New Website is LIVE!!

Hello everyone!  It's taken a few months and a lot of help, support and general cleverness from the brilliant Bimotech web design company but finally the new website is live and it's very exciting!!  The week day home site will stay here for a few weeks but eventually all the posts (250+ over the past 5 years) will move to the new site.  You can also find us on You Tube, Pinterest and Facebook.  Just search for Attic Lane.  All new projects will be on www.atticlane.com only so to keep up with projects, dog stories, christmas baking and you tube tutorials, please visit, support  and follow:

www.atticlane.com

I look forward to welcoming you to the attic down a lane where I make, bake, create and share. 

To say hi on the new site or let us know of any glitches (!) mail:

hello@atticlane.com

Kraft Tex - Hand Bound Book

I recently discovered Kraft Tex, a paper based medium which behaves like leather.  You can't rip or tear it but you can cut, emboss, paint, sew and punch through it.  If it gets wet, it won't spoil.  This makes it ideal as a book cover.  In the video below, I show you how to use layers, pockets and textured papers to make a keepsake book with lots of secret places to store momentos.

Enjoy :)

Shabby Chic Kraft Tex Notebook Tutorial

Have you heard of Kraft Tex?  No me neither until recently.  It's a paper based material which reacts like leather.  Apparently those tags on the back of jeans are made from it.  You can paint, punch, emboss, stamp, iron, stitch, wash and crumple it.  It's just what I've been looking for to create notebooks of a size and shape I want without having to buy a notebook and then alter it.  I bought mine from Amazon and the size is 19" wide by 1.5 yards long so plenty to play with.  And yes, you can cut it with the Brother Scan and Cut.  I used a standard blade set at 12, speed 5 and pressure of 1.  There are sooooo many possibilities and I started with a shabby chic style notebook.

It started as an A5 piece.  I folded the right hand edge in 1 1/4 inches to make a seal over the main cover.  You'll see in the video below how I made the fastening and attached the lace on the front cover.  By the way, the video is badged up as www.atticlane.com.  That's because after 2 months of frustration trying to move the domain to a new host, the transfer has gone ahead and soon I'll be launching the new website!  There are a few more tweaks to make but hopefully in the next month it will go live!!

Batch Making Christmas Cards

I attended a work conference mid week which meant a very nice overnight stay at Stratford on Avon.  A friend and I had time to nip into town to visit a favourite shop which we call the Christmas shop but is really called The Nutcracker Shop.  Among the glitz, pinch faced elves and pink frou frou, I got some inspiration for using a rather good stag shape I have on my Brother Scan and Cut.  I spent a pleasant evening cutting and sticking Mr Stag onto cards.  The tartan paper definitely lends itself to this shape!

I didn't video this because it is so simple to do and it does rely on having some kind of stag shape or die in your stash.  To save on paper I cut the rectangle of tartan paper I was going to use as a mat first, then cut the stag head from the inside.  I stuck the stag head on a smaller piece of kraft card, matted it with the tartan paper and sewed it round the edges with brown thread and stuck the whole thing down onto a white card.  I don't usually think of Christmas cards being better suited to men or women but these have a masculine feel to them.

I then cut a thin piece of kraft stock card, stamped "Merry Christmas" onto it and poked two square brads into the ends.  It doesn't show in the pics but this greeting stands a little proud of the card because I stuck it on with 3d foam pads.  Once the cards were finished it was time to add a tiny stag scene to the front of the envelopes.  I'm still enjoying these lovely scenic stamps from Card-io.

I'd pre-ordered some Tim Holtz stencils a few weeks ago and today they arrived so I had a play day and took a fuzzy photo.  (Ooops not sure why it's out of focus!)

 On the tag in the middle, I spritzed a pale green colour through the music stencil and a darker green through the tree shapes.  Before adding a glitter medium through the sort of half tree stencils (designed to look like snow on the trees) I rubbed distress glaze over the dried trees to prevent the green below seeping up and dis-colouring the glitter.  I like this effect but it will need more play.  Maybe tomorrow.