Jenna Beegle's Punchline- February 1999

Welcome to the new monthly Punch Art section of TSIN. My name is Jenna Beegle, known to some as Scrap Lady, and I'll be responsible for most of the ideas you'll be seeing here each month. Each month, we'll change the theme of the punch art so there's always something new. But don't worry - the old ideas will always be available in TSIN's archive. If you use any of these ideas in your own books, we'd love to see your pages. Submit them and Jennia will get them up here to share with the other scrappers. And we'll also have other punch artists contributing their ideas. I think this is going to be a lot of fun! Be sure to keep an eye out for the new Hot Off the Press Book "Making Wonderful Scrapbook Pages" which Jenna contributed to.

For this month, I wanted to show you something that will give you a new use for your punches and a soft look that would be great for baby pages or Valentine's pages. Instead of using the punch itself, we're going to use the space left by the punch as a stencil. Then with rubber stamp ink, pen ink, or chalks, you can get a very nice effect. I use a small makeup sponge to apply the inks or chalks, but you could use a blender pen with the chalks or draw in the shape with your pen. Punch the shape out or a piece of sturdy scratch paper. Line the shape up where you want it on the page. Then using the sponge which has the ink on it, pound the sponge gently up and down over the shape. Remember if you use rubber stamp ink, you have to heat set the design (with a light bulb, toaster or heat tool) or at least let it dry overnight. Also, don't try to apply a very dark color all at once. It may take several coats. Remember, if you use any of these ideas, or if you have any ideas you'd like to share, send them in. We'd love to show them off.

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HEARTS: These hearts are done with a variety of heart punches placed randomly. It could replace die cuts or stickers easily. I used Zig Clean color markers.	STARS: If you used a gold ink, this would stand out on a dark cardstock. I used Zig Memory System markers here.	BRICKS: This design requires a little more planning. I punched a medium rectangle from scrap paper and inked the image with Color Box ink in Chianti. Be careful to stagger the bricks for a realistic effect.	LEAVES: Vary the colors you use in leaves for a more natural effect. I used Zig Clean Color and Memory System Markers to vary the leaves' coloring. If you know you want to punch a border like this, why not punch out more than one leaf from the scrap paper and make it easier to fill them in?
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BALLOONS: These balloons are simple and seem very light and free. You can make them very simply by stenciling and then drawing strings from them. Ink is Zig Clean Color.	TREES: Still not done with Christmas? These trees are from a medium tree punch, with a mini star at the top. You could even decorate them with dots of other colors. I drew the ground in with a Prismacolor pencil and the trees are inked with Color Box ink in Hunter Green	BUNNY BORDER: This border is done with chalks to make the soft blue border. The connecting lines are drawn with Prismacolor pencil, as are the green top and bottom lines. The lines define the border and contribute to the sense of motion.	TIGGER: This border moves as much as Tigger does. Tigger is done with orange chalk and placed randomly across the page. The variations in height and spacing are connected with a drawn in dotted line and make the bounces more fun.
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BEARS: These bears were sponged on with Color Box Brown ink. The soft texture this leaves makes me think f a furry teddy bear. The faces are easy to draw on and you can make them have any expression you want. Maybe you can combine the bears with baloons, or with fall leaves, or alternate them with Christmas trees, or . . . you get the idea.	DAISY BORDER: This border starts with a green line drawn in Prismacolor pencil along a wavy ruler. Then I sponged on the chalk through a daisy punch at the same point on the wave across the page. Between them I did the same thing with a small daisy punch. It's soft and makes me wish spring was here!