Be strong...

I spent hours making a card on Saturday.  It's really a treat to have that much time for crafts, though it never ceases to amaze me how long it takes me to make anything! 

I like the card.  It came out nicely, and I'm going to put it in the mail today, but when I look at it, it looks fun, but unremarkable.

What actually does make it remarkable for me is that so many things successfully came together to make the card possible.

1.  The idea.  I happened to catch a card posted by Coffee Loving Card Makers on Facebook or Instagram, I can't remember which.  The card is by Richard Breaks, a crafter I just started following.  He used this sentiment built from a Honey Bee Stamps set called Perfect Blend.  I was struck by the simplicity of it.  Be Strong, be bold.  To my mind, it's a perfect pairing with coffee-themed cards.  With all of the coffee and tea-related stamps in my collection, I've been wanting to make more coffee cards for ages.  So an idea was born.

2.  The card shape.  Slimline cards are a popular new/old idea in the card-making world.  I'm not completely sold, but I wanted to try a few - lord knows I have plenty of business-sized envelopes to send them in.  I liked the first one I made...

...but I didn't even take a picture of the final version.  The kitties themselves were fun and easy to make, but cutting the layers was a nightmare of not quite straight or perpendicular lines.  This is why I buy frame dies - they take the guesswork out of cutting layers, and increase the chances I will like something I make.  After struggling with my kitty slimline card, I bought a set of slimline dies from Trinity Stamps.  They arrived on Friday, and part of making this coffee card work involved testing the dies.

Now, I sometimes have an adversarial relationship with my die cutting machine, but I've figured out how to make it work most of the time, even though I hold my breath every time I send something through.  The thing is, the machine is small-ish, and has cutting plates that are almost, but not quite long enough for the new slimline dies.  Yes, I could do partial die cutting and run the stuff through the machine twice, but that adds to the likelihood that something will go wrong.  But this is me, who hangs onto things long after she should.  I saved my long Cuttlebug cutting plates that hardly ever got used in the long-gone machine because I thought they might be useful someday.  On Saturday,  I dug out the almost pristine long plates, played with the arrangement of plates and shims until I got my slimline dies to cut in one pass.  Victory!

3.   Stamps and dies.  I knew I wanted to use big coffee cup images for the card.  Since I have most of my stamps cataloged and tagged in an online database, I simply plugged in the keyword "coffee", picked out a few likely candidates, and compared the size of the images to the size of the three card windows.  I landed on this set from Cat's Pajamas called This Could Be Vodka.

Most of the time, when I buy a stamp set, I buy the matching dies.  I struggle with fussy cutting out an image the way I struggle with cutting straight lines for card panels even with a paper cutter, ruler, and everything else.  For all two of you who read my last post which touched on this topic, my chosen set for the coffee card had no matching dies for the full images of critter plus cup - no physical dies, that is.  But I actually found and bought an on-sale digital cutting machine about a month ago, and last week, bought (for zero dollars!  Hooray) the digital cutting dies that matched.  I'd been nervous about trying the digital dies the way I'm nervous about trying many new things, but I'd rather try than have the machine sit around and collect dust.  And wouldn't you know, after watching many tutorial videos over a few days, I uploaded the cut file, chose the correct settings for the paper I was using, and the dies cut perfectly.  Victory!

4.  Coloring.  Another thing I work at, but am less good at.  As I was getting excited about my digital dies actually working, and getting my stamps all lined up and stamped out, I was thinking about how to color the cups and the critters.  As I was clearing up some scraps on my work table, it occurred to me try paper piecing patterned paper onto the cups.  As it happens, I do have dies that match the cups only, so I took a quick wander through my endless amounts of paper scraps, and found a piece of patterned paper that came with a magazine I bought years ago, and cut out some cups.  And even though it's not a palette I gravitate toward, I found a coordinating color for the mat behind the windows and a matching marker to use for the cup handles.  I made the bold choice to keep the critters white.  I'm fine with that decision.

If there's one thing I would change on the card, it's the sentiment.  The two sentences should at least be closer together.  If I end up doing a coffee card series, I might use the same sentiment again, so I'll have a chance to play with design and placement.

Woodblock Wednesday - Tea Edition

Ever since I finished my mail art project, which I failed to write about, but still may, and the first round of my pocket letter project, which I also failed to write about, but still may, I've renewed my focus on craft room organization and unmounting my woodblock stamps.  I mean, it's really a space problem in the end.  I have my woodblock stamps stored in Moppe storage boxes from Ikea (from back when they were solid and sturdy), and they just take up a lot of space.  Based on rough calculations, one Moppe box fits about 60 woodblock stamps; one bin of cling-mounted rubber stamps on storage sheets holds about 300 stamps!  So I'm, in theory, working on emptying one Moppe box at a time and doing the sticky work of removing the woodblocks and original foam cushion, cleaning off the bare rubber stamp, and remounting them on cling foam so I can use the stamps with acrylic blocks or any stamp positioning tool.  The bins of cling-mounted stamps will live in the space currently occupied by the Moppe boxes.

The thing is, I'm not disciplined enough to work on one box at a time.  Instead, I open up lots of drawers and pick out woodblock stamps I especially like or want to use at that moment, and unmount from there.  So out of my 60+ drawers of woodblock stamps, there are some missing from almost every drawer, and maybe two completely empty drawers in total.  I'm having a pointless conflict between efficiency and spontaneity in which there are no winners, and the outcome doesn't really matter.  Yet, I forge ahead...

I decided on a different approach the other day - unmount all stamps of one theme.  I chose to focus on my tea-related stamps because I wanted to use them for a project, and many of them are clustered in a few drawers.  I didn't do quite all of them, but a little over 30 of them on Sunday morning, and afterward, quickly created this card:

The Love and Scandal stamp is from Stampington, which no longer carries it, and the teacup is from Stamp Francisco, a grand old stamp company who blessedly still exists and carries so many wonderful images.   And I still want them all.

Maybe by the end of the summer I will have actually emptied one whole stamp box!  If I do, I'll share photo evidence in this space...

May cards...

Did you miss me, all two of you (or sometimes 3!)?  I participated in a mail art project for the first 4 weeks in May and essentially stopped making cards and blogging about them.  It's taken me a few days to get back into the card-making swing of things, but I'm glad to be back!!!  I'll write more about the mail art experience soon, but I wanted to share the cards I did make this month.

I had to send not one, but two sympathy cards this month.  In the spirit of my overarching card-making goal of using the bits I have lying around, I used a panel made with a Tim Holtz Floral stencil and Mother of Pearl Nuvo Mousse I'd made forever ago and a sympathy sentiment from Altenew's Wildflower Garden set mounted on a piece of text paper I've had for ages.

This card accompanied a packet of much-beloved-but-never-used teapot postcards I sent to a friend who is posting pictures of her daily themed tea parties on Facebook.  I borrowed an idea I used a couple of months ago, but this time set the tea party in a garden.  The die is the Tea Party die from Hero Arts, the background stamp is Country Road from Impression Obsession, and the potted plants and flowers courtesy of various peg stamps from Rubber Stamp Tapestry.

Out of the blue, a friend sent me a jigsaw puzzle!  Like so many, I've re-kindled my love of puzzles during this time at home, so I've started rebuilding my collection.  For my thank you card, I added a Mama Elephant thank you sentiment to a background made with a stencil watercolor technique using the same Tim Holtz stencil as above and Distress inks.  I adhered the panel to another sheet of cardstock to make it a little sturdier and cut the whole piece with a jigsaw die from Impression Obsession.  I took the puzzle apart and sent the pieces in a small envelope.

Hopefully I'll make a few more cards on these last days of May, but this card is my entry into the Spring/Summer 2020 Coffee Loving Cardmakers extravaganza.  CLC does these events twice a year, and every single time I swear to myself I'm going to make so many cards because I have so very many tea- and coffee-related stamps.  In the end, if I make and enter one card, it's a miracle.

I recently got a whole bunch of coffee stamps from Impression Obsession, including this one called Coffee Talk, and I've had this coffee sentiment from Rubbernecker for a few years (This is half of the sentiment.  The other half says, "I said, honey, it's Monday, don't even play."  These two stamps together suit me to a tee and continue my tradition of sassy women and snarky things to say - yup, still not tired of it. 

I couldn't face the idea of coloring the image - coloring is not my forté - so I decided to watercolor the background - also not my forté.  This card is my fourth attempt.  First I tried to color the background without masking the image and it was okay, but not great.  Then I fussy cut a paper mask (I have no masking paper - failure) and tried again because I wanted a different shade of blue and an ombré effect going from light to dark.  The ombré was great on try #2 but some of the paint seeped under the mask leaving the women with blue faces - artful, but not ideal.  For attempt #3, I fussy cut another mask out of plastic.  But I warped the plastic when I tried to heat it a bit to dry the ink, but I forged ahead and not surprisingly, the painting was a disaster.  So I went back to the first idea of just painting carefully around the image.  Because I was able to paint without tears, I decided to quit while I was ahead and give up the ombré effect, though it would have been better with.

In the end, I like the card, but it's not in any way exciting - rather typical of my work.  I might do another version with a painted background and the image mounted on top.  I don't know why I was fixated on a single layer, but I was.  Or I could try coloring the image with pencils or markers.  Or I could get masking paper and make a grown-up mask.  Or I could throw lots of money at the problem and get some kind of Scan-n-Cut and make a mask and stencil at the same time (throwing money at craft problems is always the best solution, right?????)!  Or I could move on.  Stay tuned...

Anyway, it's fun running on about cards again.  What are you making this weekend??

CoronaCrafts - Fun with Organization...

I once read that if you're any kind of crafter, you really have three hobbies, not one:  making whatever it is you make, shopping for and buying craft supplies, and organizing your supplies.  That's me for sure.  Some days I feel like doing one of these sub-hobbies more than another.  Now with the plethora of online everything, I like to have some craft projects I can do that don't require intense concentration so I can listen to the concert, or whatever, and still keep my hands busy.  This week's project has been color combo tags focusing on two stamp sets:  the Papertrey Ocean set I wrote about last time and the Altenew Nature Snippets set.

I've written before that choosing colors is not a thing I'm confident about.  It's dawning slowly that others may feel the same, even the crafters who make the fancy videos.  The key thing for me is giving myself permission and time to try a bunch of color combinations, even if I have to throw away some of the poor choices (I think the fancy video people might do this, and just not show it, or they might just have a great eye for color, which is why they are fancy video people.).  What I've decided to do when I can is make a bunch of color swatch samples for different stamp sets.  This way, when I go to use that set, I'm not constantly stressing over which colors to use.  I'll have a head start, and can make adjustments as necessary.  So while Karen Axelrod was playing the piano the other night, here's what I was doing...

I scoured the internet for card examples using the Nature Snippets set.  Whenever folks actually included the ink names in their post, I wrote them down and gave them a try.  I made 20 samples in all for this set, and am still collecting more ideas.

I die cut each sample with a tag die, and wrote the ink names on the back.  I did the same for the Papertrey Ocean set the other day.  I am so happy to have these as a reference!

Here are some of the cards I made with the Nature Snippets set this week (plus one from last year).  AND, I'll put the pink colors in the caption beneath each picture!  There were others, but I forgot to photograph them before they went out the door...

Altenew Inks:  Artic, Sapphire, Silver Stone

Altenew Inks:  Iceberg, Fresh Leaf, Sunray

Altenew Inks:  Ultraviolet, Jet Black, Volcano Lake

Altenew Inks:  Minty Mint, Just Green, Cotton Candy

Altenew Inks:  Coral Bliss, Heartbeat, Soft Lilac

CoronaCrafts - Call of the Sea...

Ugh!  I've been so good about blogging regularly during this time at home, and then boom, a week goes by.  Silly me for trying to take more time away from this little screen...

Last week, I was looking at Ebay, like you do, and searching for Gibson Girl rubber stamps, like you do, when I came across one I didn't have - which seems almost impossible.  As I was considering making the purchase, I looked at the seller information.  The seller turned out to be a rubber stamp store that used to exist in Connecticut.  When I had extra time on my way up or down the NE corridor, I would sometimes take a detour and visit that store.  The last time I tried that, which was several years ago now, they were gone like so many.  But here they are again on Ebay, no doubt selling off their inventory.  Before I purchased my Gibson Girl with Hat stamp, I decided to look at their other offerings.  I mean, who can resist the siren song of combined shipping???  My one other purchase:  a Van Gogh quote about the sea in my favorite almost unreadable scripty type by East Coast Art Stamps, a company I've never heard of that I know is long gone.  The two woodblock stamps arrived on Friday and I was inspired to use the quote stamp immediately.

I knew I wanted to pair this quote with an ocean image, of which I have many, and I chose this layering set by Papertrey Ink:  Text & Texture:  Ocean, which I hadn't yet tried.  I always struggle with choosing colors, so over the weekend, I took a few hours and just tried this stamp set a bunch of times with various shades of green, teal, and blue. 

I did something novel and even wrote down the color combinations so I could have a visual aid for next time.  Crazy, I know.  I went with two shades of teal from the Altenew Sweet Dreams set:  Teal Cave and Galactic Stream (the names make the colors extra special...).

My plan for the quote was to stamp it on white translucent vellum, let the ink dry for a million years, run it through my sticker maker thing, because all pieces of tape and drops of glue are visible through vellum, and then put the whole thing together.   Such a simple plan, really.  I stamped the quote on two pieces of vellum just to be sure I had an extra when I screwed up one of the pieces.  PS, I messed up both pieces in different ways.  After waiting about three hours, I ran the first piece through the sticker maker and smudged all of the ink.  After waiting about 15 hours, I tested the ink on the second piece, and smudged it.  Time for another plan.

I cut another couple of pieces (this is when I discovered I was down to my last sheet of white vellum), ran them through the sticker maker first, then stamped, and then clear heat embossed the pieces so I could finish the card before quarantine ended.  But alas, clear embossing, while it made the piece usable, thickened the text, making it more arty than readable. 

I still like the concept, and still sent the card - if it was a disaster, the card would still be in the house - but I plan to remake it.  Next time I will try a) using dye ink on the quote, which dries faster, b) waiting at least 24 hours before touching the vellum, c) positioning the quote closer to the bottom of the card, and d) adding more color to the sky - you almost can't see it in the photo.

The quote calls the Mediterranean Sea the color of mackerel, like a mackerel sky, I guess, but meaning changeable in color.  Maybe I'll try get some of that color variation into the ocean...

CoronaCrafts - Mini-inventory

The days are so strange now, and so monotonous that I can't even remember what I did this past weekend.  Sunday, of course, was Easter, which I don't celebrate, except for watching Easter Parade every year.  Though I don't celebrate, Easter was always an important time of year for me because that's when there was an influx of bunnies, my stuffed animal of choice in my formative years, in stores.  While most of my early bunnies are gone, I still like bunny images.  Last year on Easter Sunday, I made this card:

I used the Gina K wreath builder stencil, the Simon Says Stamp Oh Bunny set, and the Kiss Kiss set from Right at Home for the sentiment.

This year, the spirit wasn't moving me, but as I've been doing a bunch of stamp organizing and cataloging, in addition to trying to make and send a lot of cards, I decided to round up all of my bunny stamps, just for kicks.  I knew I had more than the set I used last year.  Yup.  I was right.

(I'm not going to even attempt to tag all of these images, but for all three of you reading this, if you really want to know where any of the images comes from, just ask.)

The fun, yet time consuming thing about this process was that I pulled together wood-mounted, cling-mounted and clear stamps in a single place.  This is my ultimate goal for my entire collection, but right now, my clear stamps are cataloged and tagged on Airtable, [most of] my wood mounted stamps are in organized by category in a physical paper catalog I've been keeping for years and years, and my cling stamps are inbetwixt inbetween.  But if this stay-at-home order lasts for much longer, I will have time to not only finish adding all of my unmounted stamps to the physical catalog, but create more specialty sub-category pages like these.

(Lies.  I will never be done organizing my stamps.)

CoronaCrafts - In haste...

This is not a real post, only a hurried post as I attempt to figure out if a virtual sedar is in any way possible and fun...

I mean, don't you have badgers in your collection?  And why wouldn't those badgers be drinking tea.  Badgers care nothing for your social distancing nonsense...