Distress you Sakura Findings....

I love my Finding from Sakura - But some time my design need to be more distressed... so check out this video on how to distress your finding to make them fit into your design...



Now you just need to order some of Sakura Finding and make you own... you can purchase them at http://www.sakuracraft.com

Thanks for stop by. Check out my blog at http://www.terrisproul.blogspot.com

may you life be filled with Crystal lacquer...
smiles
Terri Sproul

Mini Steampunk Book

This time I just made this 3" x 3" book using Graphic 45 Steampunk Paper, their Tags and some Crystal Lacquer from Sakura.











Supplies
This whole book is made with 1 sheet of Graphic 45 Steampunk Debutante Paper,
Graphic 45 Steampunk Debutante Tags,
some eyelet, ribbons
3-D Crystal lacquer..

Cover: Used a Tag from the Graphic 45 "Steampunk Debutante Collection Tags. Added some blue Crystal Lacquer to the flowers... added some ribbon...











Page 1 and page 2: Again just used the tag that are on the Steampunk Tag sheet from Graphic 45. You can get your Graphic 45 paper at Gee Gee Stamp and Stuff in Carlsbad, Ca if you live around here. I do some Design Work for that store. There is a link on by side bar... Cute photo of the store too...
Anyways, check out the small tag on the right hand page. See how I used 3-D Crystal lacquer on the dress form.

Can't really see this - but there are three place where there are pockets for tags and stuff..

Page 3 and page 4: Here I used more 3-D Crystal Lacquer on the butterfly boarder across the bottom. Made a tag pocket and filled with small tags from the Graphic 45 tag sheet.




Pages 5 and Page 6: Used 3-D Crystal Lacquer on all three of the images on the right hand page. Pop up the center imges.. there is a tag coming out of the side pocket there?? hope you can see that..





Page 7 and Page 8 - just some tags from the tag sheet. I did use some of my eyelets I own to embellish the tags...






Page 9 and Page 10 - Love the image on the background paper. so made sure it was showing.





page 10 and Page 11 - OMG, I love the Lightbulb tag. HAD to use my 3-D Crystal Lacquer on just the bulb part. Love the way this came out... just love my crystal lacquer... The look at this product give to each of these simple tags is amazing. If you don't own Crystal Lacquer yet - You need to..



Well that is the end of this Steampunk Book... Hope you enjoy and you tell all your friends about my blog.

TTFN
Terri Sproul

Coloring Within the Lines

At the Borders in Pasadena, which is closing, I found a book called "The Great Big Book of Designs -- an Inspirational Source Book" It is filled with pages upon pages of line art - perfect for coloring. I looked for the image that most inspired me to color and photocopied it on my HP Photosmart Printer.

I truly love coloring in images -- I think it reconnects me to my inner child that would be perfectly content to color all day, every day. And, I've recently discovered Copic markers. So, I colored in my image and then because this was a Sakura Design Team project, I went back over the Copic colors with complimentary 3D Crystal Lacquer from the Country Color Set.

I quickly realized I needed a color chart, so I put one in the corner of the page. Copic color, copic color with color crystal lacquer and then the color crystal lacquer by itself. It's hard to see in these pictures, but the color crystal lacquer really makes the Copic colors pop.

Here are the colors I used . . . from the top right

Blue Berry (BV04) Copic/Country Blue 3D Crystal Lacquer

Amethyst (V17) Copic/Berry 3D Crystal Lacquer

Buttercup Yellow (Y21) Copic/Ivory 3D Crystal Lacquer

Mignonette (YG11) Copic/Jade Green 3D Crystal Lacquer

top left

Pea Green (YG63) Copic/Moss Green 3D Crystal Lacquer

Cardinal (R59) Copic/Country Red 3D Crystal Lacquer

I didn't run a test on the Black Copic, but I used regular 3D Crystal Lacquer on the centers of the yellow flowers.

My favorite combined color was the Cardinal Red Copic and Country Red Crystal Lacquer. The photo doesn't do it justice. It really pops off the page.

I did okay coloring within the lines with the Copics and the Crystal Lacquers do sit where you place them; however, my hand was a little less steady, as I was not able to rest my wrist on the page because it was wet.

So, what to do when the Crystal Lacquer goes outside the lines? Use your fingernail to scrape it off the page, right after the mistake happens. It will not even leave a color residue.

Get out your color pens, pencils, etc and start coloring within the lines and accenting your piece with 3D Crystal Lacquer.

Heather Morrow

Creative Souls

Vintage Charms - Crystal Lacquer Style

I love all things vintage - so when I was sent charm blanks from Sakura Craft Hobby for this months Design Team projects , I knew the end result would be something 'vintag-ie'. I had SO much fun making my own charms - that well, I'm still making more designs, and I can't seem to stop!

In the photo below, you can see the items that I used to complete this weeks design: 3D Crystal Lacquer, Crystal Colored Lacquer and silver charm blanks by Sakura Hobby Craft, Tim Holtz's Tissue Tape and Vintage Photo Distress Ink, fine glitter, a few itsy-bitsy flowers, a vintage pic and a few words printed on white cardstock.

For my "Be Kind" charm, I tore off a piece of the tissue tape and stuck it to the bottom of the blank charm - it's nice and tacky on the back, so it laid down nicely inside the charm. I just trimmed off any excess that hung over the edge. I cut out the words Be Kind from the cardstock, inked their edges with Vintage Photo distress ink and used the Crystal Lacquer to adhere them to the charm. Next, I took the dark blue tiny flower and used Crystal Lacquer to adhere it inside the charm. I kind of flattened it down with my fingers so it would lay flat, then grabbed my 3D Crystal Lacquer and filled in the whole charm.

 Then the hard part - waiting! I let it sit overnight - and in the morning is was clear, shiny and beautiful! 

For a little added interest, I covered a second tiny flower with Crystal Colored Lacquer in blue - sprinkled a little fine clear glitter on it and set it aside to dry. I added a small clear rhinestone in the center and attached the dried flower to the top of the charm with Crystal Lacquer - ta da!

For the old-fashion floral charm, I simply printed out a an image on white cardstock, trimmed it to fit the charm, distressed the edges and inked them with Vintage Photo distress ink.  I used the Crystal Color Lacquer in ivory, red and purple to cover 3 of the flowers and sprinkled them with fine glitter and set aside to dry - then filled the charm with 3D Crystal Lacquer . It's such a quick and easy process - but the result is just beautiful!  Just be patient and let the Crystal Lacquer dry!  I let this one set for several days to be sure it was completely dry.

 

 I just love the vintage feel of these charms.  I think they make a perfect addition to my charm necklace that I made at the Idea-ology Booth at CHA in January.

Hope you enjoyed this project!

Karenhttp://www.katscrapstudio.blogspot.com/

For more information about Crystal Lacquer products,

 check out   www.sakuracraft.com .

                               

 

 

 

Acetate, Glitter & 3D Lacquer

Today I have another fun project using Sakura Hobby Craft 3D Crystal Lacquer, acetate, and glitter. I made a tile that I used to embellish the front of a greeting card.

Koi Greeting Card

This is an easy technique that delivers results that will have folks asking, "How did you do that?" To start, select the stamp that you're going to use. I find that images with bold lines and fewer details work best for this project. Next, cut a piece of acetate as large as your stamped image plus margins of at least 1/2" on all sides. The margins allow you to frame the finished piece without losing any of the image.

Cover the acetate with a coat of Sakura 3D Crystal Lacquer. I used a 1" sponge paint brush to coat the acetate, using an up-and-dawn daubing motion rather than stroking the brush across the acetate. While the lacquer is still wet, sprinkle with a liberal dusting of very fine crystal glitter. Now, the hardest part of any 3D Lacquer project--wait until the lacquer is completely dry. Here's my tile piece after it dried and before any adornment.

Acetate tile with 3D Crystal Lacquer and Crystal Glitter

Stamp your image onto the glitter-encrusted acetate. I used StazOn jet black. Use markers to color the image. I usedTombow markers because I like the brush tips, but any marker that will lay color onto the tile will work. Here's a detail of the koi image.

Detail of Koi Tile

I finished the card by cutting a frame for the koi image. Then, I mounted the framed piece on a square of colored cardstock using foam dots. The framed and mounted piece was glued to the card front.

I also made some small (1") charms using this technique. However, instead of stamping an image I laid the color directly on the glittered acetate, blending the colors in a rainbow effect. I used Design Lines stickers by Blue Hills Studio to define the shapes. After applying the stickers, I very firmly brayered them to be sure they stuck to the glittered surface. It was easy to cut out the shapes using either scissors or a craft knife.

Acetate and Glitter Charms

You can see more projects using Sakura Hobby Craft 3D Lacquers on the Crystal Lacquer Blog.

Acetate Fun!

Hello Everyone,

I hope you are all staying dry, here in San Diego it is raining, perfect weather to stay in your craft room and play!

Today I want to share with you a new way to use the Country Color Set of Crystal Lacquer from Sakura Hobby Craft, to create a fun acetate card.
The first thing I did was use the Floral Fantasy Cuttlebug Embossing Folder to emboss a sheet of acetate. The easiest way to emboss acetate is to do it before you score your acetate, and to put the embossing folder in sideways, so you do not need to fold the acetate to make it fit.


Next I scored the embossed sheet at 4 1/4". Make sure when you are scoring that the embossed side is up so that you will have the negative space to put the color lacquer in on the inside.

Next I used the Crystal Color Lacquer Country Color set to color in the embossed spots. The hardest part is to not touch it until it has dried! I kept wanting to pick it up and look through it!


I then cut out two of die cut shapes out of spellbinders Labels Eight. I attached them to the back and the inside of the card, so you will have somewhere to write or stamp your sentiment.



These cards are addicting once you get started making them and they have that 'WOW' factor when people see them! Hope you are staying dry.

Faith and Begorrah

 I am very excited to squeeze in a little Irish something for today.  I've always had a warm place in my heart for the Irish.  A fun, festive, and fairy decoration!

Supplies I used:  Sakura Craft 3D Crystal Color Lacquer: Country, 3D Clear Crystal Lacquer, die cut pennant, die cut swirl (embossed with Tim Holtz texture fade), Colored Pencils, Distress Ink, Glitter, Fairy Rubber Stamp, and ribbon.

I stamped my image on white card stock, with archival ink.  Colored it with fun St. Patty's Greens and Orange, first, to get a color variance with the color lacquer, I left the wings uncolored to get a more translucent look.  Then I went over the smaller spots, like the moon, flowers and butterflies, with Ivory and Country Red Color Lacquer.  Then I went over all the green areas with the Jade Green Color Lacquer.   I let that dry.

Then I went over the smaller spots, like the moon, flowers and butterflies, with Ivory and Country Red Color Lacquer.  Then I went over all the green areas with the Jade Green Color Lacquer.   I let that dry.

Once that had dried some I sprinkled glitter over the whole image, and covered all of it with Clear 3D Crystal Lacquer, and let that dry.

While I waited, I constructed the pennant, I distressed everything (except the image) and then inked them, and glued everything in place using Crystal Lacquer, I really like it for sturdy projects like this.  Once the image dried, I trimmed around the edges and mounted it in it's spot, with pop up adhesive squares.

I really liked the way the pencils and Color Lacquer, which are both so subtle by themselves, created a lovely saturated, and ink or water color like look.  As well as the enamel like, finished effect of the Lacquer.

For more great ideas (and believe me, these are some talented lassies)

Check out The Sakura Hobby Craft Blog and visit me any time on my blog Whimsykins.  Happy St. Patty's Day!!!

~Chelsea

Bottle Cap Jewelry

                                                                  

This bottle cap piece was glued directly to the Tim Holtz watch piece with Crystal Lacquer and I attached a pin back.

On top of the Crystal Lacquer while still wet I sprinkled some fine clear glitter to give it "bling".

These bottle cap pieces were made with Sakura Crystal Lacquer.  I glue my design to the inside of the cap and then cover it with Crystal Lacquer and set aside to dry.  I then punch hole in either the top or the bottom (or both the top) if I want the charm to hang it from another piece or have another piece hang from it.  I attach the caps to other things using split jump rings.

Seeing Green

This is my first Design Team project with the Sakura Crafts. I have a certain fondness for St. Patrick's Day, so I pulled together a bunch of green materials to start playing.

I was inspired by the small 2" green frame and metal flower insert that seemed to fit together perfect. I'd found both in the findings bar at Zinnia in South Pasadena.

I had to find a backing that would compliment both and look good with the different Crystal Color Lacquer. The pastel orange piece was the beginning of an ATC which I had painted several years ago using left over oil paints from my pallet. I liked how nicely it contrasted with with the greens and brought out the color from the Country Color set of Crystal Lacquer.

I found the Celtic flower with the lacquer appealing, so I cut out a bunch to try all the different colors in the set.

As those pieces dried overnight, I assembled my little frame and charm. I used the red and yellow color lacquer to fill the in between spaces which gives it a bit of a stained glass window effect.

For the Celtic flowers, I decided I liked the green, best. In the 3/4" round jewelry finding, I put a dark green piece of paper and covered it with the green lacquer. After it dried, I placed the green Celtic image and then covered it with 3D Crystal Lacquer.

Have fun creating!

Heather Morrow

Creative Souls

"Charming" St. Patty's Day Card

This is my first project as a Sakura Design Team member and I'm very excited to be sharing it with you!

Supplies Used: Sakura 3D Crystal Lacquer, Crystal Colored Lacquer, Sakura blank rectangular charm, white cardstock, Cosmo Cricket scrapbook paper, Calendar from Tim Holtz's Lost & Found paperstack, green bazzill cardstock, brown twine, green ribbon, Hero Arts prisma glitter, green stickles, Distress Inks in Tea Dye, Bundled Sage Crushed Olive and Vintage Photo and the font My Underwood.

I started off this project making the charm - and then had the brilliant:) idea to make a greeting card with the charm attached.  I think it turned out pretty darn cute!

For the charm - I downloaded a vintage image using Google search, printed it on cardstock, distressed the edges with a distressing tool and inked it using Vintage Photo Distress Ink.  I used the Crystal Lacquer to adhere it into the charm.  I outlined the clover using green Stickles and set it aside to dry.  I used the Crystal Colored Lacquer in Jade Green to add a little accent at the bottom edges, filling in just a little bit over the picture and let it dry.  Once dry, I sprinkled a little prisma glitter onto the picture and then filled in the entire charm with the clear 3D Crystal Lacquer.  It dried overnight and you can see the results - amazing!

I love how the charm took on a vintage feel.  I added a jump ring at the top so it would attach easily and lay flat on the card.

 To make the card, I simply cut a piece of white cardstock in half (A2 size - 5.50" x 8.50"), folded in half and inked the edges using Crushed Olive & Bundled Sage Distress Inks.  I personally use the Inkssentials Inking Tool (I have about a dozen of them!) that makes it easy-peasy to ink the edges and blend the colors.  I also inked the entire piece of scrapbook paper from Cosmo Cricket just to give it an old look.  I attached the March calendar and wrapped the brown twine around the two pieces before I adhered it to the cardstock.  The greeting was printed on white cardstock using 'My Underwood' font that I've totally fallen in love with.  I printed it in a green color and then adhered it to the bazzill cardstock.  I used pop-dots to attach it to the card.

To finish off the card, I used Crystal Colored Lacquer in Jade Green to fill in the little circles on the scrapbook paper, and sprinkled them with prisma glitter.  I tied on the charm, glued on a little green bow and ta-da - one "Charming" St. Patty's Day card!

All the edges on the card were distressed and inked using Vintage Photo or Tea Dye Distress Inks.  ALSO - I used the Crystal Lacquer as my adhesive and it worked great!

Hope you enjoyed this project.
 You can get more info about Sakura's products at

http://www.sakuracraft.com/.

Karen
visit my blog!  http://www.katscrapstudio.blogspot.com/

Shrink Film Jewelry

I am thrilled to be a member of the newly organized design team for Sakura Hobby Crafts!! Twice a month I'll be sharing a project that uses Sakura 3D Crystal Lacquer. For this project I made two pins using shrink film and Crystal Lacquer.

Here's the supplies that I used: rubberstamps, Graphix Matte Shrink Film, 300-400 grit sandpaper, jet black StazOn ink, fine point Sharpie markers, Tombow dual brush pens, 3D Crystal Lacquer, Martha Stewart fine crystal glitter, Crop-a-dile Big Bite, assorted beads, jewelry findings.

The very first thing to do is condition the shrink film by lightly sanding the surface in a crisscross pattern. Sand the length of the film sheet, rotate the sheet 90 degrees, and sand the width of the sheet.

For the main images on the pins I selected two of my favorite stamps--one by Acey Deucy (Victoria Station 760) and the other by Stampers Anonymous (P2-636). The heart image on the larger pin is from Rubber Stamps of America and the star burst image from Comotion Rubber Stamps. When you select stamps keep in mind that the image will shrink by as much as 50 percent when the film is heated. The best images have a good balance of white space.

I used StazOn jet black ink to stamp the images on the prepared shrink film. Take care not to smear or smudge the image when stamping on the film. Let the ink dry completely before proceeding. Then, cut around the images and color with markers. The colors will intensify when the piece is shrunk.

Next you're ready to punch holes in the film for attaching jump rings and beads. I used the 1/8 inch setting on the Crop-a-dile. It's important to remember to punch the holes before shrinking the film!

Now the fun part--shrinking the pieces!! The pieces can be baked in either a regular or toaster oven at 300-350 degrees for 2 to 3 minutes. Or, heated with an embossing heat tool on a heatproof craft mat. I tried both methods, and like the heat tool better. The process goes a lot faster with the heat tool, and I'm all for instant gratification :) The pieces curl and jiggle during the shrinking process, and then relax back to being flat. Give them a minute to cool down before touching.

When they're completely cool, apply your choice of Sakura 3D Crystal Lacquers. For this pin I used clear lacquer on the large piece, pale yellow on the star burst image, and red on the frame around the heart image. The Tombow markers that I used on the main piece have water-base inks that reactivate with the application of the 3D Lacquer, resulting is some distinctive color effects.

Unique color effects from Tombow markers and 3D Crystal Lacquer

On Victoria Station pin I used red crystal lacquer in the upper right corner and clear crystal lacquer over the remainder of the pin. While the crystal lacquer was still wet, I sprinkled the Victoria Station pin and the star burst and heart charms with fine crystal glitter.

They are almost pieces of jewelry. Just need to attach a selection of beads, crystals, and the shrink film charms with jump rings. The final step is to attach pin backs using Sakura 3D Crystal Lacquer as the adhesive. Ta-da!! Drum roll!! One-of-a-kind jewelry pieces.

Check out my Create & Craft blog.

Stamping with Color Lacquer!

Hello, This is Jennifer from The Stamp Addict in San Diego, CA. I just want to say how thrilled I am to have been selected to be on the Sakura Hobby Crafts design team! I was so excited when I found out I was going to be on the team and when I got this months box of goodies to play with, but before I got to play I was hit with this bad cold that I have been battling for 2 weeks now. So I am going to post one of the other cards that I made when I was creating what I posted for my personal blog when trying out for the Design Team. I promise my next project will be spectacular.... I've got several ideas I already know I want to try with the great products from Sakura!

For this card, I used the Memory Box Flower Bundle stamp for this project and applied the Sakura Color Lacquer Violet and the Green from their Pearl Color Set B directly on the stamp rubber then stamped it on cream shimmer paper. I then immediately cleaned my stamp under running water with a soft bristle brush. It is much easier to get the lacquer off before it dries so don’t skip this step if you are trying this at home, which I highly recommend….it was a lot of fun! It took a little while for the crystal lacquer to dry on the shimmer paper but it was worth the wait. I then trimmed down my image, cut a lavender piece of cardstock a little bigger and a teal shimmer paper piece even larger then arranged them on my base card of dark purple. One the pieces were all taped down with double sided adhesive tape I put the finishing touch on the card by squeezing three pearl dots of the Green Pearl Color Lacquer onto the top left and bottom right corners of the card.

I hope you like it! I sure had fun making it!

Jennifer Van Pelt
The Stamp Addict

Spring Charm

I am super excited for my first project as a Design Team Member for Sakura Craft!!  I am loving using these products, and I couldn't wait to get started working with these Jewelry Findings.  There are so many great things you can do with them!  It was hard to decide where to start!

I love fairies, and spring always makes me think of fairies, so I decided to do some fairy inspired pendants with paper collage.  Here's what I did.

 Using scraps, stickers and odds and ends I had in my stash, I created a collage.  I have seen other designers use glitter in the jewelry findings and loved the effect, so I thought I would try some rhinestones, pearls and sequins.  Just arrange the collage how you want it inside the jewelry finding, you can glue then down if you like, but you don't need to.  I sprinkled just a tiny bit of iridescent glitter once I had it the way I liked it.

Next, cover everything with Crystal Lacquer to the rim of the jewelry finding, then put them aside and be patient.  They will look very murky, that's fine, it will dry clear.

Next I made some fun baubles for the charms to add some fairylike charm to the charms. ;-)  I simply strung beads I had on wire to create baubles.  Once the jewelry findings collages were dry I strung the baubles and the findings on to a jump ring and, and strung them on silver chains...

VOILA!!!

Hope you have fun playing with these fabulous findings like I did!!  For more great products and inspiration check out these sites~   

http://www.sakuracraft.com/ 

 http://crystallacquer.blogspot.com/ and my blog http://whimsykins.blogspot.com/

~Chelsea