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Printable Library Journaling Cards

linda — Wed, 28 Jul 2010 13:58:32 +0000

Another week, another wednesday and here’s another free printable! As I work on designs, sometimes there are extras left over that I offer as freebies on this blog. Other times it’s something I create for my own personal use. Here’s an example of something that I just wanted to make, just because library journaling cards have been all the rage. They seem to be popping up all over, in scrapbooking and paper crafting. Although it would be great to find vintage library cards to incorporate into your projects, it’s nice to have a supply that you could print out as well. So here you go…

Download Printable Library Journaling Cards PDF (188 kb)

Hope you will find them useful and don’t forget to check out all the freebies on this blog. Feel free to spread the word by linking back to this post but please remember that freebies are always for personal use and cannot be resold…they are meant to be free for all forever

Cute Little Owlie Illustration

linda — Tue, 20 Jul 2010 16:40:57 +0000

I’ve been doing a lot of planning lately and getting ready to reorganize and launch a bunch of work. During the process, I’ve also looked through my own blog posts and analyzed some of the categories. I was pleasantly surprised to realize the large amount of freebies I’ve already posted. Talk about time flying by and the entries piling up. That said, I also realized it’s been a while since I’ve posted a freebie, so comes another one.

Download Cute Little Owlie Illustration ZIP file (442 kb)

Here’s a cute little owlie illustration that you can download in full color or just outlines. You can print it out for kids to color in, as a digital stampf or cardmaking or to decorate any of your crafty projects. Remember that my freebies are for personal use – free for all to enjoy. I’ve had owls on the brain lately, hence the cute little owlie illustration you see above. I’m anxiously awaiting the grand opening of Owl Tree Studio – a digital scrapbooking kit club that I design for – super exciting!

Printable Suns or Flowers?

linda — Wed, 09 Jun 2010 12:09:31 +0000

Happy Wednesday to everyone! Today I was playing around with drawing a sun for the cover of a mini scrapbook project and ended up with a bunch of versions. I think that it’s always a good creative exercise to do multiple versions of something. It’s my way of experimenting with multiple options and seeing how little changes effect the end result. Either way it’s just fun! I always end up with something quite different from my original idea as well. It’s a great way to play-storm… like brainstorm you know? Of course, now I really can’t decide which one I like the best. Perhaps I can combine them in some way? It seems I am never bored drawing the sun. I’ve noticed that I morph it into a flower oftentimes. Are they suns or flowers?

Download Suns or Flowers Printable PDF

Whether they be suns or flowers or suns dressed up as flowers or vice versa – I hope you can use them in your personal crafting projects. Feel free to download the PDF above with all the variations and let me know what you think. Hopefully I can share my little book project with you as well… ciao ciao for now.

Some inspiration and sneak peeks…

linda — Mon, 31 May 2010 13:21:34 +0000

Happy Monday to everyone! Here in Italy we actually have a holiday on June 2nd, Festival of the Republic. My husband and I will be on a little getaway, thus I will be taking a break from blogging this whole week. In the meantime, let me leave with a bit of inspiration and sneak peeks to keep your creative minds buzzing. First, I would like to share some of my mixed media artwork as printable collage tiles. You can incorporate them into your art, journaling and crafts…

Download Fortuna Collage Tiles PDF

I’ve posted about these mixed media works before and I actually played around with them digitally… but in the end went straight on with black marker. I’ve had them sitting around for a while and finally scanned them in to print as papers. I’m hoping they will provide inspiration for your own creative endeavors. Let me know if you find creative uses for them! I also wanted to share some views of ongoing projects…

Finally, I just wanted to let Mr. Little Turtle say hello to you all. Hope you have enjoyed the photos with a peek of what’s crowding my desk now. When I get back, I’ll be sure to share the details and hopefully a little tutorial of my process. Until next time…ciao ciao!

Printable Clock Graphics

linda — Wed, 26 May 2010 17:42:36 +0000

Happy hump day to all! I have a busy week working on pattern designs and of course doing my art journaling as always. I really wanted a clock image today, so decided to just whip up a few versions and see how I could incorporate them into my pages. I thought it would be lovely to share, in case you need a clock image yourself! So here are two versions, feel free to download the PDF and use for your personal projects.

Download the Printable Clock Graphics PDF

Let me know if you find the graphics useful…I would love to see how you use it as well. Enjoy! Ciao ciao!

Journaling Tags and Shapes to Cut Out

linda — Wed, 19 May 2010 13:20:34 +0000

Today I needed a quick shape template as a guide for cutting out some tag embellishments, so I opened up Illustrator to mock up a shape for printing. What began as a quick and easy shape suddenly turned into a discovery of all the preset brushes and decorative patterns in Illustrator. I was able to whip out a bunch of cool shapes in no time at all! Now my only problem is decided which one to use…hehe! I thought it would be cool to share with all of you, so here’s a PDF with all 3 pages of tags, blank and lined versions.

Download the Journaling Tags Frames to Cut PDF

Feel free to use in any of your personal projects and let me know if it’s useful to you. Journaling tags are often included in scrapbook pages, but you can also make altered decorative tags for gifts, use them in your art journal and add them to altered books. It’s always nice to have a slightly fancy shape to use rather than just a plain rectangle or circle. I don’t have a die-cut machine so I have to cut shapes out by hand. I find having a guide helps a lot, so that’s why I create them digitally to print out and cut or sometimes I use the print-out as a cutting guide on top of patterned paper. Hope you enjoy…ciao ciao!

Happy Bird-Day Card Design Printable

linda — Wed, 12 May 2010 17:52:06 +0000

This week has been full of computer-time and digital work for me, so when I needed to make a birthday card for a friend I naturally started with a digital design. With birds on the brain from my daily bird exercise, the phrase “bird-day” instead of “birthday” popped in my head. I decided to go with it and designed some pieces to print out, then put together for more tactile feel. I will be creating a nest for the birdie with strips of kraft paper on the front of the card. Who doesn’t love hybrid handmade, right? I thought I would share the graphics with all of you – perhaps it will be of use.

Download Happy Bird-Day Designs PDF

Feel free to use it in your personal projects and drop me a comment if you can share your finished project. I always like to see if my freebies are actually being used…hehe! The first page is for the front of the card and I created a second page for the inside panels as well. Happy hump day to all and until tomorrow…ciao ciao!

Telegram Journaling Design for My Minibook

linda — Wed, 05 May 2010 16:01:10 +0000

Another hump day and my list of to do’s is definitely piling up. Even with some pressing items, I just couldn’t help myself and started working on a scrapbooking mini album. Sometimes you just have to take a break, right? I recently discovered tissue paper roll minibooks and posted the beginnings of my obsession on BackToPaper.com – my papercrafting blog. A 3-inch by 4-inch book seems pretty small and easy to complete, but it actually takes quite a few steps from preparing the photo layout to embellishing. At one point I had to get on the computer and create a journaling design. I need lines to journal on because I can’t handwrite straight and the easiest thing is to design and print journaling tags at home! My design will go on the back of photo tags that slide into the flattened tissue paper rolls. My design idea is a vintage telegram look, but I can’t decide if I will print it with the old paper background or print on white paper and distress myself. Either way I thought it would be nice to share the design with all of you. Perhaps you will find a good use for them – collaging, art journaling or maybe a few tags like me.

Click on the images to download the hi-res JPGs (For some reason some people don’t see the images, so you can download the ZIP file here.) I would love to see what you create with them as well, feel free to post a comment. Here’s a peek of the my minibook in progress…wish me luck on getting it done, so perhaps I can finally get back to work!

Paper Dolls and Playing with Multiple Copies

linda — Wed, 28 Apr 2010 09:47:28 +0000

Happy hump day lovelies! Today I decided to revisit my paper doll template because I wanted to change up the proportions and create variations. I recently read a post on Violette’s blog about leveraging a drawing, reusing it multiple times or perhaps creating variations by making multiple copies to work with. I don’t know why, but previously I always thought I had to create everything from scratch. Somehow it seemed like the more original and artistic way to go. After noting the variety of ways each person creates their Art, I realized that it’s just crazy to limit myself like that. Why I am creating rules to box myself in…I mean…it makes me sad when I draw something and can’t work with it multiple times to experiment. I suppose the idea of copying – even if it’s yourself – seemed wrong. My thoughts suddenly drifted to discussions and debates about how nothing is original and we all build our work on top of those before us. That’s a whole other discussion of course.

Suffice to say, I sort of had an epiphany and have freed myself to do whatever I want. I can reuse my own drawings…I don’t have to work from scratch each and every time…why not?! It’s funny how sometimes we get so deep into our work that we lose sight of the big picture. I totally lost perspective regarding the freedom of creation and the fact that there are no rules. Whew…glad to get that out! So, all this led me to revisit my doll template, creating two different body proportions to play with. Feel free to download the PDF and use to your heart’s content – have fun with it! The first page is meant to but cut out and put together to make a moveable paper doll…the second page is just the outline to draw directly onto.

Download Paper Dolls PDF

I printed out my PDF and cut out the bigger doll to play with first. I realized that instead of using brads or sewing I could just piece together the parts with a bit of poster glue stuff. This way I can play with different body positions and trace over or just use it as a guide for drawing the body form…pretty cool! On the second page I drew a granny and a scary girl doll then made a photocopy. Now I can always have the original and experiment with just the copy…maybe I’ll make a few more copies too. Hope you are inspired to go make some paper dolls and copy your own Art – sounds funny, but sort of daring, right? Until tomorrow my blog friends, ciao ciao!

Spring Flowers Stationery Set – A Printable Freebie

linda — Wed, 07 Apr 2010 14:03:41 +0000

Today would probably be the ideal example day for living in the Tuscan hills of Italy – sunny warm and happy bright weather. It’s the scene I think folks probably picture in their minds when I say that I live in Tuscany. You can almost feel the warm sun on your skin, hearing the birds chirping and listening to the cool breeze rustling through the many hills of grassy green. Well, it is true and is one of the reasons why I fell in love with this place…but it actually isn’t idyllic year-round. Only during this time of year, when the signs of Spring start popping up and it isn’t too hot where the grass starts to turn brown – does it look like the postcards you often see. My mood is always elevated by this lovely weather. I was inspired to whip up a spring flowers stationery set and it’s also part of my attempts this month to write more by hand. It’s National Letter Writing month after all!

Spring Flowers Stationery Set Printable PDF (228 kb)

I hope my design will cheer you up a bit, wherever you are…wild flowers have been popping up all over our yard so I have flowers on the brain! Even though dandelions are supposed to be weeds, they can be pretty as well or at least that’s what I tell myself because they’ve taken over our yard. Plus our niece has lots of fun blowing them all over. BTW if you like printable stationery, don’t forget to download the Airmail Stationery Set from last week as well. Enjoy and happy day to everyone! Ciao Ciao!