Ink & Inspiration Blog Hop ~ Focus on Tools

Welcome to this month’s edition of the Ink & Inspiration Blog Hop or IIBH as we affectionately refer to it.

You are currently visiting my little corner of the interwebs. My name is Joanne Cantrell and I live in a tiny little town in the middle of nowhere almost smack dab in the middle of the United States.

Our focus this month is on TOOLS! Yes, you heard that right, folks!

TOOLS!

Where would we be without our favorite tools? I don’t want to even think about it!

How many of you are ready for the new Cut & Emboss Machine coming in the next couple months? August 4 cannot get here soon enough. This is the date that Demonstrators around the world get their chance to order the large machine for the very first time. As customers, you can order it starting September 1. What better reason to sign up to be a demonstrator? If you would like to join my team, just click on JOIN TEAM link above.

Oh… back to tools.

Do you know what my favorite tool is?

Here’s a hint…

Yep, that’s little Successful Sammy – the world famous meme baby. Of course he’s almost a teenager now, but the point is… SCORE!

Have you guessed it?

My favorite tool is the SCOREBOARD!

It’s really great when you need to keep score.

Oh… yeah… it’s not that type of scoreboard. It’s the best type. The type you can use to score your Stampin’ Up! cardstocks and designer series papers. Technically it’s called SIMPLY SCORED (#122334) and is a great low cost investment.

Let’s be honest. How many of you use your Paper Trimmer to score your cards. That really is a great tool to have as well. But, the Simply Scored Scoreboard is really for so much more.

How much more?

Let me show you a few of my favorite uses beyond the scoring of a card fold.

#1. BOXES

This tool is perfect for creating all types of boxes. You can score whole pieces of DSP because this board is just over 12″ x 12″

Here are a few of the boxes I have created with it.

This box was inspired by Sam Drummond. It was made with Seafoam Spray and Whisper White Cardstock. The images are from the Basket of Blooms Stamp Set and stamped in Seaside Spray, Sahara Sand, and Misty Moonlight. The flowers were punched out use the Small Blossom Punch.

This is just your basic box and lid. Here, I used Pretty Peacock and Crumb Cake. I didn’t do any stamping on the box at all. I added interest by tying a length of the Pretty Peacock 1/2″ Scalloped Linen Ribbon round the lid. I added the bow separately.

How about this cute little Hershey Nugget Holder? It holds 10 Nuggets. For this fun, primary colored box, I chose Pacific Point, Real Red, and Daffodil Delight as my color scheme. The images and sentiment are from the new Zoo Globe Stamp Set. and, I used the Balloon Bouquet punch and Linen Thread for the balloons.

The great thing about the Simply Scored tool is that you can score a full sheet of DSP to create a gorgeous box that doesn’t need any stamping or anything. For this Ornate Garden inspired box, I just added a some ribbon and a rosette.

Speaking of Rosettes…

#2. ROSETTES

The Simply Scored tool is the best for making rosettes to any size because there are score tracks every 1/8″ for 12 inches! That’s a lot of scoring. And, the little scoring pen it comes with had two ends – a bigger ball for lighter weight papers like DSP and a smaller ball for heavier weight papers like cardstock. This allows you to create sharp score lines without tearing through the paper.

In addition to the rosette above, I created this fun lollipop to accompany the Nugget Box.

For this rosette, I actually scored then layered three different widths of cardstock. Then, I used a thin line of Tombow to attach them together along the top edge. And, a hot glue gun is a must for rosettes as that it what helps hold it flat and works faster than Tombow.

#3. BANNERS

This is such a basic use for this scoreboard.. but one that may have escaped you until now. When used in tandem with the Banner Triple Punch, you can create all types of sentiment banners with great 3D effects.

Here is a simply banner I created.

I took a strip of Whisper White and stamped by sentiment on it. Then, I notched the ends using the Banner Triple Punch and took it to the scoreboard to do what… SCORE!!!

To make the banner pop up, you will need to make two score lines on both sides of the banner between the sentiment and the notch. For farther apart the score lines are, the higher the banner will be. For this one, my score lines are only 1/8″ apart.

While you can see I have not made anything with this banner yet, it will be attached using Dimensionals. The higher it sits, the more Dimensionals you may have to stack on top of each other to keep it lifted.

#4. TEXTURE

This tool is great at adding linear interest to card layers and card fronts. The possibilities are limitless. You can make plaids, argyles, lattices, stripes, diamonds, etc… You can make frames, backgrounds, and focal pieces.

See… look what I have done for you…

This is a Simply Scored Simple Stamping card! I just scored three lines down the side of the card front 1/8″ apart. The stamps used are from the new Fancy Phrases Stamp Set.

For this one, I scored diagonals 3/4″ apart then placed a Pearl Basic Jewel in nearly every crossing. And, the sentiment is actually hiding a place where I messed up the scoring when I put too much space between the lines. See, mistakes are actually places for embellishments! I also scored the white layer to create a frame.

Oh – here is the other banner I created! But, more importantly, look at all that cross hatching. I scored every 1/4″ along both the LONG and the SHORT side. It adds a prefect tiled look, don’t you think?

I have some other scored layers that I haven’t used yet. I was just having fun created scored layers from some of my scraps!

#5. FUN FOLDS

One of the best uses for this scoreboard is to make fancy fold cards and gift card holders. Because there is nothing better than giving someone a fancy shmancy birthday card or slipping a loaded gift card into a neat-o holder!

Let’s take a look at a double pocket card…

This was created using one sheet of Terracotta Tile cardstock and one piece of 5-1/4″ x 4″ piece of the Ornate Garden Designer Series Paper. I’m not sure what I am going to slip into the pockets yet, but it will be something good, I promise that.

I took the design a little step further and actually created a card out of it but forgot to take a photo of the inside. To do this, I used a thin line of Tombow on the pock layers to secure them.

This shows the cardstock after it has been scored and cut and ready to glue. It also shows you my sneaky trick to scoring diagonally. I use a 6″ right triangle that I cut from the cardboard that comes with the foil sheets. I have added tick marks at the score lines so I know where they are.

Well, I hope these ideas encourage you to take another look at that tool that has been sitting unused on your crafting table for such a long time. It’s lonely and you need to give it a little love.

But, before you run off to SCORE!… take a look at what the others have to offer for your creative genius today.

Until next time… keep it simple, Stampers!

🙂 Joanne

3 thoughts on “Ink & Inspiration Blog Hop ~ Focus on Tools

  1. WOW! Great post Joanne! I always forgot to use my scoreboard but it was one of the first tools I owned – I might need to get it back out again after seeing all your amazing work!

  2. No wonder that’s your favorite meme!!! #boymomlove Amazing inspirations and reasons I need to use mine more!!! It’s always a pleasure to be inspired by you, Joanne.

  3. Wow Joanne! You have reminded me what a fabulous tool our Scoring Board is. Thanks for all the wonderful inspiration x

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