Lavender Teddy

I have something a little different for you all this week. My pre-schooler wanted to try sewing on Monday and make a little teddy. I quickly made a pattern using some of my paper crafting tools and it was so successful I thought I'd share with you how to make one.

What you need:

• Two circle punches (one large and one small) and one oval punch. My punches are the squeeze punches from Fiskars.

OR

• A glass, a bottle top, a ruler, a pencil and a pair of scissors

AND

• scrap card-stock
• sticky tape
• felt 0r similar no-fray fabric
• sewing thread & needle (or a glue gun)
• markers (I used Letraset Markers)
• sharp scissors
• dried lavender

How to create the pattern pieces

Method 1

Punch out 2 large circles, 2 small circles and 4 ovals

Method 2

1. Draw around the glass twice

2. Draw around the bottle top twice

3. Draw around the bottle cap again and repeat directly next to it so the sides of the circles touch.

4. Draw a line joining the top and bottom of the two adjacent circles together.

5. Repeat steps 3 &4 three times

6. cut out

Assembling the pattern

Using sticky tape, stick the pattern pieces together as shown below.

Making your Lavender Teddy

1. Draw around the pattern onto felt

2. Fold the felt so there is a double layer to cut through

3. Cut out the teddy bear shape (you should be cutting 2 out together)

4. Draw or embroider the bear's face

5. Stitch (or glue) the two pieces together leaving an opening along the inside of both legs.

6. stuff the bear with dried lavender

7. Stitch (or glue) the leg opening

8. Add any finishing touches

Mini Bouquet of Flowers Tutorial

Hello everyone, in this tutorial I'm going to show you how to make this mini bouquet of flowers. It makes a great topper for cards and boxes, and even lovely table decorations for weddings etc. You could even up-size it to create a fabulous bouquet of real flowers.

For this mini bouquet you will need:
* a bunch of flowers trimmed to 4 inches
* 1 piece of tissue or crepe paper 4 x 4 inches (or other thin paper)
* 1 piece of tissue or crepe paper 4 x 6 inches (or other thin paper)
* some ribbon or twine



1. Arrange the papers and flowers as shown below


2. fold the paper horizontally over the flower stems so the stems are just above the fold-line.
3. crease firmly.


4. fold the paper diagonally so it comes close to the flowers
5. crease firmly


6. fold the paper back on itself so that the flowers are not covered
7. crease firmly


8. continue folding and creasing concertina style until you run-out of folds




9. repeat steps 4 -8 on the other side


10. tie ribbon or twine to secure


11. wrap around a couple of time
12. tie a bow
13. trim the ends

Have fun crafting, and be blessed from Angela.

Lynne's Art Journal Page

My wonderful friend Lynne aka Aria Designs has offered to share with us how she went about creating this lovely digital art journal page.

How Did I do This?

When you develop a layout, it is not always about plopping papers, images and elements on a page. Although that is precisely what you do, you have an element of design to play with.

For example in this page, I started with an idea that I wanted to scrap about taking time for ourselves. So I grabbed my Follow Your Art Feb kit because it had a clock in it (representing the time portion).

I imagined what I would like to do if I had some spare time: My thing is relaxing with a pot of tea or java, some reading material, and smelling the fragrance of flowers, lavender being one of my favorites. As I approached this task, I simply dragged in the elements that reminded me of relaxation. I ended up deleting some as I went along, because they did not fit in the scheme I wanted.

I also dragged a soft peaceful paper in for the background, and tried a few as I proceeded to create my “scene”. The design element came to bare when I needed to make the papers below the tea set look like they were flat, changing the perspective. EASY to do.

• First, load the paper you want to use, in this case I used paper 12 of my FYA kit since it had a mixture of papers and news article which was perfect for being under a tea set.
• Next, turn your paper at a 45 degree angle, or whatever looks right for the needed perspective of your page.
• Grab your transform handles at the top of the paper and simply pull down. Note how the paper flattens.

I did the same on the rose petals, because I designed them to look like they were falling, but here I wanted to make them look like they were resting after the fall.

I situated my book with lavender (from the Cluster kit of FYA) in front of the tea set enough to cover the bottom of the tea pot, but far enough back to look like it was directly behind it. The brown square I propped up and angled to make it look like a book or album.

I added shadows and my journaling. It needed something up at the top to balance the weight of the elements below, so added something that could fly or float, to make it reasonable to be up at the top of the image. Viola!

Now this is done using fairly realistic elements for that 3-D effect, but this style can be used with any materials. Just play and enjoy, that is what scrapping and journaling are all about! And remember, you do not need to stick to the designers papers and elements as they are produced, you can reshape, add styles, shadows and produce your own desired effects to create your own art piece. Just play and enjoy!

Thank you Lynne for sharing your creative process and beautiful page with us.

Photography - The Rule of Thirds

Hello everyone, I am so pleased to welcome Sabrina to the Toucan Scraps Tutorials Blog today. She is an amazing photographer and is going to share some photography tips and tricks with us. Today her topic is The Rule of Thirds.

I am often asked when others are viewing my photos, “How do you do that,” or “I wish I could take pictures like that.” Well guess what? You can! All it really takes is a little bit of knowledge and thought. Today I am going to share with you one of the most basic rules (and most well known) of photography, the “Rule of Thirds.” Now it is totally ok if you just scrunched your forehead and thought, “what in the world is she talking about?” No worries because I am going to break it down for you. First the “Rule of Thirds” refers to a grid that looks like this:

The basic rule is that the layout of the image is divided into three equal parts horizontally and vertically so that it is actually broken down into 9 parts or quadrants. The theory is if you place your subject of your photo on one of the four intersecting points of an image it makes it more interesting.

Here is an example of a recent shot I took unedited. This is Gambler Dan.

Notice that he is not completely centered? His neck and chest are aligned with the two left intersecting points of the grid. This also adds visual “weight” to the image and directs the viewer’s eye right to the horse’s face. This “weight” is balanced by the emptiness on the right side of the image (more on this in an upcoming post). By having Dan aligned by those two intersecting points he is also aligned with one of the vertical lines. Pretty cool isn’t it?

This shot would have been much more boring if I had placed him directly in the middle of my frame. Now, can this rule be broken? Of course! There are plenty of times when you can break any rule of photography for a visually stunning image but that comes with time. This rule can apply to anything from still life to your everyday family snapshots. Therefore, I encourage you to take your camera out and practice aligning your subjects on one of the points of this grid. Before long you will not even have to think about this and it will be a normal reflex when you pick up your camera.

And for good measure here is one more example.

This is actually one of my favorite images as of right now and it has been processed in Photoshop Elements and textures from Shadowhouse Creations, My Four Hens Photography, and Kalediscope. Once again notice that my subject is not in the center of my image but on one of the intersections of the grid. By applying this simple rule to your photos you will see a drastic improvement to your work. Have fun shooting and see how many different ways you can use the “rule of thirds!”

Tip: Most cameras point & shoot and DSLRs alike have a tool within them that will allow you to visually see this grid through your viewfinder or LCD screen. Refer to your camera’s operation manual for instructions on how to turn this on.

Thank you Sabrina, I'm looking forward to your next post.