Hi! My name is Sally Lynn MacDonald and I'm the Director of Special Projects here at Prima. I'm also one of the Prima Endorsed Artist-Educators; a group of instructors that travel worldwide sharing our love of technique and teaching workshops. Today we are starting a new weekly series featuring Tips and Techniques or TNT. I call it TNT and Sharon couldn't resist having me share that name with you. TNT stands for the explosion of creativity that goes on every time I put together a technique post, as well as the fact that my craft area looks like a product bomb has gone off in it, once I'm finished with the project! As part of this weekly feature - we are going to utilize the chat feature, on the right-hand sidebar of this blog. Throughout the day, I will be fielding your questions on the topic of the techniques and tips featured here. If I cannot answer your question, I'll take it to the team to research your question.
As often as possible we will feature the work of our fabulous design team as well as our artist-educators.
So let's ignite some creativity with TNT today!
To kick off our feature, I'm working with a Stitched Mulberry paper today. I love that the sewing details are already there for me to work with. This romantic, feminine print immediatly lends itself to those themes. But what about a winter page? The light cream color lends itself to almost any theme. I'm going to show you how versatile this paper can be!
The first thing I want to do is take advantage of the framed design and cut out the center. I use a craft knife to trace around the printed frame design on the paper.
Once I've traced the design with my craft knife, I go around once more to cut out the design. Mulberry paper is resilient, and so I hold onto the detailed designs with my thumb and forefinger while pulling the center away from the edge. This protects the delicate designs.
I printed out a picture on a 12x12 piece of watercolor photo paper. I love the soft look that this paper creates. I place my photograph underneath the cut out frame and trim any excess after positioning the subjects within the cutout. If you have an 8x10 or 8 1/2 x 11 photo, you can adjust the first step accordingly.

This photograph is from a winter's day - but my daughters' sunny dispositions make me think of a lovely quote by Thoreau: "Always maintain a kind of Summer even in the middle of Winter". So I want to use this inspiration for my design and as a title on my page.
I don't like to waste a scrap of paper, soI took the center cut-out, trimmed off the wavy edge and cut it into strips approximately 1 inch wide.
To enhance the soft, feminine look of the paper and photograph, two of these strips are fan-folded to make a ruffle. I don't make crisp creases in the paper. I softly fold it over my fingers as I go.
These are adhered at the corner under the cut edge of the frame with a strong glue and fanned out around this gorgeous jeweled flower.
The same thing on the upper right hand corner.
My kids are always making paper chains. These are made when you loop one paper inside the other to create links and create an entire chain of these looped circles of paper. I want to make a paper structure similar to the paper chain, but more of a two-dimensional chain. Think of attaching the loops together, not through each other, but at the outside of each circle. In jewelry-making terms, you could think of it a soldering two loops together. Mulberry paper is very strong and resilient. It will work great for what I have in mind.
A strong glue is essential to any structural design. A liquid glue works best with fibrous paper like mulberry. I prefer Fabritac by Beacon Adhesives, both for it's dimensional abilities and it's quick grip.
I take the other strips of paper and cut them down to 4 inch lengths, and trim them thinly, to about 1/4" wide. I sprayed the back side of each with a light blue glimmer spray, to coordinate with my photograph and add a little pop of color.

Take these strips and place them, two at a time with matching sides facing each other. Use a strong liquid glue and place it at the top and bottom of each strip and glue the two strips together. You can still open up the inside of these flat 'loops'. To aid in their drying, I stack these up and use binder clips or paper clips to hold the sealed ends tightly together.
Once these pairs are dry, place a strip of wet glue in the middle of the outside of each pair and glue them together. Make two sets, making one set with a few more pieces than the other. Once again, a binder clip or paper clip aids in keeping them together while the glue dries.
Pull them gently from side to side to expose the horizontal paper chains. These make me think of delicate crystaline structures. Fan one out and place it under a flower in the bottom-left corner. A pearl center is placed over the center of the flower.

Place the larger of the two chains tucked underneath the paper fan at lower-right hand side. We will use this to highlight a word of our title. I embellished the chipboard letters with more pearl centers, with some cut apart and placed on the edges of the letters, like ice crystals. Click on this or any other picture for a closer look.
I anchored the quote with a pearl center at the beginning and worked my way around the layout with the glittered letter stickers. And that completes our layout!

Prima Products used today:
- Stitched Mulberry Paper #813253
- Fleur Danseur Adagio jeweled flowers #531928
- Alabaster Flowers Alissa #532055
- Say It In Pearls Centers, Black and Cream #530822
- Times Alpha Chipboard Letters, small cream #810580
- Glittered Alphabet Stickers, #860264
Misc:
Glimmer Mist
Fabritac Adhesive
Even though TNT is new to the Prima blog, there is a whole archive of prior techniques from the Prima Artist-Educator blog that you can view as well. Take a look!
I'm sure you will love the fun techniques shown today. And now, to add to the fun...simply leave a comment on this blog post for your chance to win this prize, featuring products used in today's post. We will randomly choose a winner on Tuesday, November 10th, 2009. Open to North America only due to shipping costs, but approx. every 5 weeks or so we will host a worldwide drawing.
From the entries received on our last technique post, using Random.org's random integer generator -- the winner for our previous technique post drawing is:
Joli!
Please contact me so we can mail out your lovely prize at sallylynn@primamarketinginc.com
Best of luck to each of you! And I look forward to chatting with you today and every week with TNT.
P.S. Do you want a Prima Endorsed Artist-Educator to teach a workshop at your store or event? Contact Lu at 909-627-5532, ext. 202 for more information. The full schedule of upcoming workshops is online too.
Have a great day.
SL
I love the colors changing in all the leaves!