No long sleeves needed . . .

 Great idea when the MISTI and other stamping platforms became available for us stampers. . .   soon we found out skin and plastic do not make a smooth combination.... in came the long sleeves.... 

You cut your card stock to the size you need, put the cling/poly stamp in the MISTI for stamping, ink it up, close the door and now you need to pull your long sleeve over your hand so it can glide smoothly over the door of the MISTI while you add pressure to help transfer the inked image onto your card stock in the MISTI.....

Here and there we are seeing other crafters using different tools to use with the MISTI to help transfer the inked image to card stock. I had seen a video on YouTube where a stamper used a dry erase board eraser over the top of her MISTI.  Simple idea and affordable so I bought myself one of the dry erase board erasers.... The shape of this eraser is rectangle so too large to sit in the center of your hand as you apply pressure to your MISTI door.  Then another crafter had someone make her a tool just for this purpose and this shape was a circle - which works well in the palm of your hand... 

Wanted to bring in a "bling factor" to mine to match my beaded pokey tool I had recently made for my craft room.  Something that will get lots of use but also cute sitting on the craft room work table... Off to Home Depot and I bought a package of 4 of the Heavy Duty Felt Pads that are 3 inches and are sold in the furniture pads/slider department -- in my HD these items are on the cabinet hardware aisle. 

I explained to DH that I needed a 3 inch circle cut out of scrap wood and an old door knob. He has a plastic bin filled with door knobs and door hardware and happy me he had two glass door knobs and now I have one in the craft room.  He cut the wooden circle from scrap wood, sanded it smooth, and he attached the door knob to the center of this circle. Here is the first photo of this:

I used red acrylic paint and painted the circle red to match my pokey tool. Once that was dried I peeled off the protective piece of paper from the felt circle and using E6000 I put the felt circle on the bottom of my new stamping tool - here is a photo of the finished tool:

Between the weight of the glass door knob and the wooden circle this new tool works quite well with the MISTI.  It just glides across the MISTI door with very little effort transferring the inked image to my card stock. The 3 inch felt circle fits perfectly on the bottom of this:

Here is a photo of this new tool and the beaded pokey tool I had made about a month ago which is getting lots of use in this craft room:

Fun to personalize these two tools for my craft room.  Both would make fun Mother's Day or birthday gifts for stamping friends. 

Don't let it happen to you - - -

 Last July on YouTube I came across a video from ScrapbookingMadeSimple announcing they would be holding their annual online Warehouse Sale the end of July. In order to order from the online Warehouse Sale you had to watch a video she made about shipping.... So I watched the video and figured her shipping times were extreme and surely she would ship before she said she would and when the sale began I placed an order . . .  Thankfully it was for only $40.00 - which is a lot of money but certainly not as much as others may have spent....

That video about shipping had said she fills all orders for current items first and she would fill orders from the Warehouse Sale here and there, as time allowed, and it could be up to five MONTHS... I placed my order on July 24th, 2020 and today is mid April 2021 and I just checked the status of my order and it still says "Payment Received". . .  I had never heard of her before so this was my first order. I decided she must really be backlogged due to the Warehouse Sale so on Sept. 10, 2020 I placed a small order of current items to see how long her normal shipping -- that she says is "within 30 days" would take . . . 

That ordered arrived December 18, 2020 --  three months after I ordered it. I totally understand things are taking longer due to the pandemic but she is in California and I have ordered from other shops in California and I have received those orders in usually a week after I ordered them! Throughout this year I have ordered from SimonSays, MFT, Altenew, Rubbernecker, IOStamps, The Greetery, Kat Scrappiness, Spellbinders, and SU and I have received all my orders in a timely fashion. 

I check my account periodically to see if my order is even being pulled or shipped and the status has not changed. I emailed and asked about this time frame and received a "pandemic time frame" response. How is it then that the other stores are able to ship out their items in a timely fashion??? I checked to see if she is a member of the Better Business Bureau and she is not. I checked around online and found some people had left posts about their experiences with her - one lady ordered over $100 in items and 8 months passed and no product arrived. She said she emailed them and told them to cancel her order and she wanted a refund and the response she received was that she could NOT get a refund and she would have to wait..... 

I just feel if you are not going to ship my items for 9 months OR SO then you should not take my money until you are ready to process my order. How can she even hope to build a solid customer base of loyal shoppers with this shipping problem? Why would I recommend her to any other crafter????

The way I look at this is I am out $40 but that is all I am out and nothing she sells can I not find elsewhere. I had not heard of her before so I did not know any of this but maybe this will help the next crafter not to order from her. I have never had a bad experience with the other online websites I have ordered from but if I can save another crafter their crafting money then it was worth it.  Just don't let this happen to you . . . 

Online orders

Received three orders this week and thought I would share them. Elizabeth Craft Designs had a sale and I picked up quite a few dies at sale prices:

Fun projects ahead with these dies -- I also picked up two of their new released dies as well:

I also bought some dies from Rubbernecker.com that are from Kitty C. at KittieKraft. She used to do a lot of work with Impression Obsession (IO Stamps) but is now with Rubbernecker. She is Kittie747 on Splitcoast Stampers and she is known for her layered cards and beautiful work. I bought these dies for cards and tags since they are the perfect size:

One more purchase is from The Greetery and I had never ordered from them before:

I had seen a couple of cards using these dies and I esp like the cover panel design for a card front. Lots of new items to add to the craft room and basket of "waiting to be used" products.... Lots to keep me busy for sure!

Bunny Bag Topper

 Used one of the Bunny Paperclips I recently made as a bag topper on a small bag:

Used solid card stock that matched some of the colours in the fabric I used for the ears to make the bag. Used a small gift bag die from my stash to cut out the bag. This is a small bag and it is 3 3/4" high and 2 1/2" wide. Inside is some paper shred and a few pieces of small chocolates for an Easter treat.  Cute and easy project -- again the bunny paperclip paper is from Gi Kerr on YouTube and the pattern is easy to follow. Good project for scraps as well as small bows. Also the bag is free standing so could be made for table setting treats as well. 

Gnomes for Easter Card

 

Too cute Gnome die set in the new release over at IOStamps.com (Impression Obsession). I die cut all the pieces and sponged the edges and then assembled the Gnomes:

This die set has 26 pieces so I cut apart the pieces I had to cut apart but for the rest I left them all attached so I do not lose any of them:

Fun and festive for the Easter holiday! Bought other items from the IO release and hoping to work with those products next . . . 

Decorated Pokey Tool

 Had seen these on YouTube using various pokey items and for my version I used items from the jewelry section on sale at HobbyLobby.  The package has two of these stainless steel "pokey tools" and with them being on sale for 50% off a package of two was $1.50 - which is .75 each. I used beads and spacers from my stash and I made three of them:

Easy project to put together. I used the E6000 glue to adhere the beads/spaces to the tool. I also made a little dangle to hang off the loop at the top to dress it up a bit. These tools have a rubber tip that fits over the pointy end and I put them on these once the photo was taken. Good use of stash beads and spacers and also pretty sitting in the tool caddy on the craft table. Lots of videos on YouTube for this but I do not know who this idea originated with but a fun project for sure! Here are photos of these upright and you can see the side dangles on each one:

Bunny Up

 This post is about some of the projects I have made for this Easter -

First are the lined baskets I made in different colours:

For the baskets I used a berry basket die and I used #110 weight card stock from Mikes. To line the baskets I used different prints from the stash. I cut out the two pieces for the basket from the solid card stock and then two more basket pieces for the lining. I put the printed card stock on the solid card stock using the ATG. Once they were adhered I used a basket weave embossing folder and embossing my basket pieces. With the embossing done I put the basket together using tear and tape:

With the basket assembled I added a half paper doily from the stash and one of my bunny rosettes I had made over the summer for Easter to decorate the basket fronts. Filled the baskets with paper shred and chocolate treats. 

Next are bunnies that I was inspired by Gi Kerr on YouTube.  She has directions and suggestions on these bunnies using her pattern and they were too cute not to make:

She shows how to make these bunnies using thin jute twine - I used what jute twine I had from the stash on the bunny in the center with the peach bow and for the rest of my bunnies I used burlap I had on a roll and fabric scraps for the ears. I used the 1 3/8" circle for the head piece and for my bunny ears I used a small oval punch I have in my stash by Paper Shapers. For my liquid glue I used the Fabric Tac which worked well with the fabric. Nice thing is these have a paper clip so you can clip them on a journal page or a paper project -

Very easy to put together and each bunny looks so different with the different fabrics and ribbons that you use. A big thanks to her and her idea! She has lots of great videos so be sure to check her out. 

Also made some butterflies by "HappyBird's Glitter Nest" on YouTube for the top of the mini egg cartons that I sprayed with re-inkers and 91% rubbing alcohol.  I had bought these mini egg cartons long ago and the first attempt to colour them with the re-inkers did not work -- finally I decided to just use them as plain egg cartons and here are two photos of those:

Was looking around on the internet since I still have some of the mini egg cartons in the stash and I wanted to use them this year. Figured out why my first attempt to colour them was not successful - I had used a lower amount of alcohol in my first attempt - I think it was like 50% or somewhere around there.  So I had to spritz the cartons a lot to get the colour to take and all that did was make the carton really wet and since the alcohol level was lower it did not dry quickly. This time I used the 91% alcohol level and the cartons took the colour well and they dried quickly. The colour was also more even with the higher alcohol level:

I made blue, mint green, and yellow cartons. As in her video she shows how she used different colours of card stocks for the butterflies and all of them have the same clear glitter combos on them and the card stock colour shows through the glitter. Easy butterflies to put together and IRL they really sparkle and shine in the light. "HappyBird" has a lot of videos on YouTube and she explains everything very well and goes through each step so you do not miss anything. I did not have the punch and other items she used but I had enough similar items in the craft room to make my butterflies. Fun projects for Easter! Glad to have found her videos and how to's on Youtube. 

No where to be found . . .

 Different videos on YouTube featuring Easter crafting items for DIYers from the Dollar Tree . . .  Loved the wooden bunnies and wooden ovals/egg shapes that Anna Wight had shown on a couple of her videos for Easter projects. Off to Dollar Tree to pick up the wooden bunny and the wooden ovals/egg shapes. . .  Easier said than done... after stopping at a LOT of Dollar Trees I was only able to find the wooden bunny shapes at a store and this bunny I have is a bit different in shape than hers but I was happy to find them. Here are photos of the bunnies I made following her ideas for inspiration:

I only had one type of wire in my craft room and I did not have time to rust it or the bell as she had but I still like the bunnies.  I also had to buy the Glitter Dust she had used on her bunnies as I did not have any on hand:

These sprays I used outdoors as you need good ventilation to use them.  They are a dry spray and so they dry much faster than a shimmer mist would. Here is a photo to try to show this glitter dust on the bunny:

While shopping all these Dollar Trees I found makeup brushes that are smaller than I have:

I was able to find wooden oval shapes at Hobby Lobby and I am finishing those up this weekend and plan to post photos of those when they are finished. Also at all these stores I went to none of them had the newer paper crafting items shown on many YouTube videos - no dies and other new items so guessing they are not available in this area.  But was happy to at least find the bunny shapes...... 

You had me at bunny slippers . . .

 This post is about new products joining the craft room . . .  First is a cute set of stamps from Whipper Snapper Designs:

The stamp on the left is a background stamp with Spring words on it:

And the cutest Gnome with bunny slippers:

Also we made a road trip to Matthews, NC to Daphne's store The Paper Crafters Muse on Rice Rd off of Independence.  There was a table with Fall and Christmas items on sale for 45% off and happy me to find some good finds:

and also on sale:

Holiday paper packs:

And of course new items to the store came home with me as well:

Gearing up for Easter cards and projects for sure.... Also this week I received an email from Ellen Hutson for their 25% off sale on HoneyBeeStamps products and that arrived today:

Really like the woodgrain frame die that makes different frames for card fronts - nice detail on them as well. Also this week my PIC (stamping Partner In Crime) stopped by with a cake and a gift bag loaded with great items for me for my birthday:

What are the chances of all she gave me I did not already have??? I have wanted a gel plate for awhile but had not bought one -- plus more of the hot foil plates by Spellbinders - stencils and stamp set from Mikes, craft mats, Valentine ribbons, foils, flowers, tulle, bling from SU, a cover plate die and two smaller dies -- HAPPY ME she stopped by!! And the cake was DELISH!!

Before that I had seen a video by Anna Wight on YouTube showing a new release from IOStamps that she designed. (Impression Obsession)  I watched both part 1 and 2 videos showing this new release and off to the computer to place an order - which arrived this week:

Love the chickens and barrel and the cute Easter gnomes!!! Fun projects ahead for these for sure. Lots of new items on IOStamps so am sure I will be placing another order for other products... but for now am happy these arrived this week. . . Certainly a busy time ahead in this craft room for me!! Happy me to have a great PIC!!!

PICs Valentine Stuffs

 This post has photos of the fronts of the treat bags I made for Valentine's Day. Recently I was reorganizing in the craft room (again.... )  and I came across almost a full package of speckled card stock:

This card stock is a good weight and other than the speckles... I decided I would use it for the fronts of the bags. I wanted to stamp and use stencils for the bag fronts so the first thing I did was the base layer which was stamping.  When JustRite stamps was having their going out of business sale I picked up a page background stamp that has words and blank spaces here and there on the stamp and I thought that would be a good base for the bag front piece. I stamped this stamp all over the card stock using a brown ink. Here is a photo of this piece showing the stamping background as well as the different layers of stencils:

With the script stamp on the card stock I then did the pink flowers using a Memory Box stencil and a rosey pink ink. Followed that with the green leaf stencil, then the brown splatter stencil, a dotted stencil and also a mixed media shaped stencil.  Once all that was done I finished it using red ink and a falling hearts stencil. I sponged the edges of the card stock using the brown ink and once that was done I spritzed this piece with clear Shimmer Mist. Set that aside to dry:

For the heart on the front of the bag I covered white card stock using 2" Tear and Tape and covered the tape with lots of washi tape patterns. Used a heart die and cut out a heart. Put this on a larger red foil heart I die cut and put a paper heart doily behind the washi tape heart for the bag front. Used a LOVE die from Waffle Flower for the red foil love on the bag front. Here is a photo of the bag front:

Have wanted to learn to make bead dangles and decided my PIC (stamping Partner In Crime) would get the first one I made -- here it is on the front her treat bag hanging on a bulb pin:

I added key and heart charms as I was working:

Since the craft stores have decided to omit coupons basically I made sure I only bought beads and the supplies for a dangle either on sale or on clearance so I used many different kinds of beads on the dangle - plastic, glass, from the Dollar Tree, Mikes, and Hobby Lobby...... fun to make but am thinking they could be addictive!

Filled her treat bag with treat holders I had made for Valentine's Day holding chocolates and I also bought her a package of holiday sequins from Hobby Lobby and a bottle of the Nuvo Clear Crystal Glaze for future projects for her....  Fun bag front to decorate and fun making my first dangle.... now to clean up all the Valentine's craft stuff and bring out the supplies for Easter!!

Clear Treat Box

 Had seen this treat holder made by Patti Dolan on YouTube and I had to make some - here is the link to her video and it is easy to follow:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I4E_G_b__V0&t=755s

Here is a photo of my treat holders:

She used the acetate boxes from SU for her treat holders:

As she explains in her video she left the box flat and measured the length and then marked it at the half way point which is 4" and she cut the box in half using scissors. I did the same and here is one of the boxes cut in half:

I put the box together as a half box and I measured it for the card stock I used - for my boxes I used only double sided card stocks and for the box piece I cut my printed card stock 5 1/2" long by 4 3/8" wide. Using a large scallop die I die cut one of the straight edges of my card stock piece:

With the opposite end from the scallop end (the straight cut end) I put the straight edge on the left side of the scoreboard and scored this piece at 3" and again at 3 5/8". Used a bone folder to crease these lines:

I used Dove chocolate hearts for the candies in this holder and I put those on the card stock using a large glue dot to keep them in place. With the candies on the card stock I slid this into the half acetate box. To keep this holder closed I made a belly band as she had in the video but when I make belly bands I do not pre score them first. I wrap them around the holder and finger press the crease lines. For my belly band I cut a piece of card stock 1" x 8" and once the creases were finger pressed I used a bone folder to crease those lines. I put the belly band together using tear and tape. 

For the circle greeting I used a Valentine stamp from the stash and a circle punch to cut those out. For the gold scallop pieces behind the greeting I used gold foil poster board sheets from the Dollar Tree and a scalloped circle punch to punch those out. Used a small heart punch for the hearts in the center of the greeting circles.

The belly band is attached to itself so it can easily slide off the holder:

You can put the belly band in the center of your holder:

But you can also put it to the side as well:

Here is a photo to show the back of these treat holders:

Because you can see the card stock through the clear boxes you need to use double sided card stocks. Also if you should use a directional pattern remember when it is used as the front flap on this treat holder your pattern will be upside down on the front scalloped flap so be sure to use a non directional pattern.  Thanks to Patti for sharing her cute treat holder for Valentine's Day and her easy to follow video on YouTube for this!