Archive for the ‘Beyond the Page’ Category

When these new Shadow Box Drawers were released by Kaisercraft, I was determined to make one up as an Advent Calendar. I love the little central section and decided I wanted to make a little wintry scene in it and wanted to make the whole calendar feel more wintry than Christmas themed, if that makes sense.

Most of the Kaisercraft Christmas Collections are feature the traditional colours of Red & Green so I picked papers from two of the collections to give me the colour scheme and effect I was after. I chose papers from the Just Believe Collection and the Turtle Dove Collection.

I started by painting the MDF parts with Kaisercolour Soft Moss. You don’t need to paint any bits that will be covered with paper, so on some of the sections you only need to paint the edges (this saves time and paint). I also painted the inside of the little boxes to match.

I love all the very traditional images on the ‘Maids’ paper from the Turtle Dove Collection. I picked the images that matched my colour scheme, so just used the little squares that were mainly blue in colour. I did have to use three sheets because of this though, but that was my choice. I also used on every other box the ‘Starlight’ paper reverse from the ‘Just Believe’ Collection.

Please see our previous Advent Calendar post for details of how we assembled the little square boxes.

I consciously arranged what papers went where on the boxes, I don’t do random lol. For the central section of the Calendar I used part of the ‘Drummers’ paper from the ‘Turtle Dove’ Collection, there is a little image on the reverse that was perfect for my wintry scheme. I also used the larger tree from the Tim Holtz Idea-ology Woodlands set and the Kaisercraft Wood flourish ‘Iron Fence’. For my snow I used Cotton wool covered in Clear Rock Candy Distress Stickles, this gave a great frosty feel to it. I also covered the tree in Kaisercraft ‘Ice Blue’ Rhinestones and added some to the front of some of the boxes. To finish off the edges of the little drawers and the advent Calendar I used the Ranger ‘Pearl’ Dabber. The last thing I did was to add tiny numbers to each of the boxes – for this I used a little section from the ‘Wish List’ paper from the Just Believe collection.

I am really pleased with my Advent Calendar and the wintry feel to it – I hope you like it too. Now I just to fill the little drawers with chocolates

All your comments are very much appreciated.

Chrissy xXx

I love making the Kaisercraft Beyond-the-Page products especially the Storage so as soon as I saw the BTP Marker Storage Unit I had to put one together.

I changed my mind a few times when choosing the paper I wanted to use but then the ‘Attitude’ Collection was released and one paper caught my eye the – reverse of the ‘Rebel’ paper. I loved the look of the paper with it’s wood effect so used this for the main frame of the Unit and the Drawer.

The paper seemed quite masculine and I wanted to make the unit more feminine so decided to add some bright pink paint splats. For this I watered down some of the Kaisercolour ‘Hot Pink’ Acrylic paint so I could splatter it all over the unit.

For the front of the Unit I used another Attitude paper – the reverse of the ‘Dude’ paper. I like the subtle distressed effect on this paper and it was ideal for what I had in mind – stamping!!  Before I started the stamping I first cut out all the holes as I wanted to make sure some of the butterflies from the ‘Botanical’ stamp were placed around the holes. I used the Kaisercraft ‘Checker Plate’ Texture Stamp & ‘Botanical’ Timeless Stamp. I began by stamping the ‘Checker Plate’ Stamp all over the ‘Dude’ paper using the Kaisercraft ‘Hot Pink’ Mini Ink Pad making sure that I kept the effect quite light and random. I then used the Botanical Stamp and the Kaisercraft ‘Black’ Mini Ink Pad and again stamped over the paper. The Botanical Stamp is one of my favourite Kaisercraft Stamps, the detail in this little stamp is gorgeous, I love the Butterflies and and tiny script writing.

I decided not to cut out all the Tiny Pen holes – I left the top right hand corner ones uncut because I wanted to add some more detail there with another stamp. I used the ‘Cherish’ Vintage Stamp in the corner, stamped on the ‘Dude’ paper then again on a spare piece of the paper and cut out some bits to get a layered effect. I also stamped and cut out extra Butterflies to add dimension around some of the pen holes. Again I then splattered with the Hot pink paint and added a few Hot pink Rhinestones. I also stamped the Botanical Stamp on the Drawer and on top of the unit. To finish off the drawer I added a Tim Holtz ‘Label Pull’ and I used the Hot pink ink pad around the edges of the unit and the pen holes.

Here’s a list of the items I used that are available from the Merly Impressions shop:

• Kaisercraft Beyond-the-Page Marker Pen Storage Unit
• Dude 12×12 paper from the Attitude collection
• Rebel 12×12 paper from the Attitude collection
• Checker Plate Texture Clear stamp
• Botanical Timeless Clear Stamp
• Cherish Vintage Clear Stamp
• Kaisercolor Hot Pink Acrylic Paint
• Kaisercraft Hot Pink Mini Ink Pad
• Kaisercraft Black Mini Ink Pad
• Tim Holtz Label Pulls

I hope you like my Marker Storage Unit.

Happy Crafting!!
Chrissy xXx

I’m back with my final piece of this month and for this piece I chose to use one of the Beyond The Page products, together with papers and elements from the Save The Date collection.

To begin with I painted the bare frame using a cream acrylic paint, I then painted over the cream with a pale blue paint and once dry sanded back random areas on the frame to reveal the colour underneath.

On the background of the frame I used both the patterned sides of the Pinwheel paper.

I added a photograph and die cuts from the Collectables pack to complete the project and finally, added a top coat of sealant to protect the frame.

For this Beyond The Page project, these are the items I used:

• Pinwheel 12” x 12” paper from Save The Date Collection
• Beyond The Page Filmstrip Frame
• Save The Date Collectables Pack
• Sew Easy Bakers Twine in Yellow

Thanks for taking the time to look and see you all again soon!

Emma xx

Hi everyone! It’s Emma and I’m back with another project, using papers from the Fine and Sunny collection. This time, I thought I’d make something a little bit special and perfect for a new home or a wedding gift…I hope you like it!

I was so excited to start work on this Beyond The Page Birdhouse and once I’d started my imagination just took over and I had so much fun with this project and I’m sure you will too.
So, what did I do?

The birdhouse itself is so easy to put together, you don’t have to be Einstein…I promise, and all you need is a strong adhesive or Glossy Accents to hold it in place. To begin with I painted all the edges, the base and the perch of the birdhouse, that wouldn’t be covered by any paper with a white acrylic paint. I then covered each of the upright wall panels, using the reverse side of the striped Rainbow 12 x 12″ paper. I recommend that you do all the painting and covering of the panels before you construct the birdhouse…it is a lot easier! I added the pink gloss paper from the paper pad to the roof, before adhering it into place on the top of the birdhouse.

Once all the adhesives are dry and the birdhouse was constructed, I then started decorating it using ribbons, flower blooms and some of the Tim Holtz Idea-ology Corked Vials, which I made into little empty milk bottles, wrapped with Bakers Twine and ready for collection, complete with a message tag ready for the milkman! I finally added a Word Band to complete the front of the house.

Of course, no house is complete without it’s owners, so…I added some bird decorations that I had left over from Christmas and adhered these into place!

So, I hope this has inspired you to have a go at one of the fabulous Beyond The Page products and whether you choose to make them as a gift for someone special, or just as decoration for yourself, I’m sure you’ll have as much fun creating them, as I did!!

Bye for now and see you soon with some more projects…

Emma xx

Hello everybody! I am here with my first ever “Beyond the Page” project! When I opened my fantastic goody box and saw the Kaisercraft Angel I decided to try and think of an original way of using it.

You see, every time I’ve seen an angel being used for home decor in the past, it was around the festive times of Christmas and let’s be honest, I am not really in a “Ho Ho Ho’” mood just yet! So I thought, how could I use this Kaisercraft Beyond-the-Page Angel so that I can keep it around the house all year ’round?

Well “Angel” led me to think of Cupid and that led me to think of that strip of photos I had of Iain and me. It was perfect too as I had in the same box the gorgeous Sweet Nothings paper pad in which was a sheet of super cute little Cupids!!! I mixed it up with some leftovers of the NSW sheet for the bottom “skirt” and the WA sheet for the wings from the Great Southern Land collection.

I am always amazed at how easy it is to mix up the Kaisercraft collections even though they don’t have anything in common to start with! A few flowers, a bit of lace and some gems to finish it all off and now this angel is proudly sitting above our television in the lounge!

I hope I inspired you to look at your BTP in a new light!

Emilie

As some of you already know we attended the a retreat last weekend (March 30th) as the resident shop. There were six Kaisercraft projects included in the retreat. Each delegate had what they needed to complete them although many of the ladies decided to purchase different papers and embellishments and make the projects their own. Some of the results were truly stunning.

One of the retreat projects was the Kaisercraft BTP Memo Board so I decided to make my own version of it. I actually started this at our last Merly Crop and finished it in time to have on display at the retreat. Below is my Memo Board… still loving March’s Tigerlilly collection so I decided to use that – I do love my Butterflies!

Below are some photo’s of all the beautiful projects that were completed at the retreat. We had a fabulous weekend and it was lovely to finally meet some of our lovely customers.

Enjoy & happy Kaisercrafting!

Chrissy xXx

It’s always exciting to see how other crafters and scrapbookers use Kaisercraft’s fabulous products and we were especially excited when we saw these stunning projects completed by Emma Williams.

We asked Emma to create something beautiful using Kaisercraft products and her first project was a stunning Beyond-the-Page Handbag Tidy decorated with papers from Kaisercraft’s Miss Nelly collection. You can find out more about how she made this on her blog.

Her second project was a fabulous layout using the Her Voice die cut paper and Printed Chipboard from the Miss Nelly collection. You can find more details of Emma’s layout over on her blog.

Emma will be working with Kaisercraft products again in the near future but in the meantime, you can visit Emma’s Blog, That’s Life, to see more of her work.

One of the latest additions to Kaisercraft’s Beyond-the-Page product line is their fabulous 25 Drawer Treasure Chest. It makes a really useful storage unit but I decided to decorate one to create a beautifully extravagant Advent Calendar.

I painted all the MDF parts of the 25 Drawer Treasure Chest with Kaisercolor Acrylic White paint before assembling them. I decided to give it a slightly whitewashed look by applying thin coats of paint (although, due to the large size of the chest, it still needed two tubes of paint). I assembled the MDF and glued it with EvoStik Wood Glue and then covered the sides and top with pieces of Bazzill White cardstock (which covers the visible parts of the joints) and decorated with Silly Season Rub-ons.

The drawers are made in a similar way to the smaller drawers of the Kaisercraft BTP Advent Calendar (see step 12 in our previous post for details) but I used the Silly Season papers and covered the drawer fronts in squares from the Milk & Cookies and Gingerbread papers. I then finished the edges of the drawers with a White Paint Dabber and a few rhinestones. The chipboard numbers are supplied with the Treasure Chest – I painted them with the Paint Dabber and applied Crystal Lacquer.

On top of the chest I created a Reindeer and Sleigh scene using some of Kaisercraft’s latest Wood Flourish designs. I filled the Sleigh will presents cut from the Presents Foil paper and decorated the Reindeer with a Flourish Background Stamp and some Hot Pink Rhinestones and used an old necklace as reins.

I hope you like my large size Silly Season themed Advent  Calendar – it was great fun to make is a nice contrast to the vintage looking Advent Calendar in my earlier post.

In part 1 of this post we outlined how we painted and assembled the Kaisercraft Advent Calendar. In this post we describe how we decorated the Advent Calendar with the recently released December 25th collection from Kaisercraft.

You can, of course, use a wide range of different papers to decorate your Kaisercraft Advent Calendar but I wanted to give it a vintage feel to match the photo I planned to use at it’s centre. As described in the previous post, I had already covered the drawers with papers from Kaisercraft’s December 25th Collection and painted the whole calendar in Kaisercolor Raw Umber paint. This post continues from that point.

1. I started by applying a little gold paint around the front edges of the drawers using a Ranger Acrylic Paint Dabber. This gives them a slightly distressed, vintage effect and adds a little sparkle at the same time. I printed out the numbers 1 to 24 on a colour printer and glued them to the front of the drawers before applying some Crystal Lacquer to give them shine. 
2. I decorated the outside edges of the calendar with strips cut from the reverse of the Wish paper (P719) from the December 25th collection. The calendar is just slightly longer than the paper so small corner pieces are needed to fill the gaps. I also cut some “wrought iron” corners from Pinecone Bazzill Cardstock using the Cricut Expression and the “Ornamental Iron 2″ cartridge to further decorate the corners. Then I used the Gold Paint Dabber again to add some sparkle to all the front edges of the calendar.
3. I decided to decorate the centre of the Advent Calendar with a Christmas photograph from the past. I started by cutting a piece of the Noel paper (P718) slightly smaller than the central area, distressing the edges and colouring them with the Paint Dabber. I mounted it in the centre of the calendar and layered on a square of the reverse of the Wish paper and then the photo (printed in sepia tone). The date plaque is a Kaisercraft Square Bookplate Wood Flourish (FL332) coloured with a Brown Ink Pad and distressed with the Gold Paint Dabber. The date itself is printed on a colour printer onto a scrap of the Wish paper.
4. The present decoration in front of the photo is a ScrapFX Present Corner Chipboard Shape (2009278C). The presents have been decorated with scraps of paper, coloured with Ink Pads and embellished with coordinating December 25th Jewels. The ribbon scroll is coloured with a Lipstick Ink Pad and then Red KindyGlitz Glitter Glue. The Chipboard Shape is glued to the corner of the calendar using Crystal Lacquer as a glue.

I hope you like the end result and it inspires you to create your own unique version of the Advent Calendar. Oh, and in case you are wondering, the little girl with the brand new doll on her lap in the middle of the photo is indeed me. Every time I look at the photo it makes me smile – and I think that’s what any Christmas decoration should be all about !

Chrissy xx

We’ve had a few requests from customers to provide instructions on the best way to make the Kaisercraft Advent Calendar so we’ve painted and assembled one and written this (rather long) post – hopefully you will find it of use.

Actually, this is the first of two posts on this subject – this one describes how we have assembled the main part of the Calendar and drawers. The next post describes how we decorated it.

There are probably other ways to assemble the Advent Calendar but what we’ve written below certainly works for us. If you have any further suggestions please feel free to get in touch.

1. Once unpacked the Kaisercraft Advent Calendar will contain one sheet of chipboard numbers, 25 chipboard drawers (24 for the calendar and one spare), a large MDF base (or back) board and a number of other MDF parts as shown in the picture below. The two parts marked A below are joined by tabs and are 32.6cm long – just a few millimetres longer than the four parts marked B which are 32cm long. There are two shorter parts marked C and 20 parts marked E (joined into two sheets of 10).
2. We would recommend that the parts are painted before they are separated since they are much easier to hold that way. If you are using Kaisercolor Acrylic Paint then, for dark colours, you will probably need to apply only two coats while lighter colours such as white may need three coats. You should not paint the tabs since they will then be more difficult to insert into their respective slots. The part marked D on the picture only needs its edges painted while all other parts should be painted on both sides (although, as mentioned, tabs should be avoided). The picture below shows the same parts after painting.
3. The backboard is also best painted at this stage. You should paint all around the edges but you do not need to paint the back or the centre if you intend to cover it with paper. Try to avoid getting paint inside the slots in the board since it will make assembly more difficult.
4. The best way we have found to separate the tabbed parts is using the Tim Holtz scissors but you can also use a strong, sharp craft knife (in which case it’s best to make a V-shaped cut from one side and gently separate the pieces). Tidy up the cut edges, especially on either side of each of the small pieces (marked E on the image), using a sharp knife or a file.
5. We’ve found that the tabs can sometimes be very tight to assemble – they are tight fit to start with and, unfortunately, the paint can cause the MDF to swell slightly making them even tighter. We would recommend using a sharp knife or file along each side of each tab to make them into a wedge shape (as shown in the picture below) – this makes them much easier to put together.
6. The next image shows the painted back board and indicates where each tabbed piece goes on the board. Place the back board flat on a strong desk or table and insert the tabbed parts carefully before pushing them home firmly. You may need to place a piece of scrap wood (or something like a strong coaster) on the top edge of the parts to push them home (but make sure you don’t push them over sideways and break the tabs). We would recommend assembling parts C (marked in yellow) first, followed by parts B (marked in green) and then parts A (marked in red).
7. The small tabbed parts (E) should be inserted after A, B and C. Again, place the back board on a firm surface and push the parts in firmly using a scrap piece of wood if necessary, making sure that they are all aligned vertically and the individual gaps for the drawers are all the same size.
8. If the tabs were particularly tight to assemble then glue may not be necessary. However, we would recommend that you apply a little wood glue or PVA glue to the back of each of the tabs to fix them permanently (and to the corners of the Calendar if necessary). We use Evo-Stik Wood Adhesive (available from Homebase) for this because it is very strong, dries clear and is extra fast acting to save time.
9. Because the back board is slightly larger than the main body of the Calendar, it may cause it to lean forward slightly. The part labeled D in the first picture can be glued to the front-bottom edge of the Calendar to correct this lean if required.
10. After gluing it may be necessary to touch-up some areas of paint (for example around the outside edges) – now is the time to do this. Once the main part of your Calendar is completed it should look something like the image below :
11. There are probably many ways to make the drawers for the Advent Calendar but the best way we have found is by sticking each corner of each drawer together with short strips of double-sided tape. The same tape can then be used later to stick the paper onto the drawers.
12. To cover each drawer you should cut a strip of paper the same height as the drawer and long enough to wrap around three sides plus a few millimetres at each side of the front. Squares to fit the front of each drawer can be cut from the specially designed Kaisercraft 12×12 papers (e.g. the Believe paper from the December 25th collection or the Milk & Cookies paper from the Silly Season collection) or from other papers of a suitable colour. To cut the finger hole into the square, turn it over and use the drawer as a template to mark the shape of the finger hole before cutting it out with a small pair of scissors (curved nail scissors work especially well).
13. The cover each drawer, remove the backing from the double-sided tape on the drawer, optionally use a glue stick to dab a little extra adhesive onto the chipboard and then wrap the paper around the drawer before sticking the square on the front. The next image shows each stage of this process.

At this stage you should have a fully assembled Calendar and 24 fully assembled drawers. From this point onwards there are many ways to decorate your Advent Calendar to make it unique. In the next post we’ll describe how we decorated ours.