I wanted to play with the color wheel today.  I’ve been thinking a lot about how to mix colors to create more vibrant tones and thought, why not start with the basics?  So I found a stamp set that looks like a color wheel, but is actually a daisy and just started coloring it.  I colored it with watercolor pencils, with alcohol markers and with pure watercolors.  It was so much fun to see how the different mediums changed the look and feel of each card.

I purchased a set of Kuretake Gansai Tambi Water Colors from Amazon and really like them, but of course the information inside the set is in Japanese and I can’t really tell which colors are which.  I decided to make my own swatches only a little differently than I’ve done them before.  I wanted to make a swatch that you can see when you open the box.  My friend, Carol Held, mentioned that she had swatched some water colors on acetate.  I wondered if that would work so I’m going to try it tomorrow.  I also punched out thirty-six 1 1/2″ circles out of watercolor paper and am going to use those swatches for inside the lid.  That way I can see what the colors look like through the acetate as well as on paper.  I’m going to do a video on swatching, or at least on the end results of my swatching so others can replicate it if they want.  I haven’t liked swatches that aren’t accessible and so far, that’s what I’ve produced.  Having a piece of paper nearby doesn’t really help me.  I need to be able to look at a swatch that’s right beside the pan, so I know what I’m getting when I put my brush inside.  I’ve never seen anyone else do what I have planned, so I’m not even sure if it’s practical, but I guess we’ll know soon enough.

I’m also hoping to have the video up about the Stamp Perfect by tomorrow AM.  Rich has been working on it all night and once he’s done with it, it takes me about thirty minutes more to add the information to the video and make the final adjustments.  I think the video offers a lot of good information and makes the Stamp Perfect an even better tool than it already is, but I’ll let you be the judge of it once you see the video.

 

These days that we “spring ahead” really mess with my head.  I can’t even remember what I did today and that’s only a one hour shift in time.  I did make a video using the Stamp Perfect, well, not using it, but setting it up and showing people how to make the most of the tool for the least amount of money.

Did I mention the Hampton Arts representative sent me a second email telling me she was going to replace my Stamp Perfect?  I’m not sure why she changed her mind, but I’m glad she did, because it was the difference between me giving a review that urged people to consider buying a Stamp Perfect and telling them that the company does not stand behind their products.  I always feel like a purchase of any size should have the backing of the company that makes it.  If they aren’t willing to stand behind their product, then I think you should really listen to the negatives that you hear about that product.  I normally wouldn’t have gone to the effort I have for this product, but so many of my viewers need a product like this so that they can continue, or start stamping.  I really was hoping that Hampton Arts would stand behind it, which they have.  It makes me really glad to recommend their Stamp Perfect.  It’s a great product at a really terrific price.  I did mention in the video that I don’t think people should pay more than $15 for it, though, because that is the $25 price less a 40% off coupon.  Michaels and Joanns are both selling the Stamp Perfect and both have that offer in place.

I also showed ways to keep the Stamp Perfect in pristine condition and how to make a grid sheet that will allow the user to level every sentiment easily.  I’ve always found it a little bit difficult to make sure my sentiments are level in the MISTI.  I’ve taken all of the guesswork out of it with the Stamp Perfect.  I hope people will enjoy the video.  I think it helps them understand the product as well as see additional tips on cleaning and maintaining it.

I wanted to make something on my channel that I could give away.  I often send the cards I make to viewers, but wanted to try something new.  Ok, new to me, but not new to the rest of the world.  I know pocket pages have been around for a while, but I’ve never made one.  I thought it would be fun to give it a try, and if one of my viewers would like to have it, I’ll be sending it to whoever gives me the best reason why they want it.  I didn’t want to do a drawing and I really wasn’t using this as a “ploy” to get more subscribers.  I just thought it would be fun to make something and hopefully, someone will want it for their very own.

I can’t send it outside of the USA, as I’m not sure of the cost involved in shipping, but otherwise, there really won’t be any rules.  I just want to give the pocket page to the person who really wants it.  What if no one wants it you ask?  I’ve already thought of that.  There’s a distinct possibility that people no longer collect them, and if that’s the case, that’s ok.  Or, if it doesn’t appeal to anyone, that’s also ok, I just want to make sure that if someone truly wants it, it will be my gift to them.  It’s very springy, with light pinks and purples and I have to say, I was happy with the results.

I had my usual mishaps while making the pocket page.. I dropped a tin full of pearls, rhinestones, cloth flowers and about a million little tiny pieces then worked diligently to put them back in the tin.  After about thirty minutes, I threw in the towel and enlisted Rich’s help to finish the job.  He asked if I dropped my entire crafty collection because it took him another ten minutes to pick all of the tiny pieces off of the floor.  And just when my craft room was almost clean,  (big sigh), I guess it was inevitable.

I have another odd cleaning mystery.  I keep all of my paper trimmers on a small file cabinet beside where I work.  I have several and it’s a good thing, because they fall behind the file cabinet and I wait until I’ve lost most of them before moving the cabinet to find them.  (It’s a plastic cabinet so I can move it with little problems.)  So in my effort to seriously clean my craft room, I moved the cabinet and picked all of the trimmers off the floor and decided to use the only rotary trimmer I’ve ever been able to use.  I put the paper inside and ran the rotary piece toward me and nothing happened.  It seemed pretty weird, so I turned the trimmer over and the cutting blade is gone.  Gone…Where could it be and how could I have missed it when there was nothing behind the cabinet that I couldn’t pick up with my sweeper…Isn’t that bizarre?  I can’t imagine how something as big as a circular cutting blade could just disappear.  It’s all in a day in my craft room..geez, looks like that trimmer might be headed for the scrap heap. I think I’ll check to see if that manufacturer makes replacement blades for their rotary trimmer.  The strange part is that the piece that slides back and forth is still there.  You’d think the whole piece would have disconnected, but no, just the blade.  It’s always something.

Did I mention I found a memory card that I didn’t know I had lost?  It has a nice video on it of a card that I don’t even remember making.  Geez, maybe I should watch the video to make sure I made the card.  No, it’s definitely one of mine, but I really don’t remember making it.  Therein lies the silver lining of cleaning my craft room, a surprise video that didn’t end up in the garbage.  Life is good!

The makers of Chalkola chalk markers wanted to see how the markers would work for people with hand/wrist issues so they sent me some markers. I wasn’t sure what projects to try that others hadn’t already done, so I colored my texture paste with them. It worked really well. I like the markers, but found the large markers difficult to use for the first time as there is a lot of shaking and pressing the nib to get the ink flowing to begin with. Once the ink is flowing, they work perfectly. Thanks to the Chalkola people, for asking me to try their markers to determine if people like me can use them easily.
Using a 5 1/2″ square white card base, I drew (my version of a) t-shirt with a pencil. After I was happy with it, I cut it out and laid a stencil from Crafters Workshop called Mini Tie Dye, on the shirt and taped it down. I combined the Chalkola yellow big marker with Ranger Texture Paste and rubbed it into a small portion of the stencil, then added orange Chalkola marker to the texture paste and covered more of the stencil, and finally red marker with the texture paste. I really liked the results of combining the marker with the paste as the colors were really vibrant and reminded me of the 1970’s. (Not that I was alive then, or was I in college, you be the judge.)
Once done with the texture paste, clean everything thoroughly as it shouldn’t dry on anything as it’s really hard to clean once it’s dry.

I used a 2 1/4″ circle punch and made sure I still had paper left on either side of the punch so the card would open , but I wouldn’t cut it in half and punched a small semi-circle for the neck of the shirt.. I took some red and white thin twine and ran it through my Xyron and then made the neckline of the t shirt by laying the twine on it. I also ran twine on the bottom of the shirt and two rows on the ends of each sleeve by running a thin bead of wet glue and pulling a double row of the red and white twine tightly over the glue and trimming the edges.. I think the twine really made it look more like a real shirt. On the second row of twine on the neck, I made an oval with yellow paper and stamped both sides with a sentiment from the Stampin’ Up set Just Sayin’ and hung it from the red and white twine.

I used a stamp set for the inside from Cloud 9 Designs Laughter Quotes stamp set from Fiskars. I ran red geometric washi tape on the inside of the card and on the outside of the envelope. .

I thought the end result did look like a shirt from the 1970s’ and hope you liked this technique.

 

I was surprised this morning, when I received an email from the customer service representative of Hampton Arts.  She said my first email confused her and that my second email with the photographs made it difficult for her to see the gap in the door of my Stamp Perfect.  I think I already mentioned this in yesterday’s blog, but I was holding the Stamp Perfect upright and holding it closed in one of the three photos I sent her.  She said she couldn’t see the gap in any of the photos, yet in that photo, all you could see was the gap and my fingers clasping it closed.  Regardless, she decided that the “flu” caused her to give me the reply she had, and if I would email her my address, she would send me a new unit.  She did ask if mine was squeaking, as that could throw the door out of alignment.  Weirdly enough, in the first email I sent her, I also mentioned that my unit did not squeak.  I’m beginning to wonder if she’s had the flu for a couple of weeks now, as she doesn’t seem to really read the information I send her, or look at the photographs she requested.

I’m glad that they are standing behind their product though, because I would have made a video detailing the problems I have had, and that wouldn’t have encouraged people to buy one.  It is a nice tool, if the door closes and if it doesn’t squeak.

I really hope the next one I get doesn’t have any problems as I couldn’t go through this again.  It’s been a very frustrating experience.

I started this card with a whole different plan, but as it evolved, it became a shaker card.
The card is 5 1/2″ x 4 1/4″ 110 lb. Recollections card stock and I took the ribbon I received from Bekki in the latest haul video and backed it with tear tape.  I used a t ruler to make sure my rows were straight and made marks in the paper so the space between the ribbon was even as well.  Once the ribbons was down, I stamped the inside from  My Creative Time, I Believe in Leprechauns stamp set as well as stamping the vellum with Unicorn White Hero Arts Ink and then using clear Ranger embossing powder on the vellum then heat set it…  I cut the vellum to be 5 5/8″ wide by 5 1/4″ tall and then made two score lines side by side at 4 1/4″ and 4 3/8″ (from the bottom of the vellum) so there is enough room for the shamrock underneath.  The shamrock came from the Dollar Tree and was in a set of eight..
I laid a piece of ribbon over the vellum and put a row of tear tape under it and then put some sequins inside and glued the sides of the vellum to the card stock underneath.  I put a variety of sequins on the outside as well.

I cleaned more of my craft room and I think I’m almost done.  I got to the point today that I didn’t think I could clean one more thing.  Something great did happen though.  I found one of my memory cards that had disappeared along the way, with videos on it that hadn’t been aired.  That made my day!

I also have been talking with Carol Held about doing a collaboration video of a Jennifer McGuire technique where you stamp one card, don’t re-ink, and then stamp another card.  So one card is the inked image and then other is a shadow of the first.  Jennifer called the technique second generation stamp layering, and Carol and I thought it would work for our purposes.  We have been wanting to do a collaboration, and especially something for our hearing impaired viewers.  I always write out the step by step instructions on every video below in the comments.  Carol knows how to do sign language, so she’s going to sign her video and I’m going to write my instructions below my videos as always.   Carol says she thinks I’m the only crafter on YouTube that writes out the instructions to each video, but my channel is geared for people with physical limitations, and I thought it was important, so have always done it.  We’re really excited by our collaboration and hope our hearing impaired viewers will appreciate all that Carol (especially) is trying to do by signing her video.  I think it will be an amazing collaboration and hope others will as well.

I finished my video tonight but am not sure how soon Carol will get hers finished as she has more on her plate than I have.  I’m excited by the opportunity to try out something new.  I didn’t find the technique particularly bright, but that’s probably because of the colors I chose.  I think if I had chosen more bold colors, my second generation stamped card would be a lot more vivid.  I did add colored pencil to ensure that you could really see the second image.

I started another project and that is making foam stamps from scratch.  I thought it would be fun to show people how easy it is to make and use your own stamps from virtually anything.  Cardboard and kids fun foam shapes are working for me.  I can’t wait to share this technique as I think a lot of people with children will enjoy stamping with them, especially now that they have kid friendly inks available almost everywhere.

Ok, so I’m willing to discuss my Stamp Perfect and the questions I’ve had for the people who manufactured it.  My Stamp Perfect’s door doesn’t close all the way if the foam is inside.  I contacted the company and sent them photos, but they can’t see the gap.  They did offer for me to mail it back to them, but I think at this point I don’t want to spend more money on shipping than I spent for the Stamp Perfect.  I’m going to make the video and show the door and the gap and make sure people know about their customer service, which I think is kind of poor.  I was very honest about why I wanted to make sure the product worked well, as I have so many viewers who would benefit from owning one.  But with their commitment to customer service, I have to say, I’m scared to recommend the product.  I do like using it, but when I try to stamp close to the door opening, I can’t get a good impression as my door doesn’t close all the way.  So I’m making the video and  I wonder if the company representative will  think it’s a gap once she sees my video.  I guess customer service is not Job #1 with Hampton Arts.

Nenna and Sherri C. asked that I remake this card that originally was made with a large background as they’d have to purchase new stamps to make it, and wanted to use the same technique with smaller stamps.  Nenna, I’m so sorry if I said your name wrong.
I used PTI Feather Finery stamp set for the all of the stamps I used, including the sentiment.  I used a pre made kraft card base  5 1/2″ x 4 1/4″ and only put it in the MISTI to be able to show how to line up the stamps when stamping with Unicorn White Ink from Hero Hues.
I turned the stamps so the feather looked like it was floating.  I heat set the white ink, then took it out of the MISTI and hand stamped from that point on. (Actually, this technique is easier without the MISTI because of the re inking and moving and turning the acrylic block for each feather.)  When you stamp, your next layer of feathers, you’ll want to line up the bottom tip of the feather and the angle of the feather before stamping with the acrylic block.  Make sure you try not to end up overlapping any of the feathers.   I thought the copper ink wasn’t dark enough, so added another color,  Palette Cognac hybrid ink, making sure I lined the feather tips and angles as I went.  I added a third color,  Encore Ultimate Copper ink, a pigment ink,  so I had to heat set with each stamping.

To add accents and to define the feathers, I added some Prismacolor white colored pencil to the white inner edges of the feathers.
The punch for the sentiment was an XL Fiskars Squeeze punch called Wave Banner, I found at Joanns for $10.79.  It was much too hard for me to squeeze (and I normally have no problem doing that), so Rich had to punch the banner out. I used the darkest color ink and clear embossing powder and did the same with the rest of the sentiment that I stamped below where I placed the banner.   I ran a Sharpie in matching bronze around the edges of the wave banner (who’d have thought that was the name of it.  Well at least I got the word banner, that’s something, right? haha)  To glue the wavy banner to the image, I put some foam adhesive behind the center of the banner and wet glue under the wave portion.
I used the feathers that Bekki bought me and pressed the Cognac ink into the feather, and laid it on the inside of the card.
The dot stamps came in the same stamp set and I stamped them everywhere but on the banner.  I should have stamped them before placing the banner, but didn’t decide the card needed it until after I was finished.  I thought the dots looked like snow and the feathers took on more movement once I stamped the “snow.”

I stamped the dots and a feather on the back of the envelope as well.

Ok, so it’s day three of my seriously cleaning of the craft room.  I’m talking serious cleaning.  In fact, after I’m done, I’m going to do several videos on different storage methods I use as people have been asking me.  So I might as well show the whole room.  It’s still crazy messy, but I’m making big inroads.  I’m deciding what to get rid of and what to keep and what needs to be stored in the basement, as it’s seasonal, etc.

I’m feeling so good about my progress and today, Rich finally thought there was a light at the end of the tunnel.  I could not be more proud.  When you take on a challenge of this size, you really begin to doubt whether or not it will ever be worth it and I hope I can maintain it once I get it clean.  I’ve just got too much stuff.  Too many crafts that I haven’t tried, too much paper, too many embellishments, just too much.

I’m almost embarassed by this, but I still have seven paper trimmers.  Remember the video I did with all of my fails?  I never got rid of them, what was I thinking?  I guess I keep hoping that somehow, some way, they will work for me at some point.  I have three Fiskars trimmers from different generations of the trimmer.  Couldn’t I part with one of those?  It’s crazy.  And don’t get me started on colored pencils, markers, watercolor pencils, more markers, more pencils, YIKES!  There’s no end to my mess.  I have a box, a big box, of stamps I haven’t used yet, that I need to take out of the packaging, put into cd cases (that I already have bought), label them, and put them away.  I keep putting it off and I don’t know why.  It’s not like it’s a difficult job, just time consuming.  And the more I put it off, the more I have to put away.  I thought I had a million paper punches that I should get rid of, and when I went through them, I couldn’t part with very many and I barely use the border punches, so why do I need twenty or so of them?  I’m so frustrated and mad at myself because I’ve let it go for so long and it’s just out of control.  Tomorrow, I’m committed to finishing the cleaning and then I need to videotape immediately, because you know I absolutely can’t maintain this clean look for more than a day or so.  I hope all of you don’t face these same problems as it makes me feel like I’m completely out of control, and need to stop buying things and make crafts from what I have.  The only problem with that is that garage sale season is right around the corner, and you know I can’t pass up a deal there.  I have talked to my cousin though, and I told her I’ll call her from garage sales and let her know what I find so that she can benefit.  As long as I know someone will benefit from a crafty bargain, I’m ok with it.  I just can’t pass it up otherwise.

Some days are for crafting and some are for cleaning the craft room.  Today was a cleaning day.  Ok, so yesterday was as well, but at the end of the day, Rich said he thought  I was cleaning my craft room but wondered why it didn’t look any different, so obviously the work I did didn’t change the appearance very much, darn it.  I organized drawers, cleaned the top of my work area so you can actually see the counter, and cleaned out that big spinning table top holder that everyone has.  You know the one that is supposed to hold all of your tools, but really just gets packed with junk and then you can’t find any of those things that you bought it to hold?

I’m making a care package for my cousin whose new to crafting.  I was going through sequins and paper and embellishments and dividing them in half as I know I’ll never use all of the things I have and if I share them, I’ll feel a lot better about buying them to begin with.  I’m so glad someone crafty nearby, to be able to spread the goodies around and having her be my cousin makes it all the more exciting.

That probably sounded odd, but I have a very very small family.  Only one sister, no aunts or uncles alive, both parents have passed.  My sister lives in North Carolina, so I might see her once a year if I’m lucky.   I have three cousins and the oldest is a lot older than I am, so we were never close.  When I started my channel, her daughter, who is much closer to my age, found the channel and started commenting.  Through the YouTube channel, I’ve found family and it really makes me happy.  It’s something that when you don’t have much, you feel like you’ve lost that connection to the past.  Our grandmother and stories about when we were kids and spending time with grandma.  We’ve had one girls’ afternoon out and had such a great time, it was like we’ve been talking all of our lives.  So I’m grateful to the YouTube channel for not only sending me so many wonderful viewers who have become great friends, but also helping me reconnect with family.  It’s been a terrific experience for me.