Archive for the ‘Tools of the Trade’ Category

I found these cute wooden stamps in the 10 for $10.00 bins at M’s.  They were actually packaged, with a red cardboard backing and some acetate around the stamp.  Once you open them the words are positioned on the stamps that would make it easy to mask them off so you could only get the flourish.

You could also buy 2 sets and take your craft knife and cut the words out (they are only $1).  I’m loving this look and they have some real cute notepads, things to do list, and small journals in the black/white and yellow hounds tooth.

The 10 things for $10 has the Christmas stuff beginning to appear and that always makes me start thinking about Christmas and what I can make.  I can’t decide if I want to be real adventurous and make all my Christmas cards this year.   We’ll have to see, probably not …but maybe…oh I’m so indecisive right now.

I learned a new technique this week that uses this beautiful plate (which by the way the other side has a different design), a sheet of metal in “Kiss Me Pink, a new tool that is called an eraser, a stump and I used some distressed ink in “Worn Lipstick”.

This plate is used to emboss the metal and the tool that can either smooth out the thin metal or crease it is used to get deep embossing around the design.

Phyllis and I had a girl’s day where I took her to one of my favorite shops for scrapbooking.  It is called “Gotta Scrap” and it is owned by two sisters.  This store is loaded with all kinds of unique items that you can not find at your everyday craft store such as HL, M’s or JA’s.

Best of all they are always so willing to show you what classes they are teaching, new items that have come out and what is their favorite.  They are also very knowledgeable about the products.

This beautiful deeply embossed star is going in my GD’s scrapbook.  I loved the way the design turned out and once you emboss the tin, you can take a very fine grade buffer and expose the silver metal underneath.  I then took a little alcohol ink and ran around the edge and took the distress ink and shaded in some of the outer parts of the star.

I adhered it to the star chipboard (which by the way I cut out of a cereal box) using spray adhesive.  This particular plate, metal sheet, and tools came from Tenseconds Studio.  I haven’t tried this metal in the CB but I’m going to.  I will tell you I love creasing this metal over the plate and then refining the peaks and valleys to get that sharp detail.  You put the plate down then the metal sheet on top, take the stump run over the design, take the eraser and bring in the detail.  Once the imprint is clearly visible place the metal on a soft surface (ie. mouse pad) and refine the lines.

There are a lot of other tools that go with this technique but we just got the things we needed to play a little.  I loved the results.  You will be seeing more of this incorporated into my cards.  By the way Phyllis bought the lime green shade of metal, I can’t wait to see how beautiful that works up.

If you haven’t figured it out by now, I’m always looking for something intended for use one way and figuring out if it can be used another way.  I had one of those “aha” moments that worked out this last week.

Remember, yesterday when I said I was strolling around JoAnn’s and picked up a few small things?  This was one of them.  These are called texture makers for Sculpey clay.

What first drew my attention to this particular texture maker was the design of the plate called “Chantilly Lace” (remember the song Chantilly Lace….) .  My Mother has been crocheting some beautiful flowers and I’m thinking this would be a great  embossing texture for a card and those flowers.

In this particular package you get two plates, the Chantilly Lace and a Script.  They are not a hard plastic like a Fiskar’s texture plate or a Cuttlebug Embossing Folder.  They are also one sided, unlike the Cuttlebug where you have a folder type instrument.

The next step was to see what type of sandwich (meaning combination of plates to run through the embossing machine) I needed to configure to get the best embossing.  Now keep in mind, that just like the Cricut, each Cuttlebug has it’s own little quirks about the sandwiches that it will take.   

If it is to thick of sandwich and it will emboss but will also emboss right through the paper.  As you can see, the card stock took the design but it also cut right through the card stock.  This told me my sandwich was to thick, so I had to try another mix.

This looks like a good sandwich mix, but if you look closer, it is still to thick because it is breaking through the card stock in areas.

This is a beautiful pattern. 

 TIP:  If you spray a little water on the cardstock it will emboss better also.

I finally ended up with the following sandwich for my Cuddlebug:

A plate, texture maker plate, cardstock, embossing pad, 3 shims and B plate.  I save the cardboard packaging that comes with my A2 embossing folders for shims.  The various thickness helps get the right mix  for the other brands of embossing elements.

Tip:  So if this combination doesn’t work for your Cuddlebug or embossing machine, play around with different combinations to find out which one works best for your machine.  There is no wrong or right combination.  Each machine is different.

I did a rough chalking of the design since I made the test on white card stock so you could see what it would look like.

 On the script I took a make-up sponge and an ink pad and inked the design.  I’m thinking these might work on white core card stock and then sand them to expose the white core, or Tim Holtz distressed ink would probably be beautiful to use on this also.

This is just another example of looking at something intended for one thing (clay ) and using it for another.  By the way, I did use my 40% coupon on these plates and I think they are going to be well worth the $5.20 for two.

Don’t forget if you want a closer look just click on the picture.  Thanks for stopping by and spending a few minutes with me.  Let me know what you think, I love hearing from you.

Did you know that QuicKutz had A2 Embossing Folders?  I have been waiting (what seems like forever) for ProvoCraft to come out with some new Embossing Folders for the Cuddlebug.  The new ones are on pre-order and should ship sometime in October (I think).

Well, to my surprise I visited a HL that I don’t normally go to and they had a display of QuicKutz dies and I happened to notice they had A2 folders too.  They cost about the same as Cuddlebugs A2 folders and they look very similar except the plastic folder is a blue color rather than white.

I felt like it was Christmas with all the different designs QuicKutz had that I had not seen before.  The above frame with the flourish is stunning.

I could easily seeing adding some flowersoft to this embossed flower stems.

This is a very simple background that will work very nicely with various papers and stamps.

This is a great simple Dots and Diamond shape A2 folder.  This again is a type of background embossing that will work with stamps of all kinds.

My personal favorite, I’m going to make this one for a card challenge I’m participating in.

Keep your eyes open and don’t get stuck in just thinking that Provocraft is the only one out there with A2 folders.  I have found them made by Sizzix and now QuicKutz.  They may be releasing and beating Cuddlebug to the punch on A2 folders.

Keep visiting I’m going ot make something with this little jewel very soon.

Aren’t these cute!!!!!!

So here is how it happened….one the things I do either first thing or before I leave is to check the $1 wood stamps at Michael’s.  Phyllis (one of my BFF’s) and I was digging through the piles of stamps saying, “someone needs to buy all these Easter stamps, so they will put out new stuff”!

About that time they bought out 3-4 boxes of $1 stamps (all new) for Halloween.  Mixed in this Halloween stuff is Autum things too.  Love the trees, the pumpkin, the leaves and the row of apples, and of course the little house.

The guy was so nice when he came back with another box he asked us if we were looking for anything in particular and let us look through the box before he dumped them into the bin.  Talk about being at the right place at the right time, this was sweet!

Now I have to add another shelf in my “Woman Cave” to show off these new finds and it just so happens I have a 72″ shelf from Ikea that is just waiting to be installed.  You know what that means, it will look empty with this little bit of stamps, I must fill it up.  It’s a vicious cycle.

Still working on the project for the Paper Wishes stencil but it is coming along nicely, so keep visiting.

Don’t you just love how everything is on the same wave length.  We had never heard of HD a few years back and now everything you see is HD.  Even the lights!

Joann’s had their Ottlite’s (some of them) on sale for 1/2 off.  I had bought one of these for my Mother for Christmas last year.  She actually took offense to me getting her the light, until I explained to her that it would help with her crochet work and now making cards.

I decided now was the time for me to pick one of these up.  Of course, there was only a couple of colors to choose from …one was baby blue and this one which is a “hot” pink.

I would have preferred it to be in black, yellow, or even silver but at 1/2 off I wasn’t going to get to bent out of shape.

Nothing to put together (thank goodness), just plug and play.  I have to tell you I was surprise about how much difference this little lamp made in lighting the area I was working.

It was also small enough it was not in my way.  I’m chalking this up to a good investment and by the way it was only $19.99 at 1/2 off and a perfect size for my work space. 

Maybe this light will make my photos look better since this is suppose to mimic natural light.

These are call “Bubble-A-Bilities” by the Paper Studio.  They are so cute!  My #1 Daughter was with me the other night at HL and found them back in the clearance items.

The cost for these are normally $3.99 but they were slashed to $1.43.  There are 28 “Bubble-A-Bilities” on this one page and as you can see they are so cute.

One of the first things we do when we go in the craft stores is go check out what is in the clearance items.  We have also discover that you just have to keep going back and checking them out each week.  Sometimes you find something and sometimes you don’t, but by continuing to check you will be one of those that get those great bargains.

I know, I know,  but I can’t help myself!  HL was having a ribbon sale, 50% off all their rolls of ribbon.  HL has some of the cutest ribbon and it is usually different that what you see at M’s and JA’s.

Isn’t the pumkin and spider ribbon cute and I love the houndstooth.  That apple green ribbon with the lines running through is just glows when you tie it in a bow.

I also got some of the 1/8″ wide ribbon that is sheer (bottom row, right side).  I’m going to try an experiment with them and I’ll let you know how it works out.   No, I’m not telling …you will just have to wait and see.

Thanks for dropping by “Talent Is Optional” mad skills required.  I have some exciting news to share but I’m going to wait before I share it.  I want to be sure I can meet the requirement first.

Although I have a Cricut Expressions that will cut just about anything I can want or image and I have SCAL (Sure Cuts A Lot) that will allow me to cut anything I can find on the internet, I still love Spellbinders Die Templates.

For one thing they are a 3 in 1 value (well, it says so right on the package).  They allow you to cut, emboss and stencil using only the die cut.  The thing that is really unique is that little extra emboss that you can give the cut after you have cut it out.  It adds that extra dimension that you don’t get with other die cuts.

You can use these with inks, chalks, markers, watercolor pencils and more.  I’m taking the “more” to mean Prismacolor pencils of course!

What you are looking at is three different die templates that I got on sale (at Hobby Lobby).  Notice that little yellow tag in the upper right hand corner.

They were on sale at 40% off and one of them was 50% off.  There is no way I could pass up the sale on these die cut templates.  That is three Spellbinder templates for $21.57 that would normally cost $38.97 plus tax.

But wait there is more………all three of these templates ended up costing me………wait for it, wait for it…………

$11.05!!!!

When I got to the checkout they were even further discounted.  You just never know how good a deal you are getting until you check out.  Thank you Hobby Lobby for that little extra surprise.

Nothing excites you more than when you feel like you found a great deal and was able to take advantage of it, only to find out that you are getting blessed even more.

I had told myself I didn’t need this tool.  I had an eyelet setter that I was perfectly happy with until I saw Mary’s video on making the mini album out of TP rolls.  Mary’s blog link is on the right side of my website, just go on over and click on Cardz for U.

Since she said it was a lot easier to punch the holes and set the eyelets with the Crop-A-Dile, I decided I would go ahead and get one.  Luckily, Micheal’s was running the 50% off coupons last week so I took the dip and used the coupon to get a bargain.

I haven’t used it yet or even messed around with it.  I’m currently collecting TP rolls so I can start the project and when it is done I’ll give a review on the crop-a-dile and the TP album I’m making following Mary’s video.  Mary you are such an enabler!