All Paper Arts

It has been so hectic around here. I have really been tied up on a lot of different projects. Most importantly and impressive for me atleast is that so far this week I have the garage cleaned up and our attic reorganized. Now to the inside of the house. YIKES!

Speaking of tied up. Terry Crawford who writes the Quilting By Design blog wrote about an episode on ties she saw on the DIY Network. It has a couple of ideas for different uses with neckties. Funny thing is one of the projects is one I made with my first grade club earlier this school year.

There are all kinds of cool things you can do with neckties. A favorite of mine is replacing a breakfast chair seat. Basically they basket weaved the ties. I think I saw Martha Stewart do this many, many years ago on her show.

So what do ties have to do with paper arts? Probably not much but they are fun and I am always looking for great ways to use them. Right now thick head bands are so in and an old necktie are fabulous to use. I have already worn a few that way. A really quick way is to get a plain head band and thread it through the tie, put it on like you normally would and then just tie both ends under the back of your hair. Let the extra hang if you would like or if you have the rest of your hair up tie it in a pretty bow.

mens neckties, quilting by design, necktie bracelets, DIY network, Martha Stewart, big headbands

A friend of mine found this website. I thought I would pass it on to you. www.pagemaps.com This is a free site where you can get some great maps for scrap booking and card making. What are maps you ask? They are basically layout blueprints. It is especially great for beginners and all of those of you who say “I’m that creative”. Really if you didn’t have some creativity would you really be into paperarts? You can sign up to receive a newsletter as well. I hope you enjoy.

pagemaps, scrapbooking, cardmaking, tags

Last week I wrote a little bit about my favorite stamp pads. Today I am going to try to help give some pointers for getting a perfect stamped image. My very first hint is never adhere what you are stamping to the paper or card first. The reason is because when you stamp on your paper or cardstock if you make a mistake you can just simply turn it over and try it again. That way you haven’t wasted the paper.

I hardly ever ink my stamp the old fashioned way. IE: Stamp Pad on table you push stamp into pad. The reason is I don’t get as clean of an image when I do that. Several things can go wrong. You can get too much ink and then your image has fat lines. You can press too hard into the pad and then you get the cut lines of the rubber stamp. Or the ink isn’t distributed evenly on the entire stamp leaving you with a partial image or an image where the outer lines are good and the inside lines are too light. Instead, I like to hold my stamp in one hand and my ink pad in the other and just tap my stamp with the ink. This way I have control of where the ink is going and I can make sure all of the lines of the image are covered. It is also a lot harder to over ink this way.

When it is time to actually stamp your image remember to have a steady hand. I don’t know where the idea that you have to rock your stamp comes from but that is the very worst thing you can do. I think maybe it has to do with being in school and the ink pads being to dry? When ever I teach a class to stamp I can tell who has never stamped before because the first they thing do is rock the image. Just firmly press the stamp. There is no rocking or pushing the stamp involved. Also, remember if your image comes out without complete lines you can’t put the stamp right back on top of your image. Unless, you are a miracle worker this hardly ever works instead you get a double image even worst then from rocking the stamp.
I hope these tips help you. If you have any questions please let me know and I will do my best to answer them. Happy Stamping!

rubber stamping, card making, scrapbooking

This is going to be a quick blog. I have had so much going on this week from a family member coming in town that I had never met to a headache that will not go away. I do want to take the time to give Kudos to my 3rd grader and her friend. They did a History Fair project together over the weekend. Thursday afternoon we found out they came in First Place for Groups in their grade level. They will be going on to district. I am so proud of them for doing such a great job. They both could have easily changed their minds and decided not to participate but they persevered. Actually, I am proud of all the 3rd graders at their school. They all did an awesome job. I was really impressed many of them could have been compared to higher grades they were so good. This morning I am taking my camera and going up to the school to get some pictures of the girls and their board. I know this is a memory my daughter will want to remember. I think I will give her, her own set of pictures so she can put them in her very own scrapbook. I think it will be a great moral booster on those days when she starts to loose confidence in herself.

One of the most important tools (if you will) for paper arts is Ink! Of course that isn’t near as important as the paper. I have had some questions on inks and what brand is the best. So today I am going to go over a few. Please keep in my mind some of these are just my preferences and as unbelievable as it may be I have not tried every brand of ink out their.

I especially like the Distress Inks by Tim Holtz. With colors like old paper, black soot, walnut stain, and aged mahogany you know immediately these are great for your more distressed or heritage pieces. These have high priority for my ATC’s and Altered Art. They even have embossing powders in an array of vintage colors.

When I am going for an earthier feel I look again to another Ranger product. Their Adirondack® Dye Rainbow Pads are really great for your landscape or nature stamps. They are also fun to use with a brayer.

I have tried a ton of black ink pads and find that many of the ones I buy at the store are a bit smudgy. They are very hard if you want to color in an image you have stamped because everything smears. Also the ink tends to not dry as quick as you’d like which can hold you back when you are on a roll. So far my favorite black ink pad is from Stampin’ Up it is the Basic Black Classic Stampin’ pad. This works great. I use it all the time. You can stamp your image and it is dry immediately so that you can color it in and it doesn’t smear if you are using markers or water color pencils.

The next ink really isn’t an ink. It is called Versamark Watermark Stamp and that is the brand I would go with. It is a bit more expensive but for embossing it seems to work the best. Some of the others I have tried either get to wet and smeared. Or they were to dry and you didn’t really know until after you had dried the embossing that it didn’t pick up the whole image. The Versamark is great for pigment on pigment stamping on colored paper and for chalking.

So what are the differences between pigment ink and dye ink? Pigment ink is going to be a little….juicier it can often be used for embossing and it will need to have time to dry. A dye ink is pretty much the exact opposite. It usually dries quickly and lets you color in your images.

Oh! another favorite of mine is the Stazon Ink Pads. They usually are almost metallic looking shades and they can be used on a number of slick surfaces. I use these when stamping on vellum, plastic bags, or slick paper.

There are so many different types of ink pads and inks and so on. I could really be here all day talking about them but I think this should help you out. Of course if you have any questions or any favorite inks yourself please feel free to comment. I always love to hear what you think.

Ranger Inks, Tim holtz, Stampin’ Up, Versamark Watermark Stamp Pad, ATC’s, Altered Art, Stazon Ink Pad, Rubber Stamping, Embossing Powders

Honestly, I have not run over to Michaels to jump on this bandwagon. Don’t get me wrong I like Martha and I have gotten some inspiration from her shows and magazines through out the years. However, after watching her show yesterday I just wonder how much of this stuff really needed to be marketed. Seriously, do you really need to buy a kit to make paper bag animal puppets? Isn’t that paper arts 101? Plus aren’t there already self healing cutting boards, circle punches, and threads and other tools out on the market. The punches were square and look bulky to me. And really are we paying for the scissors or for the frou-frou boxes?

Okay, I admit I sound a little harsh. That isn’t my intent. Like I said I haven’t even gone and looked at the products in person. There are some things that look cool. Like the hole punch she was using yesterday that was pretty neat. I am sure I will have to have some items. I guess it is more that many of the items she has a very much like products already out in the arts and craft world. Of course they don’t have Martha’s name on them and I am sure her prices will be much higher. I know I am not going to trade in all the stuff I already own just to have her name on them. Another thing is my mom was talking to an associate that works at a local Michaels and they told her you will never see the Martha stuff on sale and you won’t be able to use their famous 40% off coupons on her products either. That sure makes me glad that I am not a keeping up with the Jones’ type person because I have too much stuff and buy too much stuff to not get good deals every now and then. Seriously, I am going to try to control myself and not even glance at her paper. Since you know how that is my down fall.

Maybe secretly I am just a little envious of this super diva. I’ll also admit I am not offended when friends and family call me “Martha”. But does she have to go into everybody’s field and be so darn good at it? Am I going to have clients telling me that doesn’t look like what Martha would do? Yeah we all know if her company was to call me up and offer me a job I would accept it in a heartbeat. Not that I have ever applied. So really let us just ignore this little outburst I had. Instead I’ll simply say You Go Girl! And P.S. I wouldn’t mind you passing on any business to me! Or showcasing any of my own brillant ideas.

Martha Stewart Crafts, Martha Stweart, Michaels, scrapbooks, rubber stamps, paper arts, crafts

This is a part of a page I did this past weekend. When the pictures were taken I was trying to get a good group picture of all four girls. My now 3rd grader decided she didn’t want to be very cooperative. I still liked the photos and wanted to do something neat with them. I decided to make an interactive page so people could see the sequences of events. The pages were matted and then I adhered just the top part of the matting so you can flip up the photos one at a time. I journaled on the backside of each photo to keep the theme going.