love this idea and have a couple of sheets of tape-strips printed up and stashed away for Christmas. I’m also planning to print up a couple of wider strips from the same product, maybe using this picture font, and wrap them around plain drinking glasses to use over the holidays.

 :: five ::

Make your own custom-designed fabric by printing digital papers onto inkjet cotton or linen. If you’re not planning to wash the fabric (e.g. if it’s for a collage or a scrapbook layout), you can alternatively use normal fabric. Spray a sheet of copier paper with temporary adhesive and press your well-ironed material down on top, making sure it doesn’t overlap the edges. Run it through your printer, as normal, and then peel away from the paper backing.

 

:: six ::

Think clearly, and design your own acetate overlays or transparent elements. I did this with the feathers from another Kitschy Digitals kit, and used them to make the napkin ring below, but they’d also work beautifully on cards, layouts or as pages in a mini-book. For plenty of acetate-y inspiration, you could do much worse than browse through the Hambly Screenprints blog, and while I’m not about to suggest you try resisting their gorgeous overlays, there’s no good reason you can’t use those and print your own versions at home, too.

 :: seven ::

The Kitschy frames below were printed on to sheets of plain white card, and the pictures then made on top, filling in the centre part of each frame. By adding a bulldog clip to the top, or fixing them in place with a magnet, you can turn your artwork (or your children’s) into an instant, framed gallery. Alternatively, you could print off a whole selection on slightly smaller sheets and clip or bind them together to make a 'framed' sketchbook, ready to be filled with all kinds of doodled, painted or collaged masterpieces.

:: eight ::

Thanks to email, Twitter, Facebook and mobile phones, most people don’t use as much stationery now as they once did, but it doesn’t stop me (and I’m guessing quite a few of you, too) loving fancy paperie. Put your digital kits and favourite fonts to work designing all sorts of personalised pieces, from invitations and notecards to tableware for your next party.

 :: nine ::

Inkjet transfer sheets (often sold as t-shirt transfer paper) allow you to add digital designs to almost anything made of fabric. The pyjama top below combines the Kitschy deer (again!) with a cute, cross-stitch font and took all of ten minutes to print out and iron into position. You can obviously make your designs as simple or as complicated as you like, depending on the kit and the item you’re adding it to. (Find a quick tutorial for the whole pyjama project here.)

 

:: ten ::

Maybe it was just me, but I always loved name-tapes when I was at school. Getting a new set because my mum had run out of the old ones wasn’t quite as big a thrill as the twice-yearly trip to buy new shoes, but it was definitely up there! With a little help from your printer and a bit more of the inkjet transfer paper, it’s not too difficult to make your own version of name tape, guaranteed to be even more exciting because they’re personalised. Type the relevant name in your favourite font, then add a small digital stamp or dingbat alongside it – something from these David Walker collections for girls or boys would be perfect. When you’re done print the design onto the inkjet sheet (don’t forget to reverse the text), and iron onto a strip of cotton tape. Snip the tape into shorter pieces and fold over the ends to stitch into clothes, just as you would a normal name tape.

If you don’t have any need for name tapes, you can still use the idea to add words, images or printed designs to other projects. I ironed a length of digital lace onto some cotton tape for the layout below, which also features the same product printed out as an acetate border strip, a length of sticky tape and a set of shrink plastic buttons. If that doesn’t count as getting the most from a kit, I’m not sure what does!

SUPPLIES

::  First of all – obviously! – I’m going to direct you to Kitschy Digitals. As well as Danielle’s wonderful kits, there’s also heaps of inspiration on the Kitschy blog and in the Flickr group.

::  Some of the Kitschy kits are also available in the Two Peas digital store, along with a really wide range of kits by other designers. I love the range Shimelle has been developing (especially the Trip to Nature papers, and am also head over heels for Jill MacDonald’s hand-illustrated kits.

:: Designer Digitals is always a good bet, too, especially as everything in their store (everything!) is on sale at the moment. I’m especially smitten by the Andrea Victoria patterned papers and calendars.

:: And last, but not least, the rather smaller but no less pretty kits at KI Memories, which are every bit as colourfully wonderful as their printed papers. As well as more Jill MacDonald goodness, there are also a couple of older Love, Elsie lines and some exclusive-to-digital Elsie elements, too.

x

PS. If you want the chance to win some Kitschy goodies, it’s not too late to sign up for the 12Days workshop, which also features a healthy selection of digital downloads and other goodies!

Show and Tell

Hello, world-outside-my-front-door. I’ve rather missed you.

In the spirit of getting straight back to business, I’m going to keep the blethering to a minimum, and share a little burst of visual inspiration instead.

Tiny wooden picture frames? Oh, yes. They’re part of the newest Kitschy Digitals kit, Woodgrain Frames, although making them on such a small scale is far from obligatory. Mine were printed onto shrink plastic and then, um, shrunk to make this super-speedy new-home card.

While we’re on the subject (Kitschy kits or wooden things – take your pick), there are also these fun wearables.

I found the wooden bracelets in Sainsbury’s a few months ago – not somewhere I generally shop for jewellery, but they were next to the magazines and I am nothing if not easily distracted. The blank wooden squares were begging to be fancified, so fancify them I did. I started out with some store-bought rub-ons (those below are from the nature-themed Love, Elsie ‘Forrest’ line).

And then, because the idea both worked and looked suitably fetching, I decided to have a shot at making my own rub-ons. Remember when I tried temporary tattoos? (If you don’t, it’s much less alarming than it sounds.) The process is much the same. You print out your image onto one part of the design sheet, add the second, sticky sheet over the top, and around half an hour later, ta-da! – homemade rub-ons, ready to use. For the Kitschy bracelet at the top, I used a variety of images from the cute girl themed kits, and then, for the version below, the thrift store frames. They’re obviously quite tiny, but I love how they look running over the edges of each wooden square. By combining them with another store-bought set (Cosmo Cricket alphabets), it creates a different sort of look again.

In case you want to have a shot at something similar, and aren’t lucky enough to have plain, wooden jewellery pieces available alongside the veggie aisle in your local supermarket, I’ve tracked down a couple of alternative options for you.

 :: Flat wooden beads here.

:: A great selection at this site. 

:: More here and here. 

:: Or go with a pre-strung necklace or bracelet.

Whether you try the simpler, ready-made option, or want to experiment with turning your favourite digital images and kits into rub-ons is up to you. Either way, it’s a quick and fairly straightforward project. Make sure your bead is clean and dry before you start, work on a flat surface, apply the rub-ons firmly and carefully with a lolly-stick or something similar, then add a quick coat of varnish to seal and protect. As soon as it’s dry, you’re finished and the bracelet is ready to wear, or give away. You don’t need to stick with jewellery pieces either. I used a couple of flat oval-shaped beads in this project a little while ago (still very much a work in progress).

If you do go down the DIY rub-on route, you can obviously use them on all sorts of alternative projects, from card-making and scrapbooking to fabric-based projects like this amazing Hambly cushion.

So, back up there at the top where I mentioned keeping the words to a minimum? Evidently, I’m not great at that. I like to think they’ve been quite useful words, though, and that you might be feeling a tiny bit more inspired than when we started. With any luck, I'll be back to try the brevity again very soon. 

x

News and briefs

Hola, lovely and much-appreciated readers. How are you? I am in frantic mood today, cleaning round the boxes like a loon in hopes of passing the forthcoming parental dust-check test. Both my parents and Mr P’s mum are visiting this weekend, so this is just a quick halfway-house of a post, pointing you towards a couple of things you might like to take a look at.

First of all, there’s this little bit of colourfulness over at Shimelle's – very happy when she asked me to contribute to her Month of Colour a few weeks ago (and hello if you’re visiting here from there). Should I admit how much childish glee I’ve had inviting people to go and look at my underwear over the last few days? Probably not.

There’s also a new post over at The Copy and Paste Project, all about my freshly-discovered love of (gasp!) yellow.

Even if you can’t be bothered listening to me blether on about the wonders of custard, mustard and retro acid-brights, it’s worth a visit for the freebies you can win – a handmade, raw-edge cuff or the very sweet Little Yellow.

 A couple of longer posts heading this way next week, including one last Month of Colour-inspired hoorah, and a fun idea for using digi-kits to make your own desktop wallpaper and folder-buttons. Until then, wish me luck on the dust inspection – there’s every chance I’m going to need it.

 

Kitschy ink

This is my beautiful little sister.

 When we were growing up, the deal was I bossed her around and she let me. (Sweet, I know.) These days, she’s much less of a pushover which, considering I’m every bit the control-freak I was back then, is probably a good thing. So, when I needed a model for some Kitschy Digitals projects a few weeks ago, I was a little bit surprised and a lot grateful that she was so willing to  put up with me telling her what to do, how to stand and when to smile.

The cardigan (made using the silhouettes from this kit as an appliqué pattern) was one thing…

…but letting me paste temporary tattoos about her person in spots of my choice? Now that’s sisterly love for you.

The ‘to-do’ list was inspired by one I spotted in Paperchase a few weeks ago. Despite owning enough notepads to rewrite all seven Harry Potter books in half a dozen different languages, I’m constantly scrawling notes and reminders on my hands (in my defence, they’re much harder to lose than bits of paper). I also love lists, so the memo-slash-list-slash-hand-tattoo seemed like a thoroughly ingenious idea, albeit one that could use a bit of prettying up. I added a tiny re-coloured detail from the Olivia kit to my basic list design, but it would work with all sorts of icons – clip-art and dingbat fonts, as well as other Kitschy Digitals kits. If you want to try something similar, here you go with the basic template, ready to add whatever prettiness you like.

Download To-do list (blank)

And because I know how smart you are, the answers to your very insightful questions are (one) I found the tattoo paper here, and (two) my sister is a leftie, hence her list being all ready to fill in on her right hand. If you’re not similarly sinistral, you’ll probably want to tattoo your left palm instead.

 x

No cheap egg-based gags here

Nope. Not a one. Nothing about how egg-cited I am to be doing another giveaway, or how egg-ceptionally cute Danielle’s new embroidery patterns are. Because, as my world-weary man often says in the face of such threats, ‘you’re better than that, honey’.

The point is debatable, but I should probably get to the job in hand. Free stuff – hurrah! If you've not already seen the aforementioned embroidery patterns, they're beyond cute. Danielle asked me to try them out a few weeks ago and I had heaps of fun playing around, both with this appliquéd version:

And then working this one on a lovely, simple Japanese print which I’ve been wanting to use for ages.

I turned it into a little hanging, gathering the back and adding a strip of lace at the top, and – for the price of a comment, plus a bit of luck – it could be all yours. In celebration of the looming holidays, I’m also throwing in an Easter egg, made with my favourite Green & Black’s chocolate. It looks something like this:

So, if you’d like to win the redwork hanging and the chocolate, all you need to do is comment below. Let me know your favourite thing from the new Kitschy Digitals Goods shop, or the original digi-kits, and I promise not to show any bias towards those who pick the embroidery patterns. I’ll leave comments open until the middle of the week and get the ol’ random number generator to pick a winner on Thursday (because that’s my dad’s birthday, and I’m likely to be in a gift-giving kind of mood).

Am I going to point out how eggs-tremely simple it is? No, I am not.

x

PS. Even more Kitschy freebies going on here.