The Ides of March...

With the Ides of March only a few days away, the snow is rapidly melting as we await a late winter storm.  Given the mild temperature it will be mostly rain.  This creates the perfect storm for wasting a day in the craft cave!

Ink pads are great for small endeavors; a quick card here and there, or for an afternoon's detail work while parked at the coffee shop.  But when planning a larger project, or a mass production of cards, I prefer the ink refill bottles dribbled on my pallet board.  It allows for SUPER easy blending, and clean edge stamping.  Mind you, this works best with pigment inks.  They won't dry out on your pallet board for weeks.  Seriously, I've left ink exposed on my boards for months.  Of course if I don't hide it on a shelf or put it in a drawer, Pye gets into the action and I get her version of artwork all over creation.  Its a good thing this stuff is non-toxic...  She's lucky she's cute

The background piece of the finished card starts out as a plain sheet of 8.5x11 card stock.  I like to use either white or ivory Stardust.  I buy it by the ream from Office Max when they send out those paper bags in the Sunday paper.  Anything you can stick in the bag is X% off.  You can fit quite a few reams of paper in those bags. 

Choose your color pallet from your ink bottles.  The number you pick is only limited by the number of clean brayers you have.  Here's a tip.  When you buy an ink pad, buy the refill bottle with it.  Just because a pad gets dry doesn't mean it's not still good.  If you have the refill bottles your ink pads can last for years.  I've had most of mine for 10+ years.  The only reason I've thrown them out is if they get ratty and start shedding their foam or fabric on my projects. 

Dribble your colors onto your pallet. You only need about 4-6 drops per color.  I use small brayers so I space my dribbles just wider than the brayer.  Run a brayer through each of the puddles a few times back and forth to coat it.  Choose the lightest color first and start rolling it on the paper.  Alternate directions and colors until you like what you see. You can add back in lighter accents if you lost it all during the process.  No problem. 

I save the darkest colors for adding the stamped details.  In this case I used a 4-leaf clover.  Tap it onto the pallet board to ink it and then tap it onto the paper, repeat as often as you want.  Maybe add another color to the board that has some shimmer in it and stamp away.  You can see the pallet board below after I'm done.  The colors have blended to create ever different shades than what you started with.  Yes, you should line your work surface with something disposable as you will be inking off the edge of you page.

The embossing powder in the picture was used on the leprechaun's hat in the finished product.



After it's dry, I cut up the page to create the accent pieces for the card's background.  This is what it looks like, dry and cut.  You can encourage it to dry with your heat gun.  Or you can let it sit for a few hours.  When pigment ink is applied to paper, it will dry, albeit slowly.  The pallet board does not allow the ink to penetrate so it stays wet on the board. 



The horse shoe (below) is the first cut I did from the Cricut Craft Room, a thing I've been blogging about in previous posts.  I've been updating those posts as I learn more, so if you are a Cricut owner, you may want to re-read them. 

The inside of the card was stamped using the ink from the pallet board and various themed stamps from my collection.  I punched a four-leaf clover from green glitter paper left over from Christmas.  That's a Martha Stewart punch.  Click any image to embiggen for details. 

Happy St. Pat's, people! - AMK

 

Wash Me and Put Me Away!

Here's another of my tips on organization.  I've just about come to my wit's end with Halloween cards and the aftermath is all over the craft room.  One of the things I do so that I don't lose track of all the stamps and their packaging is designate this cardboard bin as the "Wash Me" bin.  I've never been one to do things until they reach critical mass, so this suits me well.  When the bin is full I bring it downstairs to the kitchen.  All the acrylic blocks go into the dishwasher.  All the cling stamps get dropped into a warm sudsy bath and then laid out on a cooling rack until dry.  Galvanized rubber gets a wash using my trusty Stampin' Up! scrubbing pad.  When it's all clean, they all go back into their packaging and back into their drawers upstairs.

Similarly, I don't like to put my new stuff away right away.  When I bought it, I had an idea in my head.  If I put it away too soon, then I forget.  Therefore, the "Put Me Away" bin was born.  Also - I have developed a die cut library - an index of all the dies I own.  As they come in, they sit in the bin until they get added to the index.  The index keeps me from buying things twice.  The index is also a huge pain in the ass to keep updated, but it serves a purpose, so I do it.

Stamping and Scrapping Sites - Links and Reviews

Hi All - below is a table of my go-to online shopping sites when I need something or just need a fix.  There are a plethora of other sites out there, but these are ones I frequent the most.  I've 'Friended' some of them on FB and to do so means you get project updates as well as sales updates.  I have no really good reason why I have not 'Friended' them all except that I am lazy.  It could be they are not on FB, but that would be hard to imagine.  These are in no particular order. 

I would love to hear if you have a favorite site.  Leave a comment to share the link. 

Enjoy! - AMK

Site Name	Pricing	Selection	Ease of Use	Best Thing	Worst Thing
ScrapyLand.com	Always Discounted	Extensive	The site is ok - but the search feature could be enhanced.	New products are available for pre-order at a discount!  Sign up to get coupons and sales notifications sent to you.  This sight sells items that are normally only available from European Sites.	The site name is spelled wrong on purpose.  Don't be fooled if you type in Scrappyland.com (w/ 2 p's).
StampyLand.com	Always Discounted	Just Ok but growing every day.	The site is ok - but the search feature could be enhanced.	Free Shipping all the time	Your ScrapyLand account does not work here.  You have to sign up again.
OhMyCrafts.com	Always a Coupon	Extensive - but popular items are out of stock fast.	This site needs an update.  Clunky, but usable.	Sign up and get emails with discount coupons almost every day.	Clunky navigation of the site.
Micheals.com	Variable based on Sales	Limited	Good	Your repeat buy stuff is usually available when you need it.	They only add new products 2-3 times a year.
Joann.com	Variable based on Sales	Limited	Good	Sign up and get emails with discount coupons.  The online only deals are usally hard to pass up.	They are not as bad as Michaels with adding new products, but they are still slow compared to the other stores.
AddictedtoRubber Stamps.com	Usually full price	Limited but they say they are growing	Very Good - the standard by which all others are measured.	This is a new owner for an old stand by site.  If they get their inventory back to where the original addicted was, this will be the place to find any stamp you may need.	The new owners did not retain your previous account status.
Scrapbooking.com	Variable based on Sales	Extensive	Very Good - the standard by which all others are measured.	Selection is HUGE here.  New stuff is coming in every day and available fast.  Sales are usually generous.	Not a lot of email coming out of this site to let you know about the sales.  You'll have to visit often to see what's happening.

A creative process - Halloween 101

Pictured below is the start of my Halloween card creative process.  I started by cleaning the room.  Let's face it, it needed a good cleaning.  Everytime I do that, more stuff winds up in the rummage sale pile.  Fine by me.  Out with the old, in with the new!  And, yes, there is new stuff arriving every day.  Someday soon I will blog about all the sites I like to buy from and my thoughts about each. 

I should note that everything you see layed out on the floor below is all from my historical arsenal of Halloween stuff.  None of it is new this year.  Oh, wait.  I take that back, the Unlucky 13 set is one of those Unity sets I spoke about in my last post.  But that's it.  I really wanted to use up all this stuff before I started restocking.  Fingers crossed, I think this year will do the trick. 

The theme of each card is usually the first thing I settle on.  For example, if someone says, 'I've got my eye on you'; put that in a Halloween context and what comes to mind?  Exactly!  Creapy eyeballs glowing in field of blackness, right?  Now all I have to do is find the right images, paper and embellishments to make it real.  That's how I got to the 13 piles of soon to be cards you see below.    

I'll make multiples of each style until the paper is used up.  One goes in the shoebox to pull out when magazines put out a call.  One goes in the 'My Work' acid free storage box for posterity.  All the others are either sold or sent. 

Is this how you do it?  I'm curious to find out how other creative minds work.

Enjoy! - AMK

Unity Stamps - Breaking all the rules

I've been collecting a number of images from Unity Stamps in the last year or so.  They were one of the companies at this year's Expo here in Milwaukee.  And, if you have not yet 'friended' them on Facebook, you missed out on a SWEET Facebook promotion they did in August - 40% off your entire order.  Needless to say, I bought another boat-load.  I picked up Bella Trees at the Expo and have been waiting until Fall to bring them out to front and center. 

Thumbing though my unseemly amount of paper, I happend across an 8x8 pack by Carolyn Gavin from K&Co, that to look at, does not even whisper fall, with it's bright, hot pinks and teals with lime green and dark brown accents.  Yet the images on some of the papers were the perfect foil for these funky trees in the Bella Tree set.  And, when I found acorns on the reverse side of one of them, well, I've never been one to look a gift horse in the mouth!

Breaking all the rules is part of the fun.

Here are two of what will likely be a double handfull when I finish with this set.  I'll add more pix under this post as they emerge.  Join the blog to get updates, so you don't miss anything.