Make a bookplate template, and you can use it again and again.  Books make wonderful gifts for teachers, birthdays, Mother’s Day and Father’s Day.  Adding a personalized touch always makes a gift more special.

I created a template using Chic Deco Frames & Stamps by Mujka Design Inc along with Free Digital Stamps Vases and Flowers by Cocoa Studio.

Step 1: I chose one of the elegant frames and opened it in Adobe Photoshop CS.  Next, I resized it to 3.5 inches x 3.5 inches, which will work well with a book cover.

Step 2: I chose one of the flowers in the free flower stamps set and added color to it.  I chose pink and green to color.  Item 1 in this picture shows the colors I chose.  Item 2 is the magic wand tool that I used to select the area to color.  Item 3 is the paint bucket tool, that I used for each color, to fill in the selected area with color.

Step3: I dropped the flower graphic onto the book plate frame. Then resized the graphic and rotated it to fit in the corner. Take a look at the graphic. I had both items open in Photoshop.  Then I dragged the flower onto the frame.  Once it was there, it was a little too big, so I used CTRL-T to size it down and then rotated it to be the angle that I wanted for the corner.  From there, I just moved it to the corner.

Step 4: Since my flower was the right size for the frame, I wanted to duplicate it and use it in the other corner of the frame.  To do this, I went to the layers section, right clicked on the layer I wanted to duplicate, pressed the right-click button on my mouse and chose the “duplicate layer” option.  Again, I dragged the flower to the corner and used CTRL-T to rotate the flower until I had it the way I wanted it.

From there I had my completed template.  I saved it with a file name I’ll recognize next time I need to personalize a book for someone.  If you look at the first graphic above, you can see that I filled the text into the template to dedicate some books to our elementary school to honor a fabulous teacher who is moving out of state at the end of the school year.  She loved them!

From Cupcake Cutiees

You can find Shrinky Dink or Shrink Plastic for Inkjets at any craft store or online. I got mine from Hobby Lobby. (Look in scrapbooking section also) Make sure you get the inkjet kind or you will have a mess.

Step 1
Find a fun clipart set that would make fab pendants from Mygrafico. I am using my Woodland Friends set!

Step Two
I made a blank project up and just put all different sizes and shapes of my woodland animals. These will shrink down to half its size. If you want a big pendant, I would make about a four inch design. You will get a nice two inch pendant.
Here is a picture of my owls and trees on a page.

Step Three
Print. Read the directions on your package for best results. Mine is set to transparency and you want to up the brightness. When these bake, they turn a lot darker. You will want to make them about forty percent brighter.

Step Four
Cut out and punch with a single paper punch. I like to cut around or use scrapbooking paper punches in circles.
You then need to use your single punch to make a hole for your split ring. I usually do it at the top of the head. It will get so small you won’t notice after baked!

Step Five
Bake as directed! When they are done out of the oven I like to put a flat heavy book on them. These will make them super flat. These turn into perfect little pendants.
(if they curl together or won’t flatten, take them out and let cool, then pop them back in the oven and they will flatten.)

Step Six
Coat with an acrylic spray or clear nail polish. I use Sally Hansen’s Hard as Nails with Nylon nail polish. It is amazing. Sounds weird but the stuff works amazing and never yellows or gives me problems with ink smudging!!

Step Seven
Add your split ring and you have the most FAB pendant!!

These would make great presents, party favors, or just fun for you!!