I decided I needed to make some cards tonight. It was one of those times when nothing worked like I had planned it. I made so many horrible mistakes and my garbage can kept getting more and more full. I really didn’t want to give up on the things I was trying, but should have quit long before I did. I had some images that I originally really liked, but then I kept adding things to them and in the end, they look pretty terrible.
I’m one of those crafters that is really hard on myself. If I make a lot of mistakes, I just want to throw in the towel and close the door on my craft room until I’m feeling better about myself. I wonder if other crafters do that. I’d love to hear that Lindsay pouts like I do. I’ll bet she doesn’t. She probably just paints something amazing and makes that into a card. I need to get motivated. I think I’ll make a mini album instead of a card, as our great niece is going off to college, and I thought it would be fun for her to have an album to fill with freshman memorabilia. I still have my college albums and wish I could part with them, but just haven’t been able to. Oh well, it’s something else I can put off for another day.
I was asked by a viewer named Nancy for a video on different brands of dye inks and how they work. I stamped the dye inks on a red rubber lined image, a sentiment, and a filled in image, plus two acrylic stamps– one that is an outline of an apple and one that was the center of the apple. If you buy new stamps and they don’t accept the ink (it beads up on them), you should wash them in a very gentle detergent like diluted Dawn dishwashing detergent or baby shampoo. If the stamp still won’t accept ink, you can lightly, and I mean lightly, go over the stamp with a cardboard nail file. If you use it too aggressively, you’ll destroy your stamp.
Stamping–Pat the ink onto the stamp until the stamp is shiny with ink. You don’t want to wipe the ink pad on the stamp as it will show lines when inked. Pat it, don’t rub it… I stamped in the air because I wanted you to see the ink pad and how it reacts to stamping. You’ll stamp your ink pad by keeping the ink pad on your work surface and stamping onto it. As for using the stamp once it is inked, stamp it and hold it in place on the paper, giving the ink time to transfer to the paper. You’ll have much better results if you stamp with either a piece of foam under your paper or a phone book or magazine, something that will give you a cushion under your paper.
Storing ink pads. You should store your ink pads with the lid face down, so the ink doesn’t sink to the bottom, but instead, is laying at the top of the surface, and makes for a juicier stamping experience.
The stamps I used — one very old Stampin’ Up retired stamp, Hero Arts Daisy Style #3272 and the apples are from Stamps of Life, a set called Apples2Stamp. The “Let’s do Lunch” stamp was from a $1 bin from a Michaels or other craft store that I’ve had a long time ago.
1. I was at Michaels on July 21, 2017 and bought a jar of Recollections inks for $3.89. There are twelve 1″ cubes of dye inks in the “Mason Jar” from Recollections. Firm felt ink pad. I used the green ink and it worked well on the red rubber and the acrylic stamps. You would want to consider the size of the ink pad that you used based on the image you are stamping. If you use a small ink “cube” on a big apple, your ink pad will run out of ink quickly. You’d probably want to use this with other inks on a bigger stamp, or on smaller images or sentiments.
2, Distress Ink Twisted Citron SKU 789541043294, Joanns price $5.99 full price. Firm felt ink pad. I find that I have had to re-ink my Distress Inks, so you might want to buy re inkers if you have a color you like very much. Distress Inks come in the size I showed which is roughly 2″ x 2″ and the also sell the small cubes as well.
A lot of people don’t use Distress Inks to stamp with and use them more for techniques like distressing the edges of paper or using water on them to reactivate them. You can stamp with them though, and that’s why I’ve included them.
3. Hero Arts Shadow Ink Soft Stone SKU 029477611304, Joanns price $6.49 full price. Firm felt pad. Full size pad.
4. Ranger Electric Lime SKU 749541043877 Tupelo Designs LLC $3.49 full size pad. Jennifer McGuire used to really like these inks. They are mainly primary colors and they have a great everyday price. Tupelo Designs doesn’t charge shipping within the US.
Firm felt pad.
5. Gina K. Sweet Corn ginakdesigns.com $5.95 full size pad (sorry, no SKU) firm felt pad
6. Simon Says Stamp Willow SKU 029477808605 $5.99 at SimonSaysStamp.com. Firm felt pad, full size. I had the most difficult time removing this lid.
7. Prima Color Philosophy Sepia Color…full size but a little different shape and size than the others. SKU 655350589302 Blitzy $6.80 . firm felt pad.
8. Memento dew drop- SKU 712353247031 Joanns full price $1.99. You can buy these in sets of 3 or 12. Is shaped like a tear drop. firm felt pad. Great for inking small designs or using with other dew drops to color a large design.
9. Stampin’ Up- Pear Pizzazz foam pad. Very juicy when you first get them, you need to touch very lightly with your stamp so you don’t over ink your stamp.
Paper used- Georgia Pacific 110 lb. from Walmart. Pack of 150 $4.88 Great for layering
on cards but not great for the base of the card, as it is kind of flimsy.
I made the video for tie dye sneakers today and wow, that alcohol smell is powerful. I’m not kidding when I say powerful, Rich could smell it two rooms away from where I was coloring the sneakers. I would have liked to have colored them outside, but unfortunately, it’s difficult to get the right kind of lighting there for a video. I still have a small headache from coloring them, and really encourage viewers to color them outside. I had a fan running, plus all of the windows open, and still the smell was overwhelming. The things we do for our art, haha.
I have been encouraging viewers to go to our facebook page and add their projects. I’d love to have a more interactive form of media for viewers. I made a video where I talked about it and made sure to mention that I will not allow anyone to leave any kind of negative comments on facebook. I want this to be a safe place where viewers can share their ideas and projects, without having someone say negative things to them. I did explain that I knew going into YouTube that I could be receiving negative remarks and have set myself up for that, but viewers who share their projects on facebook did not sign up for that. I’m not going to let anyone be bullied on facebook on Crafting for Almost Everyone. Don’t we all need a place where we can share our art and ideas without having someone tell us why we shouldn’t?
Another day of my wrist not wanting to play, darn it. I usually just put a Ben-Gay type product and an Ace Bandage on it overnight, and my wrist is better the next day. Not so much today, but there’s always tomorrow.
Garage sales were really disappointing today, I bought a tiny box of pom poms to use with chalks and pastels and that was the extent of my purchases. Geez!
I did take the time to put a post on my facebook page, Crafting for Almost Everyone. I wanted to let people know that my goal for that page is to turn it into a place where viewers can share their projects and ideas, and make it much more interactive than the YouTube channel. I think it would be amazing if viewers would post their projects and talk about ideas and leave questions for the group about products, techniques, etc. I realize that there are a lot of places that are similar, but often those sites don’t have many people with hand/wrist issues that would be able to share their insights. It’s also really important to me that people have a safe place to share their projects and ideas. I’m hoping my viewers respond to it and use the facebook page as I intended. I’m going to make a video to discuss it as well and already I’ve had some great rrsponse. Time will tell.
I saw a video of a spinning fairy card by Olga Direktorenko and I thought it would be fun to try with butterflies. I started with an 8 1/2″ x 5 1/2″ pink card base scored on the 8 1/2″ length at 4 1/4″.
I used stamp sets from Stampin’ Up called Best of Butterflies that works with an old Stampin’ Up butterfly punch. I used Blushing Bride ink from Stampin’ Up that matched the pink paper and some pink paper that was pearlized. I had a scrap of it that I used two Aliexpress square dies to create a frame, then cut the smaller of the two frames to cut the center of the front of my card base. Using another Stampin’ Up set called Butterfly Basics, I used a fern from it to stamp with Blushing Bride ink all over the front of my card. I used a peg stamp that is called Tiny Open Apple and stamped around the ferns so there were more images on the front of the card and so it appears like patterned paper.
I used another scrap of the pearlized pink paper and a butterfly from the Best of Butterflies set and stamped the Blushing bride ink on it several time in the MISTI. Then I used a Stampin’ Up old marker called Rose Romance to make the butterfly look more dimensional by coloring the edges and center of the butterfly. You can use any water based marker on your stamps. If you make a spinning card, your image has to be exactly the same if you flip it over, as it can’t lean to one side or you won’t get a mirror image. You’ll need to stamp your butterfly twice and try to make them look exactly the same. Once the butterflies are dry, I punched them out with the butterfly punch. I added tear tape to the backs of the butterflies and added wet Martha Stewart glue as well, to ensure the butterflies would hold the string, and give me wiggle room to ensure the butterflies are back to back so you can’t see the second butterfly when you look at one head on. I used a gold thread is thin and ran it down the center between the butterflies. I would recommend that you use tear tape to lay your string in it under the frame on the top and bottom in the center and make sure the string is taut, laying it into the tear tape. Once the thread is laying in the tear tape and is glued under the frame, add wet glue and lay something on it to make sure the butterfly is not going to come out from under the frame.
I used a sentiment from My Creative Times This and That stamp set for the front of the card on pearlized paper and used the smallest die from the set that I used to cut the front of the card.
I used a new card base that was 8″ x 5 1/4″ scored on the 8″ length at 4″ so the off white card base is 4″ x 5 1/4″ . You will put tear tape on the back of it and line it up on the inside of the card and glue it down on the back. I used another flower stamp from the Butterfly Basics set and used markers to color it for inside the off white card. I scribbled them on plastic and sprayed water and then colored the flower and leaves with a paint brush using markers from Stampin’ Up in Blushing Bride and Old Olive.
I stamped the apple stamps on the back of the envelope and colored them with the same Blushing Bride marker. Before sending the card, you will spin the butterfly in one direction until you feel like the string is really swirly looking, then close the card without letting go of the butterfly. Then when the person who gets the card opens it, the butterfly will spin.
Some days when I am being me, I’ll have one joint that decides it doesn’t want to play. Today, it’s my right wrist. I’m not sure what I did to cause it, but had to put an ace bandage on my wrist to immobilize it and reduce the pain. It’s all part of the game of having arthritis, so unfortunately, the big crafty plans I had for myself will have to be delayed until tomorrow.
On the flip side of that, Rich is currently editing a video, and we’ll have one uploaded tonight. So even though I’m not making any projects, you’ll still think I’m working like a busy beaver. How do we know beavers are so busy? Because they build dams? What about birds that build nests from one twig at a time? Aren’t they busy too? Why do beavers get all of the credit? Just a thought.
I’ll be going to garage sales in the morning tomorrow, then making something crafty and will have more to report then. In the mean time, I’m going to be trying not to use my wrist so it’s ready for action then.
I spent a lot of today running errands and editing a video I made last night. I would like to say that I accomplished a lot, but really didn’t. Oh, I did get my hair cut, and that’s a huge feat, haha. Last night, I added a photo Rich had taken of Aggie yesterday to my Facebook page, and I just wanted to talk about it for a second. Rich does a terrific job of taking photos, and the thing that was so great about this one, was Aggie was jogging. She very rarely jogs anymore, and when she does, we are amazed. Over fifteen and still jogging like a young dog. I’m not sure if I mentioned that she’s taking a hemp oil called Charlotte’s Web. It’s legal in all fifty states, and was originally developed for kids with seizures. We bought it for Rich’s hip and lower back issues, but when we read it worked with dogs, we were on board. Aggie seems to be doing so much better since being on Charlotte’s Web, and every day that she seems pain free is a great day for all of us.
Oh wait a second. The channel had a HUGE day today, and went over 4,000 subscribers. Can you believe it? I can’t. I’m amazed with every new subscriber. It’s been a very good day!
I decided it was time to play with the new dies I bought from AliExpress. I really liked the diagonal die that I bought and thought it would be really versatile. I found out that I was right and boy, is it fun to play with. I made a set of cards using the die in three different ways on cards. I could have used them a fourth way, but ran out of the will to craft after making a shaker card with it. I’m not sure why I think I can make shaker cards with little glass beads. They always make me look foolish as they go everywhere. Today was no exception. I was trying to pour a small amount of beads into each of the little diagonal lines. I know, the lines were not very large, but I used a paper funnel so of course, that should have worked. Sure. I poured beads EVERYWHERE! Probably a thousand little beads scattering all over my desk, and onto the floor. How many ended up in the card? Not as many as I would have hoped. It was another “I Love Lucy” moment for me, and I’m sorry to say that I’m having Rich delete it from the video because I said some things that were not fit for YouTube. Ok, not fit for my version of YouTube. Others would probably be fine with the things I said, but I don’t want little kids to see me swearing on YouTube.
I’ll be finding those beads forever. The card is cute and I’m happy I made it, but I’m not happy that I just got up and left the mess once I finished the card. It was one of those days where I would say I took a beating on the crafty front and just threw in the towel. To my credit, I did finish the card, when I easily could have scrapped it and then I lost the will to go on. haha.
Thanks for my friends and Gracie and Barb Harrold sent me. Gracie has a YouTube channel called Gracie Harrold Disneybounding. Here is the making of Gracie’s Groot card. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kDr2nUnukv0
I made a big haul of Aliexpress products and I’ll try to give you links to some of the things I bought.
I covered as many of the items as I could with the space allotted, and if you are looking for some of the other items and can’t find them, please leave me a comment and I’ll make sure to send you a link.
I had a couple of requests for videos and one in particular, I thought, needed to be done sooner rather than later. I had a viewer ask if I would do a video on dye based inks and the different brands that I own. Since I’m a crafty hoarder, I had nine brands to discuss. I wasn’t really sure what she wanted to know, but I thought I would stamp each of them and talk about the packaging and the way they worked. I think inks are a very personal choice. One person might love a particular brand, and another person might hate it. I didn’t want to voice my opinion, just show how the inks performed. Maybe I took the wrong approach, but I didn’t want to offend anyone, just show their performance. So many people buy the products they use, based on what the major crafters use, like I did when I bought the Stampin’ Up inks.
I did mention that when I started making cards, almost all of the major crafters were using Stampin’ Up inks. Now that many of their friends have their own lines of inks, it makes it so they use the inks that match the products they are using in a video. For instance, if they are using Altenew stamps, they are probably using Altenew inks as well. It’s confusing to the viewer, who assumes the crafter is using that particular brand of ink because they really enjoy using it.
So in the end, I gave them nine inks to consider and tried to stick to the facts. I hope I did the inks justice. I really enjoy making these kinds of videos, but this one was difficult because I wasn’t really sure if I knew what the viewer really wanted me to cover. I didn’t want to talk about the reasons crafters use the inks they do, so I did the best I could. We’ll wait to see what viewers think of it.
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