I’m committed to having some fun tonight and making a card that really makes me happy.  I’m tired of making cards that are disappointing and end up in the trash, so I think I might do a flicking or smooshing technique.  Something that will be messy and a lot of fun.  There’s nothing fun about making a card that doesn’t create a big mess (in my opinion).  I like to be covered with ink or watercolor paints when I am finished.  That way I know I really put myself into the project.

Unfortunately, I was really covered with the oxide inks, but just didn’t get the results I expected.  I’m so frustrated by them and by the fact that others don’t seem to have the bold colored looks that I got when I tried them.  They either look like chalk, or are crazy bold in color.  I need to spend a day with them where I’m not really concerned with results and just learn how to use them.  That’s not my plan for today, however.  Today is about playing and having success with whatever I try, so it needs to be a technique that I have already mastered.

Did I tell you about Aliexpress?  It’s a website from Japan (I think) that sells just about everything, but you can find terrific deals on stamping tools.  Dies, tape runners, etc.  One of my viewers told me about it and I’ve ordered a bunch of things and can’t wait to do a haul once the things start arriving.  I don’t like waiting for two to three weeks to receive the things I order, but then again, I do like buying sets of stitched dies for $4.  I hope I’ll be happy with them and can’t wait to get everything.

I’m sure I mentioned that we’re going to a stamp show this weekend in Akron, Ohio, and I’m hoping I don’t go crazy buying everything in sight.  It’s fun to see what’s new in stamping and I’m looking forward to it.  Rich is thrilled beyond words, haha.  Actually, he doesn’t mind going. The last time we went to a stamp show, the man selling tickets, gave Rich his ticket for free, because any man who would attend a stamp show didn’t deserve to pay for it too.  It was funny and sweet of him to give Rich his ticket, and we’ve been laughing about it since it happened.

I wanted to make a fun card for my girlfriends’ birthday and she’s a big dog lover.  I used Koi watercolors and my watercolor block that I made (I’ll link that video to the end) and colored it with blues and greens.  The block is 4 x 6 and I’ll cut it down to fit a card base after I’ve finished with the dog coloring.
The dog stamp is from Eureeka Stamps and the sentiment is from Stampendous and is called Dog Sayings.
I colored my dogs with Spectrum Noir markers and put the colors in the video.  I had thin washi tape and I ran a piece of it across the front of my card to fix a spot of ink that I accidentally put on it.  I also went around the edges of my white card base with the washi tape.  The card base is 5 1/2″ x 4 1/4″ and I cut the dog piece down to 5 1/4″ x 4″.  I used a label bracket punch for my sentiment and put it on foam tape then laid it on the washi tape on the front of the card.  Then I put foam tape behind the dog images and attached it to my base.  I thought it came out pretty frisky and hope you did as well.

It’s nice to feel needed.  I’ve been getting emails from viewers who are wondering if I am ill, because I haven’t been putting many videos online.  The truth is that we’ve had some problems with losing pieces of videos and I’ve had to recreate them, and Rich just got frustrated for a few days and didn’t upload any videos.  We’re back on track now and you shouldn’t have to wait for videos going forward.  I hate it when we don’t put videos up and it makes me fret as well as all of you.

I just finished the edits that I do on videos before I give the memory card to Rich on the one with paper piecing.  I’m hoping it goes live tomorrow night or the next day at the latest, but I’m hoping for tomorrow.  In the video, I mention that Rich and I are going to a stamp show this weekend in Akron, Ohio, called Adventures in Stamping.  We went to it last year and it is so much fun to walk around and see  techniques and ideas that are new this year.  I’m hoping I don’t go crazy and buy a ton of stamps that I don’t need, but sometimes I just lose my mind at these stamp shows and come home with all kinds of crazy purchases.  Last year I bought so many stamps that I haven’t used yet, so I definitely shouldn’t be buying a bunch more.  I would really like to focus on using the products I already have.  Carol Held calls it shopping out of her own craft room.  I think it’s a brilliant idea and I have been trying not to buy any kinds of embellishments or things that are really unnecessary, but sometimes, shiny things catch my eye, and it’s all over for me.  I have to have whatever it is.  So my goal for this years stamp show is to hopefully meet some of my subscribers and if not, just have a lot of fun roaming from booth to booth, and hopefully, not come home with a car full of crafty goodies.

I spent a long time today, working on cards that were similar to ones Jennifer McGuire made with piecing papers together.  Although it should have been fairly easy, I used the Vagabond and did some die cutting and really struggled with losing little pieces of paper that I needed to complete my cards.  I really liked the end results for both cards, and think they will be nice birthday cards for male friends.  I’ve been having a hard time coming up with cards for friends that are men, so I thought this card technique worked well for them, and I hope you will agree.  I like the look of these cards since I’m a fan of cutting paper strips and man,  did I cut a lot of strips.  I thought it would work well to run the strips through the Xyron to make them sticky, and it did do a terrific job.  I’m not sure why I did this, but at the beginning, I thought I should line the colors up in rainbow order in the Xyron.  I’m not sure what difference it made, since I was just going to tear them off of the backing and lay them on the card front.  It only took me a couple of strips before I realized the foolishness of my actions.  Oh well, these things happen.

 

I wanted to make stamps and show you that you don’t need to have a lot of supplies to be able to make an interesting background. I took a container of foam shapes with adhesive backs that I bought at a garage sale and a piece of foam board or maybe it’s called foam core. I attached five of each of the shapes to themselves then laid then beside each other in a row on the foam board. You need to have enough of these in a stack that you can easily ink them and that the backing doesn’t end up making a mark on your project. You can use any type of ink for this project, but the more colorful, the better. You don’t need to add vellum to the top, but I liked the look of it, so added it. My stamped paper is 4″ x 5 1/4″ and the purple card base is 4 1/4″ x 5 1/2″ . The vellum is 4″ wide and 6 1/4″ tall and scored at 1/2″ from the top of the 6 1/4″length and at 5 3/4″. I had a circle from a paper punch that was 1 1/2″ and I dropped it onto the Distress Fired Brick oxide ink color and pressed it into the pad to ensure it was coated with color. I made sure it was dry with my heat tool then stamped a sentiment from TAC called Trendy Greetings on it in Versafine Onyx Black, then put clear Ranger embossing powder over it and heat set it. (I used the bag of corn starch and rubbed it on my surface before stamping, to ensure that no embossing powder ended up where I didn’t want it.)
I used tear tape on the ends of my vellum and cut the edges on an angle to the score line so that they didn’t show behind the card front when I glued it down. I also put some tear tape behind the sentiment and under the vellum to make the vellum more see through on the front and so the vellum is well adhered, even though I put tear tape on the back of the card to attach the vellum. I had a black long sticker that I attached to the top and bottom of the vellum. I found the long stickers at AC Moore and Michaels.

I have to say, I’m a little bit frustrated.  We lost another video, well a portion of it.  I’m starting to lose my mind.  I need to get serious about making sure I do a complete video on one memory card and then hand it to Rich and make it go live.  This video was one where I needed to let the first part dry before I could proceed, so I did another project on the memory card, and then finished the first project on another memory card.  So the first card is missing in action and I’m starting to lose my mind!  I have no one to blame but myself, because I should have changed out the memory card, and saved it until I was finished with the first project so the entire  project was on one card.  I’m not going to make that mistake again.  I know you think I’m talking about the chair video, but no, this is another project where I show you how to make your own stamps out of kids foam shapes.  I have so many things that I have to remember when it comes to memory cards, because every time I think I’ve made sure I can’t lose another video, I do.  Oh well, maybe I’m cursed.

Regardless, I did get a card done today that was a lot of fun.  One of our friends just had his birthday and I didn’t remember in time, so I made him an underwater themed card that’s really frisky. It came out really cute and I’m sure he’s going to like it.  And even better, I used the Vagabond for the card.  I know you are shocked, but I cut four different die cuts..  I know, it’s almost a miracle.  Tomorrow, I think I’ll tackle the Jennifer McGuire card that I discussed in yesterday’s post.  Today, I just wanted to play with hair gel. haha

I spent a lot of time watching videos on the oxide inks and all of the other crafters really make them look easy to use.  I’m not sure why I don’t seem to be able to master them, but decided that I needed to take a break from them and see what other kinds of cards I can create without them.  After all, I didn’t feel the need to obsess with them before I owned them, so I need to just let them go and focus on something I’m good at.

I’m not sure if I mentioned a video that Jennifer McGuire did with paper strips, but that technique is something I’m much more comfortable with than the oxides.  I really do want to figure out something I’m good at since I feel like such a failure using them.  I am really beginning to wonder if it’s just me.  Why can’t other crafters admit when they struggle using something.  I mean really admit it, but still try to use whatever they are struggling with.  It is frustrating to me that I am the only one that talks about the failures I have.  Or maybe I just block out the failures they have, because mine are right there in the garbage can.

I listened to Jennifer McGuire and Lindsay say that when you work with the oxides, keep going and eventually, you’ll love them.  I went through three cards worth of “keep going” and still, I can’t say I feel like I’m any closer to loving them.  I don’t even like the colors very much.  Geez, I need to stop using them and go back to things I am good at, although at this point, I’m not sure what that is.  Darn it!

I wanted to play with the new oxide inks today and thought, “How hard could it be?”  I have to say that I haven’t really gotten used to them yet and really didn’t feel like anything I produced was truly amazing.  I’ve watched so many other people use them and thought I could do something with a stencil, but that didn’t work. Then I tried using a stencil with water to remove the ink from under the stencil and that didn’t really work either.  So I went to plan C.  I had made some stamps out of fun foam shapes to show others how to make their own stamps.  I hadn’t cut them apart or used them yet, so decided this was the perfect opportunity to use the oxide inks with them.  I made a background image using them and it came out fine, but honestly, so far, I’m not thrilled with them.  I thought I would be blown away by the inks and I’m not sure why I’m not.  Maybe it’s because I just spent three hours and have one mediocre card to show for it.  Maybe it’s because I had some really great plans for the inks (in my head) and none of them worked.  Regardless, I’ll have to find a technique that works for me and maybe then I’ll fall in love with them.  Then again, maybe not.

I got this new set of alcohol markers from Ebay and wanted to give them a try.  A full set of 168 are $63 and a set of 80 $40 also on ebay and a set of 40 for $28.  I wanted to get the full set of 168, as this was the set that had the lightest colors included and I like to use them for my blending.  You can find swatches of the smaller sets to determine if one of them will work for you.  They come in varieties like animation, fashion, architecture, animation and general.  Look at the color swatches for each of these sets to determine which ones will cover the color range you are looking for.
I wanted to make a journal for swatching my markers and to determine which colors blended well together.  I bought my journal at the Dollar Tree and then covered it with 12″ scrapbook paper and then trimmed it off.  I used tear tape and a tape runner to cover the journal. I only had a small strip of paper extra on the edges from my 12″  paper.
I swatch the markers on Polaroid labels from the Dollar Tree and  use my paper trimmer.  Line the paper up so the 11″ side is on the measuring bar and the 8 1/2″ length is in the trimmer.  You will line the  sticker up in half (on the long length of the label) and then trim the page, then move the paper to the cut line between two labels and trim again.  This will give you three labels to color.  I colored three green markers then took the labels off and put them around the center of the marker.  Now I know the real color of the marker and not have to guess at the color.  I keep the markers in order, first marker I swatched is on the left, and the second marker is to the right of it so that when I take the labels off their backing, I’m sure I am putting them on the correct marker.

I wanted to color my markers in my journal so I know what the colors look like together and if they blend.  I wrote the colors I used at the top of the page after I finished, so I would know which colors to choose if I am going for those looks.  The white paper doesn’t blend well but the craft color did seem to do well.  I laid a piece of plastic behind the paper I was coloring, so I didn’t end up ruining two pieces of paper with one colored image.  The colors I used were listed on the screen.   I used the following sets of stamps: Doodle Flower Arrangement from Woodware and another Woodware set called The Single Bloom.  I colored the Doodle Flower Arrangement on camera.
I also did a blending on 110 pound cardstock with the red markers and I thought they did a great job.  I used Georgia Pacific cardstock and used numbers 2, 3 and 4.  The reds did a nice job of blending in my opinion.

I finished swatching out my markers today and found that they have given me at least two duplicates in my 168 markers.  Not extras, just duplicates.  I’m going to go through all of them tomorrow to determine how many are duplicates.  I am a little bit disappointed but am not sure what to expect when you buy things made in Japan or China (since there is no maker information on them.)  I only found one marker that was a little bit dry and added some alcohol to it to hopefully rejuvenate it.  The rest are really nice and juicy.

I also got the rest of the oxide inks that I ordered, so now I have nine of the twelve that are out. I’m pretty sure I don’t want the other three as the colors weren’t screaming my name.  I need to start playing with them and make a video with them.

I need to get serious and upload some videos because Rich is getting close to catching up to me and I can’t have that.  I do have a video that I made last year that’s never been uploaded.  It’s a child’s chair that I took the seat out of, painted it and attached really strong magnets (like the ones on the MISTI, only smaller,) and made seasonal embellishments for on it.  There’s one for spring, summer and fall, so it can be used with a different planter in spring/summer and then use mums in it once the other flowers start to die off.  I really liked the chair and gave it to a good friend for her birthday.  It was one of the videos that I lost part of it when I lost one of my memory cards so I had to re-film the last portion of it.  It was a little bit dicey because I filmed it at a local nursery because all of the flowers had died off by the time we lost the memory card.  The nursery was closed but they had a lot of their potted plants still outside, so I took my chair and video camera and finished the video there.  It was only a minute or so, but I felt like I was doing something wrong by being there (even though all I was doing was video taping.)  Anyway, I’m going to find out where that video is and have Rich put it up.  It’s the perfect time of year to do the project since garage sale season has started and I found my chair there for under $1 last year.  Of course the wicker seat was kind of chewed, but I didn’t care because I cut it off anyway.  It’s a cute little chair now that it’s painted and looks a little frisky with it’s embellishments.  I think you’ll get a kick out of it.