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"Gingersnap Creations" - 5 new articles

1. November Home Page Art - Part Deux
2. Cooking Up an Accordian Album
3. Redhead Review: Cookbooking
4. You Deserve the Best Day Ever
5. GC31: Color Challenge - Monochromatic
6. More Recent Articles
7. Search Gingersnap Creations

November Home Page Art - Part Deux

At the beginning of the month, I told you that we had, once again, had a tie for Home Page Artist for November! It seems we have such talented and amazing Gingersnappers in our Yahoo Group that it is very hard to choose a winner!

Both our winning artists have graced our posts before, Lisa Somerville and Lynn Stevens, and we are very happy to have them both back!

A couple of weeks ago, I shared my interview with Lisa Somerville. Today, I want to share my conversation with Lynn Stevens!

Cooking Up an Accordian Album

Yesterday, I reviewed Cookbooking by Barbara Winkler and showed off a creation inspired by the projects in this fun book. Today, I would like to show you how I made it.

Materials Needed:

Fold the first piece in half and flatten edge with a bone folder.

Fold again in the opposite direction, making the open edge touch the middle fold and making a mountain fold to oppose the valley fold you just made. Repeat with other half of the paper and then repeat the entire process with the second piece of cardstock.

You should end up with two accordians that measure 6" x 3" when folded shut. Interlace the two accordians to create a larger album. I adhered the two sides together with a glue stick ensuring that I maintained the pattern of the folds.


Step 2: Create the Inner Panels

I cut 12 panels from the cardstock, 5.75" x 2.75" in size, from the cardstock. I used Jupiter Red Metallic and Emerald Metallic cardstock from PaperTemptress, cutting 6 of each color. I loved look of these two shimmering cardstocks. I then cut my designer paper, Wreath from Kaisercraft, into 4 strips of 12 x 3. I then cut these strips into 12 rectangles of 3.5" x 3". These pieces of paper make up the pockets for the recipe tags to sit in.

The Pocket

I like things that do not require a ton of measuring. To start, I put the paper face down on my work surface. You should be looking at the rectangle so that it is wider than it is tall. I then folded over the "top" edge to form lip, about 1/4" deep. Then I placed my cardstock panel approximately in the middle of the rectangle.



My next folds were to fold the desiger paper rectangle around the edges of the cardstock panel. I ran my bone folder over the edges to make them more crisp and then opened the folds up again. My next fold was to fold the "bottom" around the panel. Again, I smoothed the fold with a bone folder and opened up the folds again.


At this point, I took my scissors and snipped the corners off the bottom of the pocket so that it would sit nice and flat underneath the panel. Use the folds as a guide as to where to cut.



Voila, a pocket!! I applied the glue stick to the cardstock, set the pocket in place as it was when I folded the tabs. Next, I pressed the pocket tabs down into the glue to hold them flat. I then ran my bone folder over these tabs, further flattening them into the glue. Finally, I added more glue to the edges of the tabs and pressed the finished panel down onto the accordian album.

So that I did not need to measure every single pocket, I simply lined up the one I was working on with a completed one before doing the final bottom fold.

Once, I had glued down all the panels, I created two panels from a third carstock to be used on the front and back cover of the book. My base paper for the covers was a wonderful leather-look paper called Cordovan Leather from the PaperTemptress. The texture is subtle but very attractive.


Step 3: Create the Recipe Tags

For this part of the album, I used simple shipping tags. They matched the light tan I had chosen for the base cardstock and the accent color in the flourishes on the designer paper.

I gathered up my Old Paper, Tea-Dye, Fired Brick and Pine Needles Distress inks from Ranger. I used the Old Paper ink and the ATC collages from the Holiday Collections set and an element from the Reindeer Flight set - all Stampers Anonymous - to create a subtle pattern on one side of each tag. To this pattern, I added a tea-dye flourish (from the Take Flight set), green trees and red snowflakes (both from the Reindeer Flight set) to create a simple color collage. I finished off each tag with a piece of ribbon.

For the other side of the tag, I stamped a reindeer image, also from Stampers Anonymous' Reindeer Flight set, in Tea-Dye distress ink.

Step 4: Adding the Recipes

I created a word processing document with a landscape orientation and 3 vertical columns. I the typed my selected recipes into this format, one recipe per column. I printed these recipes on digital vellum paper from PaperTemptress. I particularly like this vellum because it is more opaque than other ones I have encountered and it can be printed on so easily. The opaque quality allows the writing on the paper to still be easily visible even if there is a pattern behind or, as I did here, stamping on the other side.

I stamped snowflakes and flourishes on the underside of the recipes. I then accordian-folded the recipes (what else?) and attached them to the backside of the tags with Tombo vellum adhesive. You can see the reindeer on the tag ever so slightly through the vellum and there's just a hint of snowflakes ad flourishes visible. A very pleasing effect!


Step 5: The Covers

As I mentioned, I chose an elegant burgundy leather-look paper, Cordovan Leather, from the PaperTemptress. I applied stickers (typewriter keys), dimensional embellishments (game piece letters) and some collage pieces from Crafty Secrets and Artchix. My final touch was to add a piece of gold ribbon which is adhered to one cover only (this is important if you ever want to open your album) with double-sided tape.




The whole thing was quite fun to put together and now I have a keepsake and a decoration for the upcoming holiday season! I hope you try this fun project, adding your own details and style!

Redhead Review: Cookbooking

Cookbooking by Barbara Winkler starts out with the declaration that it is "the delicious new way to scrapbook" right in the subtitle. When I started looking through the book, I definitely agreed. It is filled with lots of yummy layouts and plenty of scrumptious ideas.


The focus of the projects that Winkler, former executive editor of Family Circle magazine, demonstrates makes recipes rather than photographs the focal point of her scrapbooking efforts. That doesn't mean there aren't lots of photos too as wonderful pictures of family, friends and exotic locals do grace the pages of these delightful creations. Souveniers and memorabilia also fit easily into the many layouts shown.

These highly creative and decorative customized cookbooks recognize the central role that food has in our daily lives, family occassions, and world travels. Winkler has set the book up so that you can recreate the projects no matter your individual level of scrapbooking experience or expertise. Scrapbookers and stampers, from novice to advanced, will find something to spark their creativity between the pages. It is the inspirational ideas that I really enjoyed and the realization of how many different looks could be achieved using the projects as models.

Winkler shows us several different scrapbooking projects on a number of different themes including a travel journal, an album of heritage recipes, a handy guide to family favorites and a celebration of sweets. If you aren't into traditional albums, there are still lots of projects from which to choose. How about a funky kids' recipe box using foam dividers? An accordian album for drink recipes? Maybe a beautifully collaged tin for easy breakfast treats? Or a beautiful felt album to store holiday recipes?


I loved that the projects were shown as fully realized creations. Winkler takes you with her, through concept to completion. In each project, you will get information on the cover, the dividers, basic techniques, materials, sample layouts and finishing touches. She even includes a couple of her own recipes to whet your appetite. It is this practical step-by-step structure which makes this book so approachable.


I found the whole book fascinating and wanted to try all the projects! Alas, there is never time to play as much as we would like so instead I combined my favorite elements from a couple of projects. I loved the idea of a special cookbook just for holidays, but even on a good day my sewing skills are just not up to even the simple challenge of a felt album....besides I have no idea where my sewing machine currently resides.

I loved the ideas of pockets for holding the recipes from the holiday album layout so jotted that down in my idea book. I also loved the accordian album for beverage recipes so wanted to use that format for my new holiday recipe book. As accordian albums have lots of surfaces, I decided to create a unified look for all my recipes using tags. With 12 "pages" and 2 covers I had enough room for my favorite brunch, dinner, treats, and sweets recipes. While the project could be adapted to include many holidays, I decided to focus on just Christmas for this one.

I was pleased with how fast this project went together! I spent much more time picking recipes than I did making this fabulous little cookbook. Here's what I created:

I added collage pictures and dimensional stickers to the front cover.

Inside, the accordian pages used alternating red and green panels and some designer paper to create pockets for my recipe tags.

On the back of each stamped tag, I adhered a family holiday recipe which I had also accordian folded.

To finish up the project, I added another collage image to the back cover and some more stickers.

This book has many great projects that would make beautiful additions to any home and wonderful gifts for the holidays. I would recommend it to beginner scrapbookers and papercrafters as well as advanced paper artists. Approachable and informative, it is a great book to add to your shelf of papercrafting resources.

If you are interested in a step-by-step guide to how I created my holiday cookbook, come back and check out Gingersnap Creations tomorrow!

You Deserve the Best Day Ever

GC31: Color Challenge - Monochromatic

We are going to challenge your use of color this month! Our challenge is to make a creation which is

The Gingersnap Creations Design Team


Hels Sheridan



Jean Franks Beck


Erika Taylor



Joanne Wardle


A Visiting Artist from PaperTemptress

Anita Autore

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