Challenging Myself

On Friday, June 14th I hosted FNC over at Scraps of Color. I love Friday Night Challenges because they really help me to hone my crafting skills. I especially enjoy hosting because it forces me to try different techniques in order to prepare fun challenges for the participants.

The challenges and my projects were as follows:

Challenge #1 - Create a card (shape and size your choice) using a sponge and two or more colors of ink to make a background on white cardstock. Then stamp an image on it using a RUBBER stamp. Add some bling, ribbon, a corner punch and a sentiment. You may mat your sponged cardstock if you desire; however, NO PATTERNED PAPER ALLOWED!

Challenge #2 - Create a card (shape and size your choice) using white cardstock, two or more background stamps and no more than two colors of ink. If you don’t have any background stamps, you can sponge through a template onto the cardstock as well.Then stamp one or more images (they can be the same or different) on it using a RUBBER stamp and BLACK ink. Add ONLY a sentiment and mat to the white cardstock. No bling, ribbon, brads/buttons or other embellishments. Again, NO PATTERNED PAPER ALLOWED! (I got this idea from Stampers Sampler Take Ten magazine and managed to make two cards for this one!)

Challenge #3 - Use the following sketch to create a Father’s Day card. That’s it…added touches are up to you!

And finally, there was a challenge that participants had a week to complete. They were to use one of Classygirl's sketches to make a layout. I struggled a lot with making my pictures fit the sketch, but that's the beauty of sketches, you can rotate or flip them to suit your needs. And sometimes, the sketch really is just a jumping off point that gets your creativity cranked and cookin'!

If you've read this far, sorry... I have no profound lesson today. Just me and my sketches in this post!

Thanks for lookin'!

WrinkleFreeDiva

Maximixe Your Crafting Time

A few weeks ago I was chatting with my CFF *Crafty Friends Forever* Sharon S.  over at SOC. She had recently posted a card on her blog where she used spray mists. It was absolutely beautiful! As we were chatting she encouraged me to use my Glimmer Mists of which I have many. So I chose a few colors and began misting away. 

Wanting to get the most out of my “misting experience,” I decided to spray a 12 x 12 sheet of white cardstock and cut it so that I could make four cards. Sadly, I’ve needed quite a few sympathy cards lately, so since I was making one card that was fairly simple in design, I figured it would be just as easy to make four cards that were similar. When I make a card it is usually because I need it for something specific and so haven’t really built up a go-to stash of cards for all ocassions. This is what I came up with:

This card was also used for the Use Your Stash Challenge over at Scraps of Color. 

Most of the paper is from my scrap drawers. For the flowers I used the Insightful Meadows set from the Unity Stamp Co. and the "With Sympathy" stamp is from the Best Wishes set from Close to My Heart. I also used Distress Embossing Ink and Ranger gold embossing powder.

So my lesson for today is this…

1. If you’re making a card, and taking the time to ink, paint, mist, or stamp a background, why not just make it worth your time and do it on a 12 x 12 sheet of cardstock and net yourself four cards instead of one?
2. When making cards and time allows, try to make duplicates so that you can build up a stash that you can pull from when you need a card but don’t have time to make one.

Thanks for looking!

Karen aka “WrinkleFreeDiva”

Rubber Stamp Catalog Completed!

After many, many long hours of work, I have finally completed my stamp storage and catalog! And  the best part? I think I will be able to add to and live with this system for a long, long time.

Those of you who are following me will recall my previous post on stamp organization which you can find here. I’m one of those who jump on the latest scrappy organizational craze, and don’t take the time to figure out if that system will work for me. A couple of years ago, I decided to catalog all of my stamps in a rolodex file, and it didn’t take me too long to determine that it really didn’t work for me.

So last month, after acquiring some new stamp storage containers (each one holds LOTS of stamps), I took the opportunity to make a new catalog for my rubber stamps and it all fits in a notebook with lots of room for expansion.

I stamped many of the stamps directly on the pages. In other cases, I just took the pages directly from the rolodex and adhered them to the page (after trimming around them first). When the rolodex pages were double-sided, I photocopied one side first so that I had both images. And finally, for many of the sets, I just used Google to find pictures of the complete set and printed those to adhere to the pages. Each image is labeled with the manufacturer, the name of the stamp, and where it can be found in my stamp files. A-15 would mean the stamp can be found in container A on card 15. 

I’ve had the opportunity to need some stamps recently and finding them is a breeze! Can’t believe I waited so long to do this! What I love most about it is that all of my rubber stamps are shown at their exact size, which means I can see at a glance whether a specific stamp will fit my project or not.

So…for those who have read this far, the lesson today is a simple one:

We papercrafters are always looking for new and better ways to store our stuff. As a consequence, we are always organizing and reorganizing.  Keep in mind that what works for a fellow scrapper may not necessarily work for you. Before deciding on an organizational strategy, think long and hard about your work flow and the space you have. Also consider how much you have of the product (or tools) you’re trying to organize AND whether you’ll be adding to that collection or not. If you are planning to add to your collection of rubber stamps or cutting dies for instance, your organization system will need room to grow or else you’ll end up trying to come up with another organization system.

If you’ve read this far, I hope this has been of some help to you.

Thanks for looking!

Made a Mistake? Don't Despair... Repair!

Sometime last fall, I completed a two-page layout that I wanted to blog about, but didn't since the layout was made as part of a gift album; I had to wait until the recipient received it. By then of course, my focus was directed elsewhere and writing the post had to be put to the side, but for some reason it was never forgotten.

The layout was for baby’s first year, and my intent was to leave mats for photos of the baby each month, with a large mat for the baby’s first birthday. (Knowing me, I probably started with a sketch; but it's been so long, I can't remember.) While doing the mats for months 8 through 11, I made a mistake and stamped those titles above the mats, instead of underneath. If memory serves me correctly, at the time I designed the layout, I intended to put part of the title in that large green space on the left and so stamping above those mats kind of screwed that up. I had already put a lot of work into the layout at that point what with cutting and inking the mats and pasting everything down. Not to mention having very little of the carefully chosen cardstock I'd used left. Besides, I'm really not one to start over when working on a layout. So....I just let the layout "sit" for awhile so that I could figure out how to fix it.

As inspiration began to unfold, I stamped underneath the mats... where the stamping was supposed to be in the first place. 

Then, I decided to add some embellishments in the large green space as well as between the mats to cover up my "boo boos." 

Of course that meant changing the placement of my title while trying to maintain a visual triangle and keep my title grounded. All in all... I was quite happy with the result. And the most important part was, I didn't have to start over!

So... if you've read this far in my post, then you're ready for this take-away:

1. When working on a layout or other project, don't despair if you make a mistake that you feel can't be corrected. And definitely don't feel like you have to start over!
2. Allow that project to "rest" for a little while... that could be minutes, hours or even days. Once you feel that the "resting" time is over, look at your project again as if seeing it for the very first time.
3. Let inspiration guide you and allow your creativity to unfold. While your project may take on an entirely different look or move in a different direction, what results may surprise you!

Rubber Stamp This Organization Idea!

People are always looking for ways to organize their scrappy supplies, and organization for rubber stamps is no exception. Several people have asked me how I organize mine, and so I thought I would do a post on stamp organiztion. I have tried several different ways to organize them, but as crafters you know that as you keep acquiring stuff, your storage needs change. I think I have finally come up with a way to organize AND find them that will grow easily (without requiring a complete overhaul) should I continue to acquire stamps (even though I don’t need to!).

Let me start by saying that I prefer wood-mounted stamps only because I seem to get a much better impression when I use them. I store them in the three-drawer Sterilite drawers. I have twelve drawers all together, and each drawer has two layers of stamps. 

Most of my clear-mount stamps are in these Memorex CD cases that I got from here. They were really inexpensive and seemed like a good idea at the time. The stamps are either on the original plastic they came adhered to, or on those laminated stamp pages that have been cut up. Then those are slipped into each CD sleeve; each case comes with 40 sleeves. However, once you start putting stamps in there, the case will not hold all of the sleeves it came with. This was working for me but the problem is each sleeve does not hold a lot of stamps which sometimes means splitting up sets. They also do not hold very large stamps. 

I have since found these Unmounted Stamp Files by Cropper Hopper (purchased here) and am in the process of transitioning all of my clear- and cling-mount stamps to them. They are quite large and will hold a lot of stamps. They also hold my CTMH stamps in their original plastic envelopes.

A majority of my red cling-mount stamps are on cut up laminated stamp pages and filed in these Sterilite CD boxes which I don't think they make anymore. Each box will only hold about 12 to 15 sheets and the sheets are very small. So I had a hard time getting some of my larger clear and cling mount stamps to fit in there. I did manage to get them in by turning them sideways in the drawer. I’m also going to move those to the Unmounted Stamp Files.

So… I guess you’re wondering HOW I organize them so that I can find them… By size? By theme? By image? Well… none of the above. When I buy stamps they go in the next available CD sleeve, or for the wood-mounted stamps, in a drawer that has space. I have indexed all of my stamps in a rolodex file so that I can find what I am looking for. It is organized into categories. I got this idea over at Split Coast Stampers and spent several days last summer stamping and indexing all of my stamps. If you look at the picture below, you will see the stamp with the hedgehog on the tightrope. On that card, you will see four notations: WM, 5, Penny Black, and Acrobat. The WM means that it is a wood-mounted stamp. The “5” means it is in Drawer 5 where the wood-mounted stamps are. “Penny Black” is the manufacturer/designer and “Acrobat” is the name of the stamp. Drawer numbers begin with “CD” for stamps that are in CD files. For my newer Unmounted Stamp Files, I have decided to label them A, B, C, D, etc and number the cards that are in them.

Now, I supposed I should tell you that after I spent all of the time making the Rolodex file, I don’t really like it. While it is compact and doesn’t take up a lot of room in my craft space, I think I would prefer to see more stamps at one glance. For example… if I’m looking for a “thank you” stamp, I’d like to see many of them at once. It would make selecting one much quicker and I wouldn’t have to spend so much time flipping back and forth in the rolodex file. Another problem with it is that if you want to see the image of larger stamps at actual size, they don’t fit on the cards. So I often had to cut the image from the package, or take a scan of the stamp and shrink it to fit. My background, Rubbernecker and Loralei stamps are a perfect example of stamps that caused me that problem. So… to combat that, I am now in the process of transitioning my index to a notebook with the same categories. At the same time the images for the clear- and cling-mounted stamps will be renumbered to match the new boxes. I can’t tell you how long that’s going to take me, but once that is done, I’ll do another blog post!

Thanks for reading!