Mane Scrapbook: scrapbook

I started keeping a list of paper craft projects and the list kept growing. Since I was typing it up for myself, I figured why not post it, also? This is a glossary for paper craft projects, all units in inches unless otherwise specified. My favorite listing are Inchies, ATC’s, Moo Cards, and grocery sack pages. These are in alphabetical order:
• Accordion Album – any album that is folded into zig-zag pages (mountains and valleys) that expand out to display. Usually 3x3 to 6x6 size and may include pockets and tags for additional storage.
• Acid/acid-free – Acid-free is required for archival quality to have your projects last over time. Acid will eat away your projects making them yellow, brittle, and faded. You can purchase a spray to convert acid items to acid-free.
• Acrylic Album – mini album made from clear plastic sheets, can be precut design, mixed shapes and sizes, or square; takes advantage of clear effect of pages
• ATC’s – Artist Trading Cards “art in your pocket” collectibles with sports trading cards as their origins. Must be 2.5x3.5 (64x89 mm) and fit in transparent card sleeves. Have the art on the front and the artist’s info on the back. These are traded and collected and should not be sold. See Inchies for ideas for artwork.
• BLOG – short for Web-Log, a personal, online journal to share with others
• BOM – (1) book of me, see personal album (2) Book of Mormon for us daughters of the Utah Pioneers…
• Bookmarks – anything pretty and flat that can save your place in a book, often with pressed flowers
• Brads – two prong fasteners used to embellish or bind paper together
• Business cards – standard size are 3.5x2 calling cards for businesses and have now expanded to personal or promoting yourself cards
• Cards – standard sizes are 3.5x5 or 4x6. USPS basic first class postage applies to 3.5x5 up to 6.125x11.5(x.25 thick). Square or vertical envelopes subject to surcharge ($.20 as of Feb 2010)
• Carousel Mini Album - folds flat and opens to four 6x6 “rooms” in a carousel display, also called a square mini book or room mini album
• Chipboard – aka book board, used to make mini album covers or matchboxes or embellishments; thicker than cardstock, similar to cereal boxes (which are not acid free)
• Chubbies – see fat pages
• Chunky Book – a book made of all or several fat pages
• Concertina Album – see Accordion album
• Corner Chomper – by same company as Crop-A-Dile, a super-strength tool to cut ¼ or ½ rounds to corners
• Cricut – the brand name for a well known digital cutting machine to make die cuts and laser cut outs. Requires cartridges for each design. I personally have the QuikCuts Silhouette SD as my personal digital cutter as I can create my own designs and use any true type font I have on my computer.
• Crop-A-Dile – a super-strength hole punch and grommet setter. You can see where the holes will punch (unlike traditional hole punches), and replaces grommet setting tools.
• Cropping – the art of cutting photos to the size or shape you want
• Crystal Lacquer – a clear glaze that adds depth and dimension to your accents, can be used for adhesive for small beads or add tint to make a glass paint
• Embossing – (1) dry uses a stylus to create a bumpy or pressed design in paper (2) powder used with rubber stamps and a heat gun to create a shiny, pretty, painted look
• Envelopes – can be hand made, store bought, or created in miniature to hold notes and journaling; or clear to hold mementos in albums
• Fabric Paint – common term for fine tip paints that can be used to make lace dots on paper or paint for stained glass art; most common brand is Tulip
• FAT Inchies – 1x1 inchies that have depth or dangles to make them thick
• Fat Pages – embellished pages that are more than .25 inch thick with buttons, foam, zippers, 3-D, etc items of bling to make them pretty
• Frames – cardstock cutouts to place multiple pictures into, often to create a themed scrapbook page
• Glossy Accent – see crystal lacquer
• Grocery Sack Papers – take 8-12 layers of the white plastic grocery sacks, laid flat, and iron between brown paper. It melts and fuses together. Then cover with paint and wipe off, it looks like a fake leather. Gives you a warm fuzzy alternative to adding plastic to landfills. Can be cut to make MiniCards or used to make mini albums.
• Grommet – (not to be confused with Wallace and Grommit) little metal circles in pretty colors that decorate or attach pages. Can be used as the holes to bind pages with ribbon or embroidery thread, requires a hole punch and grommet setter.
• Heat Embossing Tool – a scrapbook gun that melts and sets embossing powder. I have tried both a hairdryer and a flame lighter… there is something to be said for having the right tools to do the job right. Packs a lot of heat and will melt carpet and household plastics.
• Inchies – 1x1 square small embellishments or collectables, may be kept in a matchbox; made with paper punches, rubber stamps, embossed, lace, ribbon, hand-drawn, brads, collage, painted, altered art, wire, photo, words, color themes, yarn, sequins, beads, buttons, charms, pressed flowers, hand written or anything else you can think of. These started with fiber art in fabric and sewing, and have expanded to paper crafts via rubber stamps and embossing. Today they are huge for swaps and collectibles and to some degree are replacing ATC’s.
• Journals – usually written text of thoughts, ideas, questions, philosophy, lists and/or notes of a personal nature. Can also include sketches and drawings. In papercraft can be a pretty paper cover or hand made book.
• Jump Rings – small wires used for jewelry which can also be used to bind mini albums or make embellishments
• Lignin – the stuff that bonds fibers in trees, it makes newsprint go yellow. Will deteriorate photos, avoid it for archival quality projects
• Mail Art – postcard size are 3.5x5 up to 4.25x6 for reduced USPS rates
• Matchboxes – the 32 count size is approximately 1.5x2x.5. It is decorated and can hold anything, including inchies and twinchies. Can be made from cardstock.
• Matting – paper slightly larger than your cropped photos, adhered behind the pics to make them stand out; can be multi layers or sideways/offset
• Mini Books – any size up to 8x8 with one theme or a limited number of pages
• MiniCards – see Moo cards
• Mod Podge – paper craft adhesive and sealant, comes in glossy or matte, gazillions of uses as both a glue and project protection
• Moo cards or MiniCards – 2.75x1 , created by moo.com, these are conversation openers (approximately half size of business cards) intended to have varying photos in each pack on one side and your blog or business or info on the back
• Origami Mini Book – two sided, photo only book made from one 12x12 piece of cardstock, holds 18 units of 3x3 pictures, folds flat to just over 3x3
• Paper Bag Album – brown lunch sack size pages, bound, glued, stapled or tied together to make a mini book or scrapbook
• Personal Album – a scrapbook for yourself, by you, to preserve your personal history, your legacy, your thoughts, dreams and life
• Pockets – similar to envelopes, decorative holders for tabs or journaling
• PSI – plus size inchies are fat inchies, or inchies with depth
• Room Mini Album – see Carousel mini album
• Skinnies or Skinny book – 4x6 to hold only pictures rather than traditional scrapbooking with journaling and embellishments
• Skinny Pages - either 3x7 or 4x8 pages, usually made for swaps with a theme
• Square Mini Book – see Carousel mini album
• Stab Binding – Japanese art of binding paper together, very chic to make your own albums or journals
• Tabs – anything that sticks out from the “normal edge” of the paper, can include pockets with journaling, tabs sticking out of envelopes, something to draw attention to a particular page in an album, etc
• Tag Book – made of tag shaped pages, can be bound at the top or the bottom of the tags. Also can use tags to bind 6x6 or 8x8 pages into a book.
• Twinchies – 2x2 square medium embellishments or collectables, may be kept in a matchbox; see Inchies for ideas
• Waterfall card or book – this paper craft has a slider to make the pages flip. Usually about 8-16 sides of pages available. Do a Google search, there are a lot of tutorials on line.
• Zine (/ˈziːn/ "zeen") small circulation publication, self-published, not-for-profit

I am happy with my blog, but I want more. My best friend in high school, Marike van der Veen, has a beautiful blog. She is my inspiration. I want a place to write. Which is kind of ironic because Marike was the one who wanted to be a writer, I was the one who wanted to be an engineer. In some ways, we both achieved our dreams, Marike is a writer, because she is writing, and I have an engineering degree. But want to expand my dreams.

One of my life goals is to write a book. I doubt it will be fiction, although I have thought about writing my life story and calling it “Better Than Fiction,” realistically I think changing the names will still allow people to be offended so I haven’t really pursued that writing aspiration. I have been called the goddess of lists. Or maybe more aptly the evil goddess of lists. I have thought about writing a reference book that includes some of my lists that have been helpful to me in my life. Something that could make a difference for other people. I am still trying that idea on.

Anyway, I have hesitated creating something publically since I have some people in my past I really want to avoid. That is another story for another day. What I discovered about myself if that I would rather be myself: outgoing and self-expressed, and not worry about that right now. This stems from my marriage to Tony, he is a born and raised in New York City, Dominican with all the reservation, suspicion, and judgment that comes with it. Yes, I was going to put paranoia, but that is a little strong. He is reserved and suspicious of the world, at the far end of that spectrum. Then there is me: the opposite of him, open, carefree and trusting of most everything. Between the two of us we become one “normal” person. I will trust the universe that I will gain more than I might risk by creating a blog and proceed.

My oldest, Elder Joseph Calcote, is on a Mormon Mission to Atlanta Georgia. I write him at least five times a week. I think that writing also reaffirms my desire to create a blog because it is such a good outlet to share my thoughts.

So Marike’s blog is dedicated to children, food, and the arts that turn the average mom into a domestic diva. These are the things she loves. She asserts that the blogs that work are written from the heart and are about the things you love. I can take that on. My blog will center upon family, paper crafts, and living life full out. Paper crafts will include scrapbooking and card making and all that entails. I feel a little backwards creating my blog, and then figuring out what it is about, but this is part of life! It well represents that things don’t always go as you planned, but they do always go perfectly.

In closing, the pictures above are of me and Marike, probably halloween of 1982 or 1983. Enjoy. Marike, I love you. Thank-you for sharing your life and being my inspiration.