How to make your own rub-ons with 'Ask Erin

This is an exciting new discovery... making your own rubs ons. Who can afford a thousand rubber stamps? Great for others like me, who like 'hybrid' scrapbooking and use the computer for lots of journalling and imagery. Haven't tried it yet but have some transparency that I can use.

Happy Birthday Dave

This unusual looking piece of card I found at the 'SA Stamping and Scrapbooking Fair' yesterday contains textured stripe on one side and black on the other. I thought it would be fun to have black on the inside of the folded card instead of the usual white. I used my white Signo gel pen to write the inscription and used white chalky ink on my foam stamps for the "h" and 'b". I gently sponged Tim Holtz distress ink on the front cover to bring out the stripes and rubber stamped the main image onto recyled cardboard packaging. It was attached with foam mounting squares to give the 3-D effect. The other images, the text and flower, were stamped last with the same white chalky ink used earlier. I like the result but need to practise the new technique. I learnt it from the teachers at "Seriously Scrapbooking" yesterday. This is going to revolutionise scrapbooking for me as I'm interested in making my own papers and papers for layouts and cards.

Baby journal gift

I made this little journal for one of the expecting mothers in my mothers group. I had a pile of little exercise books I'd bought for about two cents each and just covered the outside with a combination of some pretty paper, recyled paper dividers, ribbon and printed a little image on the front of a vintage pram - love anything vintage and sneak it in wherever I can. I really love the pastel bluey-green ice colour for baby boys at the moment. I'll be using lots of that in Angus' album when I get around to starting it. Soon... On the inside back page I stuck a vellum envelope and stamped the words 'Baby' and 'notes and tags' in coordinating colours. I even had some little tags I popped in to prompt some her to write in some thoughts when the baby is born. Things like how she felt, first impressions and so on. I hope she thinks it's pretty too but not too pretty to write in!

Giving card sets as gifts

This is a collection of cards I made to fit some little square envelopes I needed to use up. I printed some greetings and images onto vellum and cropped them into squares... they can then be mixed and matched on to any of the cards. Everyone uses cards so it's a great idea for a gift. I'll definitely use this one again. The cards were so small they fit into a clean baby formula tin which I decorated. More on this in another post.