Magical Christmas Ornament

Today’s craft room creation is a part of a You Tube advent hop, I am day five if you’ve missed days 1-4 you can join the Facebook group live art journaling and self development.

I altered a Dollar Tree bird house craft into a gingerbread bread house ornament using stamp sets by Kindred stamp and supplies for my craft horde. A few have asked about the hockey tape I used to put together this ornament, So here is the link to it on Amazon.

I used National gingerbread cookie day, wizard friends and arcade friends but use what you have. There is a full video tutorial here.

I used zig clean color real brush markers to color all of my images.

064, 071, 999, 050, 067, 024, 260, 062,065, 090, 091.

Please check out all the other wonderful artists and crafters that are part of this hop.

I hope you enjoyed this craft room creation I will be back very soon to share more holiday creations with you.

Brandi M.

The Craft Bean

Building Blocks Party!

The last couple months have been crazy but I’ve missed sharing my craft room creations with you, so I took the morning off to hang out in my craft room and update my blog.

My twins just celebrated their 6th Birthday and they wanted a building blocks themed party, Which means that is what has been taking over my craft room. I started out with creating invitations to send into school with my kids. Yes, I am that crazy mom that invited both of my kids full classes to the party. I needed to make 36 invitations and the fastest way to do this is mass production. I knew I wanted to use the Building blocks stamp set by Kindred stamps, I picked the to building block boy and girl as the main images. Before I could start any stamping and coloring I need to design the invitations on my computer with all the party information. I use open office and paint to keep it easy and simple. I do measure the stamp images I plan to use to leave enough space for stamping. The invitations are A2 size 4 1/4 x 5 1/2 in order to fit 4 on a page. I printed them on yellow card stock for a fun pop of color and cut them down with my large paper trimmer. A stamping tool like the misti is amazing when you need to stamp the same image multiple time. I lined my stamps up in my misti inked them up in blackout ink by ink on 3. I recently switched to this ink since it a hybrid ink that is Copic safe and waterproof. 36 cards later I cleaned my stamps and started coloring with color Copic markers.

Boy Shirt: G05, G14, G19 Girl shirt: RV04, RV13, RV19, Pants: C5,C7 or B16, B18 Girl Hair: E23, E25, E57 Head/Arms: YR24, Y13, Y35.

Next I hit up the dollar store because they have great party supplies for cheap! plates, napkins, table cloths, decoration and goodie bags all in my building blocks theme. I am all about inexpensive and easy, mixed with a little handmade.

To add a handmade touch to the goodie bags I created small circular “Thank you” tags using a sentiments from the building blocks set and Polynesian Adventurers set by Kindred stamps. I set the stamps up in my misit again so I could stamp all my tags at once. Using my colored pencils I colored the heart block from the building block set. lastly I had my kids sign the back. Add to the goodie bags with ribbon and your done.

To entertain the kids during the party I had simple games and activities. like building kits from the dollar store, bean bags made out of felt and rice, coloring pages, block key chains to decorate and I even brought my kids block table so they could build and play with their friends.

For me adding little handmade touches takes my inexpensive party supplies to the next level without being to over whelming.

P.S Theses are the cakes that the kids Grandmother made for the party!

I hope you all enjoyed these craft room creations. I will be back soon to share. If you want to see more of what I am up to you can follow me on Facebook, Instagram and YouTube @TheCraftBean.

Brandi M

The Craft Bean.

Fish and Ships

Today’s craft room creation is a belly band for candy treats. I made for these for the life guards that taught swim lesson for my kids. These make great little gifts and you can use any type of candy bar. I used the Mythical Kraken stamp set by Kindred stamps, it was the inspiration for this project, because the sentiments in the this set are perfect!

I started by stamping out a bunch of the sea monsters with Versafine onyx on to Bristol smooth cardstock. I made these with my daughter so I only color two out of the whole sheet we stamped. I also forgot to take a photo of this because we were having too much fun getting crafty. we used zig marker and used two color blends to color our sea monsters.

Once everything was colored I sat and fussy cut out all of the sea monsters. A tip to make it look like you are perfect at fussy cutting is to take a water based black marker like memento, run it along the cut edge to hide the white core if the paper and blend the edges into the stamped lines.

I used a light blue cardstock from my stash to make the belly band to go around my Swedish fish candies. My cardstock measured 5 inches x 7 1/4 inches scored at 3/4 inch and 4 inches on the 7 1/4 inch side. fold on all the score lines.

I used the bubble stencil by kindred stamp and mermaid lagoon distress ink to add a little texture to the background.

The misti stamping platform is an amazing tool when you have to stamp multiple times. I only needed to line the stamps up once. I put one sentiment stamp on each end, I would stamp one sentiment then flip it around and stamp the other. then slide in the next belly band stamp, flip and repeat

Glue the sea monsters on the front center just above the sentiment. Then glued the lager back section that has the second sentiment stamped on top of 3/4 inch flap and then slide in the candy.

I hope you enjoyed this project I will be back soon to share more craft room creation with you.

Brandi M.

The craft Bean.

Caffeinated

I know I’ve been a little MIA lately and the honest truth is …. life. Summer is here which mean it’s busy season for my day job and my kids are home. I’m only one person and something had to give and that was typing up my blogs, I have been able to sneak in bits of crafting here and there. Anyways for today’s craft room creation I want to share my new obsession which is the caffeinated line by The Rabbit Hole Designs. I adore these characters! There are five cards in this set because I had to color all the characters I have. I haven’t collected them all yet but I’m working on it.

All five cards were created the same way in assemble line style I just changed up the colors and background stencils. I started out by stamping each character with sentiments on to white cardstock. Then it was time to color I used my Copic markers, I find coloring fun and relaxing so I do spend a good amount of time on it. I hear a lot about how many can’t afford Copics just remember there are a ton of different coloring mediums find one that you like. I have been a crafter and artist most of my life and have slowly built up my arts and craft hoard.

Shark: YG06, G14, G05, E23, E57, C7,C5,C3,0

Rabbit: RV21, RV10, R17, R27, R39, W1,W3,W5,W7, C3, C1,0

Fox: B99, B34, YR07, YR15, W1,W3, 0, C5, C3, E15, E07, E19

T-Rex: Y13,Y17, YR24,C1, C3, 0, YG11, YG03, YG06,G14, G05

Cat: C1, C3, C5, C9, 100, 0, E23, E57, V25, BV11, BV00, R14, YR07, YR15, YR24

Once everything was colored I used full sticky post-it notes to make mask of each character.

I pulled out a bunch of different stencils and distress inks to create the backgrounds.

I masked my images, taped my stencil in place with low tack purple tape then blended each panel.

I trimmed my panels down with a stitched rectangle die. The purple tape works great to hold the die in place while going thorough the die cutting machine

I dug through my scraps bin to find matching card stock for each of the character’s coffee mug. I cut and layered these panels behind the image panels leaving an 1/8 inch boarded around. I used fun foam to pop them up and added them each to a white A2 card based.

I hope you enjoyed this craft room creation and I will be back next week to share another fun card set with you.

Brandi M

The Craft Bean

Badass Mother

If you haven’t figured it out yet I’m a bit of a nerd, I love all things Star Trek, Doctor who, classic video games, game of thrones, Disney ect… well last night one of my favorite series ended. So I created a card featuring an adorable stamp set by The sassy club “sassy games”.

To start my card I loaded all my stamps into my Misti, I love that I can double stamp my images to get a nice chirps images. I used Memento tuxedo back ink since it it Copic marker friendly.

I stamped and colored both my panels with Copic makers:

G99, G94, YG61, C3, C5, C7, E31, E51, E53, E59, E70, E74, R39, R29, Y00, Y11, Y13, Y18 & B00

I wanted a light blue distress Oxide background on the main panel so I cut masked for all the images out of full sticky Post-it notes and then blended over the main card panel.

To add texture to the background I splattered clean water over the distress oxide ink and blotted it up, I used a light blue Copic maker to fill in a gaps from masking. I pop the main panel up using fun foam and trimmed my second panel to the same size as my A2 (4 1/4 x 5 1/2) card base. I added both panels with double side tape.

I hope you enjoyed this card, I will be back soon with more projects to share.

Brandi M

The Craft Bean

Playing with digital stamps

Today I am sharing my last project as a member of the Kindred Stamps design team, the awesome ladies at Kindred Stamps set up a fun collaboration with the Therm-O-web to send off the designers. I have had a blast designing for Kindred Stamps, I am a huge fan of their stamps and will continue creating new project to share. My craft room creation today is a custom t-shirt featuring the Ocean Royalty add on digital stamp.

I have spent the last week or so playing in my craft room with some new to me Therm-O-Web products, my favorite of them all is the Heat-n-Bond inkjet transfer sheets. I experimented a lot with these sheet and want to share what I’ve learned.

Digi stamps work prefect with these sheets because you can print them right onto the transfer sheets and they can be added to any fabric project like t-shirts, tote bags, backpacks, and quilts. something really amazing is you can color on them with your markers. I tested several types Copic, Zig, Tombow and Crayola super tips. The softer the nib the better the results; I had the best luck with my Zig clean color real brush pens.

Coloring Tips:

To get the best blend use a two color blend and utilize the tip to tip method, where you pick up a bit of the darker color with the lighter maker.

Use a light hand so you don’t scratch up the coating on the paper with the tip of your maker.

To get a smooth finish use long even strokes all in the same direction.

For best results let your coloring sit and dry, the ink take awhile to absorb all the way into the paper.

Tips on fabric types:

Smooth quilters cotton gave me the best results.

Cotton knits work great you just have to wait a bit longer for the the transfer sheet adhesive to cool before removing the backing paper.

Canvas fabric works but you can see the texture and the transfer isn’t always perfect.

Tips on heat setting:

Use a craft iron (its a regular iron but only use it on craft Projects) just in case you get any ink or adhesive on it, you won’t ruin other clothing.

Stand up and press firmly, more even pressure I used the better the results I got on all fabric types.

Don’t wiggle or slide the iron. Pick it straight up and place it down, less chance to move or shift the image.

Pay close attention to the edges of the image they tend to curl.

Another fun thing I learned about the transfer sheets is you can also stamp on them for all you non digi people. I personally used Versafine onyx black ink but I’m sure most inks would work.

I hope you all give this technique a try and my tips help you along the way. A huge thank you to Kindred Stamps team for inviting me to design for them. To stay up to date with all of my craft room creations by following @TheCraftBean on social media.

If you are interested in this stamp set or any by Kindred Stamps consider using my affiliate link, It cost you nothing but helps support my blog Kindred Stamps.

Brandi M.

The Craft Bean

Arcade Friends

This week I am to sharing how to draw a scene or background for your cards. I will be using the “Arcade Friends” stamp set by Kindred stamp for my card. I decided I wanted to have my arcade friend bust though a brick wall.

but I don’t have a brick wall stamp, so I need to draw one. I know drawing can be intimidating but start with something simple, a brick wall is just a bunch of rounded rectangles.

Step 1: draw guide lines, this helps keep the bricks similar in size. My horizontal line are ½ an inch a part. I started with the top row of brick; the bricks are about ¾ of and inch in length. I left a small gap between each brick as to be the grout. Once I had my first row in I draw in the second row off setting the bricks to the first row.

Step 2 for the rest of my brick rows I altered between lining up with the 1^st and 2^nd rows. Rows 1,3,5,7,and 9 are all aligned the same, while rows 2,4,6,and 8 are all aligned with one another. Side note bricks are imperfect its ok if your drawing isn’t perfect. I left out brick where I waned to put my character. I used the stamp to judge how big to make the opening

Step 3 out line the bricks with a pen. I planned on coloring with Copic markers so I used a copic multi liner in a 0.3 size. You’ll want to use an ink that works with your coloring medium, has a similar thickness and color so your drawing will blend with your stamping.

Step 3.2 erase all of your pencil lines.

Step 4 making a mask for the foreground. I used a full sticky post-it note I placed it over the area and traced around the bricks I wanted to mask off. Fussy cut along the edge.

Step 5 once all your mask are in place stamp your character image.

Step 5.2 remove all mask and scream YESSS! when everything came out as planned.

Step 6 color in with your medium of choice, I used Copic makers.

RV69,R59,R27,R29 (Bricks) C3 & C5(Button) R15,YR07,YR15, YR65,YR02 (Shirt) W9,W7, W5 (Hole and Grout) E31,E11,E00 ( Skin) E29, E37,E57, E15 (Hair and Pants)

I hope you enjoyed this card share! I will be back soon with more craft room creations.

If you are interested in this stamp set or any by Kindred Stamps consider using my affiliate link, It cost you nothing but help support my blog. Kindred Stamps.

Brandi M

The Craft Bean

Video Game Brothers

I am back this week to share a fun one layer card with featuring the “Video Game Brothers” stamp set by Kindred Stamps.

I love one layer cards but they can be intimidating, since all the dimension is created with masking and coloring. I wanted to show you all how I break this style card down.

Step 1: Figure our your layout, use your stamps and play around with different layouts. For my card I decided to have one of the Brothers coming up from the pipe. NOTE: I always cut my card panels bigger and cut down at the end.

Step 2: stamping and masking. You want to stamp the forward most image first then mask it. For my Card I first masked off the ground with Post-it tape and stamped the pipe. I wanted a taller pipe so I just wipe off the ink on the bottom line. I create all my masks from full sticky Post-it notes, I placed my pipe mask on my card then stamped my character on top. To create clouds, a hill and a bush I draw them onto the Post-it notes and fussy cut them out and placing them where I liked on my card . I masked everything because I did an ink blended background. This is not necessary if you are plan to Copic color the background.

Step 3: Create the background, once every thing was masked I blended with distress oxide inks, starting with the sky , then I moved the ground mask up and then blended peeled paint, fossilized amber and vintage photo to create the ground. Remove all masks when blending is done.

Step  4: fill in outlines, using a Copic safe pen I draw in the outlines of my clouds, hill, bush, ground and extra tall pipe. I just follow the edge of where my mask was.

Step 5: Color in the images, I used Copic Markers.

Step 6: add sentiments, the outside sentiment came from the “Video Game Brothers” set and the inside Sentiment came from “Arcade Friends” stamp set both by Kindred Stamps

Step 7: Trim down or die cut card panel and add to a card base. I used a dotted rectangle die and a craft colored A2 card base.

I hope you enjoyed this card share, I’ll be back soon with more craft room creations.

If you are interested in this stamp set or any by Kindred Stamps consider using my affiliate link, It cost you nothing but help support my blog. Kindred Stamps.

Brandi M.

The Craft Bean

Galactic Hero

Today’s craftroom creation is a simple A2 card featuring a new digital Stamp from Kindred Stamps.

I love working with digital stamps because they are budget friendly and there is no waiting on the mail man. I printed on 80 lb card stock since my printer can be a little picky about the type of paper it wants to work with.

My Galactic Hero was colored with Copic makers and fussy cut out. To make it look like I know how to cut perfectly, I ran a black water based maker along the edge to hide the white core of the paper.

I wanted to make a custom sentiment for this card so I just use a my computer to type one up. After printing on the same 80lb card stock I used a stitched rectangle die to cut the sentiment panel.

The galaxy background paper is from the “Space Hero” box but you could easily make your own galaxy background with watercolors or distress inks.

The card base is gray card stock cut to 4 1/4 by 11 and scored and folded at 5 1/2 inches.

To pull the card together I layered the galaxy paper onto the gray card base and my white sentiment panel on top of the galaxy paper. Lastly I popped up my Galactic Hero in the center of the card with foam dots.

My 5 year old son decided to craft along with me and create his own card. He used a sentiment is from the “Space Hero” stamp set and crayola colored pencils.

I hope you enjoyed this card and have a very Happy April fools day.

This is a free digi stamp for all the Kindred Stamps fans so make sure to join the Facebook Fan club.

If you are interested in this stamp set or any by Kindred Stamps consider using my affiliate link, It cost you nothing but help support my blog. Kindred Stamps.

Brandi M.

The Craft Bean

Crazy About You

I am back with a fun craft room creation featuring the “Crazy About You” stamp set by Kindred Stamps.

I was walking around the craft store and noticed there are different types of Shrinky Dinks sheets. I’ve been playing with the original crystal clear sheet, but don’t like that even when colored it’s still transparent. I found “frosted rough and Ready” Shrinky Dinks sheet and Printer safe sheets, of course I had to pick some up to play. Today I will be sharing what I created with the “frosted” style. I have to say I like this style way better than the crystal clear, as far I can tell its the same except they scratched up one side of the sheet. The added texture on the back takes more color with less streaking and it’s color pencil friendly.

For my project I decided to make my daughter some hair bows with Shrinky Dinks charms.

First I stamped out the female character from the stamp set on to the smooth side of the frosted Shrinky Dink sheet in black StazOn Ink. I decided to color her in with my Prisma colored pencils, you need to color on the rough side of the sheet. To get the best color blend, color from darkest to lightest because you’re actually coloring the back if you start with the lightest you won’t see any of the darker shades. When fussy cutting on Shrinky Dinks sheets you want slow even cuts because the plastic can crack. I used my heat tool to shrink my character, add heat to the smoothed stamped side so you don’t melt to wax in the colored pencil. For the bows I made a single loop bow out with blue glitter ribbon and a smaller double looped bow out of red ribbon from my craft horde. I used thread to secure the two bows together and added a small hair elastic before hot gluing my character charm to the center.

Primsa Colored pencils used:

50 % cool gray PC 1063 30% cool gray PC 1061 black PC 935 white PC 938 peach beige PC 1085 beige sienna PC 1080 Deco yellow PC 1011 canary yellow PC 916 china blue PC 1100 denim blue PC 1101 scarlet lake PC 923 crimson red PC 924

I hope you enjoyed this Craft room creation! I will be back soon to share more with you all.

If you are interested in this stamp set or any by Kindred Stamps consider using my affiliate link, It cost you nothing but help support my blog. Kindred Stamps.

Brandi M,

The Craft Bean