Memories Always-Forever Tuesday Techniques Challenge

Today I am hosting my first Tuesday Techniques Challenge over on Memories Always-Forever.

I thought I'd start out easy and pose a challenge to get reacquainted with your eyelets.

You know you have them! They're just stashed somewhere deep within your scrap area having been given up on a while back. The excuses? They're hard to set. The setter is too loud. They just plain fell out of vogue.

Well, thanks to the Crop-a-dile that so many of us have, eyelets are back IN, Baby, and they're easier than ever to set! (Yes, it's not just a great big hole punch!!!!)

Now, if you're not entirely familiar or comfortable with using your Crop-a-dile for eyelet setting, have no fear! I have a quick tutorial for you below. (And, note, for the challenge you don't have to use a Crop-a-dile to set your eyelets...any method is fine. Of course, you have to have SOMETHING to set your eyelets with...LOL! You know who you are, Miss D!!!)

Plus, there are so many cute, shaped eyelets out there on the market now, too, how can you resist them?? (Remember these cute camera eyelets I had on THIS CARD and THIS LAYOUT?)

For this layout, I've set quite a few traditional eyelets and a couple of star-shaped ones.

January 2011 issue

Details: Scenic Route paper; Heidi Swapp decorative tapes; Autumn Leaves alpha stamps; Stampin' Up! ink; Zig Milennium pen; Crop-a-dile Big Bite; unknown eyelets (See? They've been in my stash so long I have no idea where I got them! LOL); mesh vegetable sack.

Before I get to the Crop-a-dile tutorial let me talk a little bit about my layout.

Besides having made this for my MAF Tuesday Techniques Challenge, I also made it for a couple of other MAF challenges.

The design is based on a sketch challenge posed by LG HERE. The sketch:

And, many of the elements on the layout satisfy the parameters of Nicole's Use Your Stash Challenge HERE. You must complete your layout using the following things:

1. something found in nature - you can get creative with this one (mine is stars)

2. use the color orange somewhere on your LO (check!)

3. use something that is not typically used for scrapbooking (the red mesh is from a bag of tomatoes)

4. do some type of doodling on your page (I doodled a couple of swirls, in which I set some eyelets)

OK, so now I'm going to give you a mini-tutorial on how to set eyelets using your Crop-a-dile. I'm using the Big Bite in my sample but this works basically the same way with the original handheld version.

Here's the doodle I started out with.

For your punched holes, you want to start with the smallest setting, 1/8". If your eyelet doesn't fit through the hole you can always go back and punch it with the larger setting later.

(I apologize for the quality of my pics in this section. I just couldn't seem to get good close ups of the settings, but you can get the idea of what to use by the positioning of the slider.)

Positioning your punch over the area to punch is so easy with the Big Bite!

Next you want to move your slider all the way forward into the setting position:

And make sure the setter is on the right size settings. For the most part this is reasonably obvious...make sure the top setter is small (or big) enough to fit inside your eyelet and the bottom setter is also small (or big) enough to cradle and set it. If you go too big or too small, you risk smooshing or unevenly flattening your eyelet. For the standard size eyelet, the skinny top setting ("C") and the small bump on the bottom are best ("3"). (The letter and number refer to the miniscule character in the corner of each setter. They're practically impossible to read.) (Here's where I caution you to do a few practice runs before setting directly onto your project.)

Next you position your eyelet into your punched hole, guide it into the setter making sure it fits down into the eyelet hole, and then depress the handle firmly to set. Voila! Easy to set and virtually soundless.

To set eyelets that don't have holes (such as the star ones I used), change the top setting to the completely flat one ("B"). The bottom setting is determined by the size of the eyelet stem.

So, now, let me see your work! I'm looking for your best layouts containing eyelets. Get CREATIVE!!

Post them to the MAF gallery and then post your gallery pic HERE.

This challenge will run until 11:59 pm (EST) Monday, August 17. Then, join me on Tuesday, August 18 for the next installment of Tuesday Techniques. There will be a monthly prize for the Tuesday Techniques Challenge. To be eligible, you must have entered both of the month's challenges. (The challenge is open to everyone but regrettably at this time prizes cannot be shipped outside the contiguous 48 United States.)

Hope you enjoyed my tutorial and I hope to see you participate in my challenge!

Have a great Tuesday!!

Heidi