I saw these concrete style letters in the clearance department of Joanns and thought they would look great on a frame. I used the Die Cuts with a View (DCWV) Burlap Neutrals paper. It’s burlap that’s lined with a plastic backing. It’s really thick and works great if you cut it properly.
I bought my frame at a garage sale and it’s really long, (11″ x 17:) and needed two sheets of the burlap paper, as it is 12 x 12″. I trimmed the paper by using the paper that you find inside a new frame for a guide. I took the glass and the frame and laid them aside so I didn’t break the glass, then laid the burlap on the paper and made a mark on it so I could cut it in my paper trimmer and trimmed the paper to fit inside the frame. The paper trimmer made a nice line, but didn’t cut all the way through the paper, so I used my Fiskars long easy action scissors to cut it down to size. I lined the two papers together, and glued them with my hot glue gun to the paper from the frame. I just wanted to be certain that the burlap was on that paper straight and would work well inside the frame. I glued the seam first then pushed the two pieces together. I didn’t like the look of the seam and knew it was in a place that would show, so decided to add wide burlap ribbon to the black burlap near the top and the bottom of the inside of the glass and glued it to the back.  I flipped the paper over and trimmed any black burlap that hung over the edges.  Then I put the frame together and glued the letters to it with hot glue. I don’t recommend hot glue on glass if you are going to be in a changing climate, as it will not hold if it gets really cold….so use E6000 glue for anything you are gluing to glass as it will hold in changing climates.. I had a hard time getting the S to fit inside the frame, so had to use an electric sander to sand it down so it would fit. I was worried that you would be able to see where I sanded it, so colored the sides of the “S” with a matching alcohol marker.
We have a very contemporary kitchen and I thought this would look great as you walk in from outside.
It’s quick and easy to make and I like giving gifts with monograms on them, so practiced with this for our house and will be making some for others as well.

The floods and ice storm continues, so we’re not leaving the house.  I really need to get serious about going into my craft room, but just don’t feel like it.  It’s one of those days where I’m really feeling like doing nothing…maybe watching a movie.  I always feel like I’m letting viewers down when I don’t want to create anything, so I’ll apologize in advance for not feeling up to it.

It’s lucky that I have videos that need to be uploaded, so Rich is doing that so it’s invisible to those of you who don’t read my blog, when I’m having a listless day.  It’ll be our secret.

I forgot to tell you about a gift Rich got me for Christmas.  I’ve always been interested in my family tree, so he bought me the DNA kit from Ancestry.com so I would know where I originate from.  My DNA says I’m 57% British, and another 27% Western European,  Of course there are very small percentages from other parts of Europe, Ireland, Spain etc., so now I know where we came from.  I’ve always thought that was the case, but it was really fun finding out the details.  The DNA test also will tell you about cousins that my DNA says I’m related to, and there were very few second cousins, then more third cousins, and lots more further out.  I thought it was really interesting and will try to get in touch with those that are my second cousins, as I’d never heard of them and wonder who and where they are.  The Ancestry site doesn’t give you full names, but it’s kind of fun that I can contact them through Ancestry to find out where we are connected.  I’ll let you know what I discover.

I woke up this morning to grass.  I love grass…it’s so green, and after mid-November, we rarely see it.  I was so happy and it looked so colorful.  I knew it wouldn’t last, so I spent some quality time really taking it all in.  I knew the fact that I saw grass meant that we had to have some flooding in the lower lying areas, but luckily, we live on the top of a very large hill, so we didn’t have to worry here.

Rich decided to run errands and I had asked him to go to the grocery store…He said it looked like people were preparing for a Zombie Apocalypse at the grocery store, as milk, bread and eggs were completely sold out, and the lines went to the middle of the store.  He had plenty of time to speculate about it, as he had to wait almost an hour to check out.  People were talking about the weather, and the fact that it was going to change.
We had about six inches of snow that melted, and it has been raining really hard for two days.  The problem comes when the temperature drops and the rain changes to ice.  That’s what happened about an hour after Rich got home.  Now the ground is solid ice and the rain is now snow.  No more grass for Sandy to look at…Darn.  We are supposed to get up to four inches of snow, but that’s on top of at least one-half inch of ice.  Yikes!  No wonder people were freaking out, as you can’t go anywhere when there’s ice coating everything.  It’s supposed to last until tomorrow night.  Good thing we don’t have any plans to go anywhere.  It’s also a good thing that Rich wasn’t buying milk, bread or eggs, or we’d be going without those as well…So far, so good.

I wanted to make a group of different colored card bases and use a slightly darker ink on them. I really liked this Fiskars stamp set for it…I found it on Joanns site, and here’s a link to it. It’s called Petals from Scratch and was $4.99 on their site. http://tinyurl.com/fiskarsstamp

I started with a vibrant green card stock that is 5 1/2″ wide by 4 1/4″ tall. (I did end up cutting it to 5 1/4″ x 4″ in the end.) I used Hero Arts Shadow Ink in Forever Green and used a stamp positioning tool, and in my case, a MISTI. Tim Holtz makes one that is less expensive, as is the Stamp Perfect from Hampton Arts, that is currently only available in the US on Ebay.
I took all of my bigger floral images and positioned them on the left side of my card stock with some of them trailing off the left side of the paper. You’ll want your images to be as close together as possible, but I kept some small images out of the initial positioning, so I could fill the spots in later where I had gaps. After positioning your stamps, you’ll want to ink and stamp them more than once with the same color ink so they are really dark and vibrant. Once you like your results, remove the card from your stamp positioning tool and lay it on a piece of fun foam or a phone book or anything that’s squishy, so inking will be better and more consistent. I used the smallest floral stamp in the same stamp set and filled little spots where there are no stamps. After I convinced myself I had filled with enough flowers, I took my Hero Hues Unicorn White ink and a pencil eraser to fill little white dots around my image. I found by stamping those twice (the second time after they have dried,) I got a nice white image. Then I took my white gel pen from Gelli Roll, and traced the insides of the flowers and made dots in the centers of the tiny flowers to create a more vibrant look. Then I took a Prismacolor white colored pencil and colored inside my flowers. I could have stopped there, but decided to make tiny dots all over with my white gel pen.
For my sentiment, I took the Hero Arts set called Hello stamp and die set, $12.99 full price at Joanns. https://tinyurl.com/helloset
I die cut the Hello with a white scrap and then used a piece of washi tape behind Hello and taped it to a scrap paper. I used the scrap paper to press the die cut into the same green ink pad, then used Ranger clear embossing powder and held the scrap paper to use it to hold the die cut while heat embossing it. I set this aside until the rest of the card was complete.

I used the other half of the green card stock to punch a flower out of the center with an EK Success paper punch and used another lighter green card stock with the same punch. I took the green ink and laid the green card stock (with the center punched out) on scrap paper and inked the edges with the green ink so the edges (at least 1/4″ wide) are darker like the flowers on the stamped image. I cut this piece to 5 3/8″ x 4 1/8″ before inking it and used tape runner to adhere this to the back of my stamped piece that is 5 1/4″ x 4 “… I layered both on a white card base that is 8 1/2″ x 5 1/2″ and scored in half on the 8 1/2″ side at 4 1/4″, making our card 4 1/4″ x 5 1/2″ when folded. I used the same tape runner to layer these together.

I used the flower that I punched out of the center of my green paper and laid it on scrap paper and inked it with my green ink, then offset another lighter green flower under it and attached them together with tape runner. I layered a punched piece of vellum that was 1 3/4” on top of the two flowers with tape runner. Then I took a white paper scrap and stamped it with the green ink and used clear embossing powder and heat set “just a note to say”  from the Hello stamp/die set, then ran it through my die cutter with a circle die that had a stitch around the edge that was about 1 1/2″.  Next,  put a piece of foam tape under the white circle. I added gold thin wire and wrapped it loosely around my hand several times and then laid it on the foam tape on the back of the white circle and arranged the loops to look like petals, then put another piece of fun foam on the wire and laid it on the vellum to attach it to the card. I took the Hello sentiment that I had heat embossed and added Tombow Mono Adhesive to a scrap paper with a micro brush I bought on Aliexpress to add glue to the back of the die cut. IThese also work great if ink ever skips on a project.) Here’s a link to some. https://preview.tinyurl.com/microbrush
After gluing the die cut, I found a place where I liked the sentiment on the card and glued it down.
I found a tiny flower in the set and stamped the back of the envelope and three on the bottom right corner of the envelope along with a swirl that came in the stamp set. I stamped it inside the card and on the back of the envelope as well.
I really liked making this card and hope you enjoyed it as well.

It was one of those nights where I just couldn’t stop my mind long enough to really get good sleep, so I got up and worked on more cards like the one I have in the upcoming video.  I really liked the look of it, and started by stamping a bunch of different colored card stock, so decided to finish those.  Of course, it never occurred to me that to finish them would mean using my die cutting machine, and since it’s electric, can be loud when used with dies….so I didn’t finish one, but am about 75% finished with three or four of them.

My girlfriend and I had planned on getting together today and having our Christmas gift exchange.  She and I try really hard to get the other something meaningful and special, and I really struggled this year.  You know you don’t have any ideas when you resort to considering buying pajamas, and that’s how desperate I was.

Hallmark stores sell a brand of jewelry that is similar to Pandora, called Davinci, and I have a couple of their bangles.  They have a screw that closes the bangle and holds the beads on, and one of my screw pieces came off and disappeared.  I don’t know how I manage to lose something like that, as it’s not a small piece, and I can’t understand why I didn’t hear it drop when it fell off.  OK, I’ll admit it.  I have two of these bangles, and I lost one screw piece from each of them.   I was on a mission to replace the screw piece, and found a retailer on Ebay that was selling off their inventory of beads.  They had a lot of pink stoned charms and my girlfriend’s birthday is in October, so pink is her birthstone.  As soon as I saw them, I knew I had to make her a bracelet.  Her twelve year old daughter is also an October baby, so they could share some of the charms.  The bracelet I made is really pretty and I was so happy with it.  I also made her the Christmas flip book album and made her daughter one of the book marks.

After our shopping trip, we opened our presents. She’d been giving me clues about mine, but I just couldn’t guess what it was.  She made me a sign that says “Crafting for Almost Everyone.”  I was so touched and she even copied the font I use for my channel.  I almost cried.  If you would ask my family, they will tell you that I am the hardest person to buy gifts for, but my friends always buy me things that I absolutely love.  In this case, she used treated wood, painted it white, and then used vinyl letters that look like paint..they’re even splotchy looking, like paint.  It’s unbelievably cool, and I’ll make sure to show it in an upcoming video.  Honestly, I can’t imagine a better gift.  I have some really great friends that I’ve had for a very long time, and I am blessed to have them.

 

I finally made a card that I absolutely love.  It’s been so long since I’ve made a card that made me feel this much joy, and I can’t wait for you to see the video.  I think I just needed to get back to the basics and play with techniques that are tried and true.  I love the monochromatic look, and I think I took it to a new level.  I guess I’ll wait to hear what you think about it.  Rich is going to put the video up tomorrow.

The poor guy, having to edit and upload the embossing video…it was long and very complicated, and he did an amazing job.  I know that video isn’t for everyone, but it’s a great video to introduce people to embossing, and will be the entry to the others that will follow.

Now on to something really exciting.  It’s supposed to be in the high 40’s tomorrow here.  I can’t believe it.. It’s been so cold and snowy the last few weeks, and I really didn’t anticipate seeing 40 degrees until April.  This is so exciting, I can’t even begin to tell you.  So all in all, it’s been a good day, and tomorrow looks even brighter.  YAY!

We’re going to the college that we attended for a dinner with a group of seniors.  It’s called the Senior Seminar, and it’s a class where students hear the story of alumni and how they got to where they did in their careers.  Rich and I have always done it together, as our career stories are very different, but both tell the students that life will throw things at you that you won’t expect, like arthritis.  It’s what you do with those things that will define you.  The professor that gives the class does a great job of finding a wide variety of careers for the students to hear about, and it’s really a nice evening, listening to what the youth of today want to know about the stories we tell.

I wanted to make a series on heat embossing, and am starting at the beginning with the tools you’ll need and the basics of how to heat emboss.

The stamp set I used was from Fiskars, called Petals from Scratch

Tools:
First, you’ll need an anti-static tool to remove finger prints, oils and anything that powder might stick to (beside what it should be sticking to.)
Options:
1. Create your own with a couple of knee highs doubled over and filling the toe with corn starch or baby powder, then knotting it. Another option is sewing your own pouch with muslin made like a small pillow and filled with baby powder or corn starch.
2. Recollections (Michaels brand) $7.49 full price Anti-Static Bag
3. EK Success Powder Tool Applicator from Blitsy $3.91
4. Inkadinkado Embossing Magic (bag) Amazon $5.78
5. Another option–Keep a sealed small container with baby powder or corn starch inside. Use a soft clean paint brush and dip into the powder then wipe it over your paper surface.  Tap off any excess.
I really like the pouch I made, but will be doing an upcoming video to determine if one of the above options works better than the other, and if one works better on certain brands of paper.
Before heat embossing, wipe your surface with one of these tools and tap off any excess. This will make sure you don’t have to wipe a ton of stray powder off of your paper.

Inks I did not like:
I ruled out two at the beginning, as I did not like the results that they created.  Ink It Up $3.27 on Amazon, and Hampton Arts Tinted Embossing Pad $6.09 at Joanns (all prices I quote are full price, before using a coupon.) I demonstrated both and showed the issues I had with them.  Mainly, I could not get a good clean consistent image with either.

 

Ink Options:
1. Distress Embossing Ink: $5.99 Joanns or $3.49 for 1 x 1″ cube.. I recommend you getting the bigger size as the smaller cube probably won’t meet your needs.
2.  Versamark $9.49 Michaels –most popular brand for embossing
3.  Ranger Embosss It (Clear) $5.75 Amazon
4.  Stampendous Clear Embossing Ink (dauber) now called Boss Gloss $3.99 Scrapbooking Warehouse
All four brands of inks worked well for me, and I will be doing videos in future showing them being used on different brands of papers to determine if paper makes a difference when doing heat embossing.

Markers for small embossed images or to fix errors:
1. Ranger Inkssentials 2 pack black and clear embossing markers two pack $6.49 at Joanns. My black marker was dry when I bought them, so was disappointed in them.
2. Versamark Versamarker $3.49 Joanns

Powders:
I prefer Ranger embossing powders, but Hero Arts makes great powders as do many other companies. We’ll be doing a video on different techniques that you can do with different types of powder and with different brands.

Types of powder:
1. Fine detail–for thin sentiments and fine lined images $4,99 full price Joanns
2. Standard embossing powder–for all images that aren’t fine lined $4.99 Blitsy
3. Stampendous Deep Impressions Super Chunky for mixed media, molten looks, wax seal look. $6.49 Joanns
4. Ultra-Thick Embossing Powder $7.49 Joanns–for a very thick surface, use for paper beads, mixed media, stained glass window looks. (I ordered this but don’t have it yet and will be showing it in the technique video.)

You’ll need a fine angled brush for wiping away any excess powder.

Alternatives to buying a wide variety of colored powders:   When looking to determine if you need a lot of colors of embossing powder, if you use a die based ink, you’ll need a stamp positioner, ink with your favorite color die based ink, then re-stamp with an embossing ink, then add clear powder….This will save you from buying a lot of powder colors. and the results look the same.

Second alternative is to use pigment inks, as they dry slowly, then add clear powder over them to create your colored image.

Colors of powders you should consider buying:
1. Clear embossing powder (start with standard and then determine if you need to buy the ultra fine)
2. Metallics..I really like Ranger Princess Gold and Silver powders for a rich elegant look on card stock.
3. Versafine Onyx Black Ink–it’s a pigment ink, so it dries much slower and you can use this nice dark black ink with your clear embossing powder…no need to buy black embossing powder and you’ll avoid having any stray black powder… Black embossing powder is a nightmare to try to remove all strays from.
4. White–For colored card stock and want white..I’d buy the fine detail as I think you’ll use this more for sentiments.

Homemade stamp cleanser:  Pump bottle can be found in the nail department of most stores, or online. Here’s a link to one on Aliexpress. http://tinyurl.com/ycnzzlte
To make your own stamp cleanser, use 1 teaspoon baby shampoo to 10 teaspoons of water (distilled water works best). I put a small squirt of baby shampoo (from the Dollar Tree) and fill the bottle with water, then swirl it around to mix.) I keep baby bibs with velcro or snaps, on the arms of my chair, then when I need to clean stamps, pull a bib off and use the pump bottle to clean my stamps, works really well and is safe for stamps.

Heat Tools: Your hair drier will NOT work for this.
1. Ranger Heat it Craft Tool $19.57 Amazon…looks like a blow drier, but much hotter.
2. Darice Heat Tool $24.99 This is the one I use and I like it because the tip is plastic
3. Hero Arts Heat Gun–$45.99 Joanns, Very powerful, has a metal tip, so I have ruled this out for me because of the chance of burning myself.
Always pre-heat your tool before using it when you use it…5-10 seconds…wave it over your image…if you hold it in one spot, you’ll burn the paper or your embossed image will sink into the paper and no longer look shiny or raised.

The bottom line is that you will need to obtain the following to be able to heat emboss:
1. Anti-static tool of your choice
2. Brush to wipe away stray powder
3. Embossing ink of your choice
4. Embossing powder—start with clear as your first purchase.
5. Heat Tool–your blow drier will not melt these powders, sorry.

I hope this video helped you to understand heat embossing. It is the first in a series of videos I’ll be doing on which anti-static tools work best, which inks work best on different paper brands, which embossing powders work best on different paper brands, and ultimately different techniques you can do with heat embossing. I hope you’ll watch those videos and subscribe.

If you have any questions, please leave them in the comment section below the video.

I finished the video on heat embossing…It’s a really long one, but I think I got across all of the ideas that I had intended.  I think it will be at least a thirty minute video, but what can you do?  When I get on a roll, I just keep talking.

I need to make a video with a card that I’m really proud of, and lately, I haven’t been able to make anything that really screams my name.  Sometimes a technique seems like something I would want to make, but then when I try it, I don’t really love it.  When I say these things, I always wonder if other YouTubers have these kinds of problems, or if it’s just me….I would imagine that once you’ve been making videos for several years, you start to repeat things that worked well in the past.  I try not to duplicate, (if I can avoid it), but really do have some techniques that I enjoy.  I love layered paper techniques like a lot of Stampin’ Up representatives make, and I think I do my best work with those.  I also love different ink techniques, and here’s where I find that I struggle.  I’m not sure why, but ink techniques can be especially stressful, and I really need to work at them before I find ones that I’m good at.

I’m looking forward to making more embossing videos in my series.  Ones showing which papers emboss best with what inks, what anti-static tools work best on which papers, and then the really fun one, different techniques with embossing powders.  I’m looking forward to trying lots of different ideas.  This should give me some new ideas to fill my idea box.

I worked for hours on the embossing videos and finally realized that I was making it much too complicated.  I was trying to show six different inks but clearly, from the beginning, two of those inks were not effective, at all.  I had bought a really inexpensive brand called “Ink It Up” because I’d seen Lindsay use it on her videos.  The difference, though, was that Lindsay had been re-inking hers with glycerin and water, so if hers didn’t work well from the beginning, she knew what to do to fix it.  That’s not an option for everyone, so I should have explained the situation and eliminated it from the mix.  I also bought a colored ink from Hampton Arts, that in theory, is really great.  It’s a light green color whose color is supposed to disappear once you add the embossing powder and heat it.  Unfortunately, the embossing powder didn’t want to stick to it and it still maintained the greenish shade.  Again, I should have explained it and gotten rid of it.

I really wanted to show the problems you can have with black embossing powder…it’s so hard to get every single small spot of it from the areas around the embossed area.  It was a virtual nightmare, when trying to also decide if the inks and the anti-static pouches work.

I need to rethink the entire video and start from scratch.  I think the video was overly thought-out and way too much information, most of it not really necessary and over the top.  A new crafter would never want the information I was providing, so I’m going to re-make it.   Getting rid of hours of work is frustrating, but I’d rather have a video that actually helps people than make a video that’s so confusing that no one would enjoy it.

I do think that some of the paper I was using was much better for removing any powder that wasn’t where it should have been.  But it also could have been the powder I chose for that paper too.  I was trying to show white on black paper, black on white paper, etc., but that doesn’t really tell us if one paper is better than another, if it’s that particular powder used with that paper.  I need to be consistent, so all inks are the same, when used with the same powder, when used on different papers, thereby allowing the viewer to really know if the paper brand does make a difference.   This should be a stand-alone video, because a beginning crafter would have one brand, maybe two, of paper, so by showing a bunch of brands of paper will only confuse them.

I’ve got a general idea of how I’m going to make the first video, and the videos to follow will be for the more advanced embosser.  I really hope today goes a lot better than yesterday.  I have several two sided pieces of card stock with embossing covering everything.  And in the end, what did they tell the viewer?  I have too much time on my hands, clearly.

 

I started working on the embossing video that I’ve been collecting products for for a long time.  I wanted to show people how to heat emboss, but then I started looking at products and realized it’s not just about embossing, it’s about which products will work best.  So I’m doing a segment on paper prep and using three different tools to wipe the paper to see if one works better than the other.  I also decided that there’s probably a difference when you use other kinds of paper, so I am testing the system on four types of paper.  Some inexpensive, some not, so we know if Neenah makes a difference over Recollections, etc.  I love making these kinds of videos, because I learn so much along the way.

Then comes the tool you use to wipe off the “crumbs” that are left behind…So I’ll be testing different brushes to see which works best for that.  I think that’s where video one might end.

Then the second video will have to do with the ink itself, and I’m going to show five or six different inks for embossing to see if Versamark is the clear winner…Also doing that on different types of paper, again, because maybe it’s not the ink, maybe it’s the paper you are using.  These are things we all need to consider and are ways we all can improve our heat embossing and reduce frustration.

Then comes the different types of embossing powders.  I might talk about them in the first video so people know what’s what, but I’m going to demonstrate clear, white, metallics, fine detail and thick, so people know what products are used for what.  I might also show some techniques, stained glass windows, molten lava that you stamp into, etc.

I spent most of the evening writing notes on the products I’m using and creating grids to demonstrate the different products on.  It’s a lot of work, but definitely worth the effort.  I’m really looking forward to getting started on the videos, but am waiting until I’m clear headed so I can make the best videos possible.  Some days are better for these kinds of videos than others.