Craft Tuesday: Wrapping Paper Collage

Every year for Christmas I spend money on beautiful wrapping paper only to see it used and thrown away without ever capturing how pretty it was under our tree. Not anymore! Here is a wonderful way for you to remember the excitement of Christmas morning- a wrapping paper collage!

By Mod Podging squares of the wrapping paper you use each year onto a hefty sheet of paper or cardboard, and then placing a picture from Christmas morning on top, you can create a great piece of wall art for the holidays (or a scrapbook page).

Left: Blue reindeer, lightweight "cheap" paper wrinkled
Right: Brown and silver, heavier paper did not wrinkle

After doing this one myself, I found that the heavier the paper the better, because it won't wrinkle up when the Mod Podge is applied. From a distance though, the wrinkles are not noticeable. On the same note, my square hole punch wouldn't punch through the foiled paper, and I had to cut it by hand. Also, I would suggest tracing out the bottom line of each row of wrapping paper, otherwise your lines may tilt a little, like mine. Of course, that's all in the charm of a hand made craft!

You will need:

• 1 12x12 piece of card stock or cardboard
• 1 square hole punch (I used a 3" diagonal square hole punch)
• 1 photograph
• Black cardstock/scrapbooking paper
• Stickers of your choice
• Glossy Mod Podge
• Wrapping paper scraps
• Sponge brush

Begin by gathering up some wrapping paper scraps. You will need to punch several squares out of each sheet. I used a total of 25 squares (5 squares by 5 squares, each square measuring a little over 2"), and punched about 28 squares to choose from.

Once you have all of your squares punched, play with them and arrange them in a way that you like! This took me a few minutes and a lot of moving around, right until I had almost every square back at their starting point, until I was pleased with the arrangement!

Then make a stack for each row to keep them in order as you proceed to glue them down. Doing one row at a time, apply a thin coat of Mod Podge and then lay your wrapping paper squares down. Your Mod Podge may dry before you get to lay down the last square or two, so reapply the Mod Podge before you lay those squares down.

After you have Mod Podged all of your squares, glue down any loose corners and let dry completely. This shouldn't take more than 10 minutes, max. Now, apply one or two thick coats of Mod Podge on top to seal the squares down and give your collage a nice finished look.

While this top coat dries, glue your picture to the black sheet of paper, leaving a quarter inch border around the edge.  On another piece of black paper, use stickers to write the year or your family name. Trim to size. Once the Mod Podge is dry, trim off any excess paper and glue down the black papers with craft glue, or a little bit more Mod Podge. Do not Mod Podge over this layer.

Now you can frame your wrapping paper collage, put it in your scrapbook, or keep it somewhere special for you to look back on whenever you like.

Craft Tuesday: Make your own notepads!

Let me give a brief history of this project: I followed the instructions I found on a collection of different blogs, but the adhesive they said to use (padding compound/adhesive) didn't work! I don't know if it was the specific one I bought, or if I didn't use it correctly, but I was quite dismayed. And determined. I decided that I had to try something different. SO I had to experiment. How about Mod Podge? Would that work? Why yes, yes it does! =D

This homemade note/memo pad is a great project to do with leftover scrapbooking paper that you'd normal toss out,  cardstock scraps, paper that you print out (to make personalized notepads), or paper you buy specifically for this (you know those paper stacks you find in the scrapbooking section? Hooray for pre-coordinated paper). I have lots of scrapbooking paper scraps and full pages I have had for years that have never been used and were getting ready to be thrown out, so I decided to use those. You don't need much for this project! Just a little time and some color coordination!

For this project, you will need:

• Paper
• Craft paper cutter (or scissors and a ruler, but I suggest something like the Cutterbee, pictured, or Fiskars craft paper cutter)
• Drop cloth for use when applying adhesive
• Mod Podge (not pictured, that's a picture of the first adhesive I used, which didn't work)
• Binder clips (not pictured)

Please read through the whole set of instructions before beginning!
First I went through all of my papers and divided them into a couple of piles of papers that would look good in a notepad together. I decided to go with the pink/red and blue paper combination.

Next, using my handy-dandy paper cutter (SUCH a good investment, especially since I scrapbook) I trimmed off rough edges and any tears and cut the paper into strips that were 3.5" wide (pictured above). After I did that I had lots of different lengths, since it was scrap paper. From this point on there is not too much direction, because it gets creative. I picked the first paper, making it the bottom piece, and cut it to 8.5" long (the average magnetic notepad is 3.5x8.5"). I then continued to pick papers and trim them down, making each piece 1/16" smaller than the one it stacked on top of. Make sure you save your scraps you trim off of the 3.5" because you will use them later! Of course you can make all of your paper pieces the same size! It's just a fun look I wanted to try. It takes a while to cut them all and stack them, but the effect is really great in the end.

Now, if you are strategic with it and have enough paper, you could (theoretically) use the small scraps from the end of the strips (pictured above) and get your notepad so that the bottom piece is 3.5x8.5" and the top piece is 3.5x3.5" Of course, I didn't have enough paper of the set I chose so I used the small pieces to make a separate small stack. I only had to trim up these pieces a little bit.

After all of your stacks are lined up, tap the end you want to the top (where the adhesive is going) and place your binder clips about 1/4" away from the top. Use a foam brush to apply Mod Podge (I used two moderate coats, drying about 15 minutes in between each) and allow to dry COMPLETELY before removing the binder clips. Ta-Dah!

Other great things to use this for:

• Trim your pieces to 5x7" and create a notepad of ready to use picture backdrops for scrapbooking or frames.
• Print out blank recipe cards and make into pads and give as gifts! Add a little extra by putting one of YOUR favorite recipes on the front card.
• Make your own day-by-day (or week-by-week) calendar, personalizing with YOUR birthdays, cute pictures, etc. Usually these measure about 5.5x8"
• Buy some chip board and sticky magnetic strips, put the chip board on your notepad and put your magnet on the back! Now you can hang your pad on your refrigerator!