STAMPYRA

Saturday, July 19, 2008

MY STAMP ROOM

1:08 PM

It's been a while since I've posted. Sorry about that, things have been crazy here. We had company, my son broke his leg and had to have surgery, my father had to have surgery the next week and now I'm job hunting. It makes me tired thinking about it all now. I haven't been too creative, but I have been organizing my stamp room, so I thought I'd share that with you. It's a form of creativity-right? So here it is. Enjoy!

My stamp room is half of my spare bedroom. I share the space with my husband and sons. My husband LOVES Mustangs and that's why we have two (1965 & 2005) but that's not enough for him. He collects mini Mustangs. You know, like Matchbox. So, those are what you'll see on the walls and all over. My youngest son collects bugs and you may see a few of those. This is the back wall that I would consider the start of my stamping space. I have two EK Success paper racks for all of my 81/2"x11" papers. I got them when my favorite stamp store went out of business. Next to them are my drawers of little things. I also have two custom made oak stamp holders and I will show you them closer below. On top of my Oak cabinet is two smaller stamp drawers that I've had since I got into stamping. My organizer is on top of those with notebooks of ideas and projects from classes I've attended.

This is my stack of drawers that hold all of the smaller things like glitter, embossing powders and brads. I also store my tags, fibers and paints here. The one to the left goes all the way to the ceiling. but I'm about to change that. I'll post when I change it.

This is one of my cabinets. It holds most of my unmounted stamps. I have my Carl cutter and Cuttlebug on the top surface.

This is the inside of one side of the Oak Cabinet. A man in Daytona made these for me and I adore them. It holds clear picture frames that I fill with my stamps by category. The drawers slide out to go wherever I need them. Most of my stamps are unmounted, but I have certain collections that are still mounted. The door has little shelves on them to hold my background stamps. I'm looking to change that too so I'll post when I get that done.

These are the drawers that hold my unmounted stamps. I have them in categories that work for me. They are all on EZ mount foam and stored on the lightweight binder sheets from Sunday International. It;s the best system out there. The top drawer on the left holds mounts and the two top drawers on the right hold clear sets. There are notebooks along the side of the drawers that contain stamped images of each stamp by category and sheet. As you can see everything in my stamp room is labeled. I bought a label maker years ago and can't live without it.

This is the inside of my drawer that contains my images from Posh Impressions. This set came on EZ mount and was pre-labeled. I only have a few like that, but they sure are easy to pick out.

This is a drawer with my Hero Arts images. I fanned them out a bit so you can see I have 8 sheets of images in each drawer. I do still have a few drawers that aren't UM stamps and they hold my glitter glues and re-inkers.

This is my stamping desk. It's a computer hutch. It is set into half of a closet. It fit perfectly. There are shelves my husband built to the right of the desk and wire closet shelves to the left. It looks really messy in the picture, but it isn't. I have a cork board on the back of the desk. There is a slide out computer keyboard drawer that holds many things. It has my Score-It, cutting mats and tidy tray. It's really handy to reach down.

This is the shelves to the right. The top one holds a stamp pad rack from the same store that I got my paper racks at. It holds my most used ink pads. there are some of those Mustangs I mentioned earlier. They are ALL over! LOL!

This is the top of my hutch. It contains two handmade ink pad holders. They are made out of foam core & hot glue. My husband & I made them. Pretty cool huh? I found wonderful directions for how to make these on a blog. I also made a little version out of black foam core and it holds most of my markers.

This is the wire shelves to the left of my stamp table. It holds things that I want to be able to reach over to grab when I'm working on a project. It has papers, stamp cleaning pads, markers and adhesives to name a few things. It connects over to the other half of the closet that I don't use for stamping.

My stamp room isn't as polished as many I've seen, but it is very functional. Everything has a place and I can easily find anything I need. Let me know if you have any questions. Maybe someone could leave me a comment? Let me know how I'm doing. I hope to update things more often once I get back on track. Let me know if you want to see anything done with my blog.

JIL

TWINKLING H2O'S TUTORIAL

9:44 PM

TWINKLING H2O'S TUTORIAL
Today I got out one of my favorite things, Twinkling H2O's. I love them because they are so versatile. I'll start with an easy watercolor technique. The colors aren't in any specific area, just let the water move them around.

SUPPLIES:

Watercolor paper

Water brush
Water Spritzer

Graphite Black Brilliance ink pad

Old English Rose Heritage ink pad

Clear embossing powder

Twinkling H2O's (I'll list colors as we go)

First, stamp your background image (Just For Fun Stamps) onto watercolor paper with graphite black ink & apply clear embossing powder. Heat set your image. I usually use plain cold press watercolor paper. Nothing fancy. Spritz water over your image. This will help your color move around. Also open your pots of H2O's and spritz them with water. This will make your dry colors more of a paint. Use a water brush with water in it and pick up your first color, Gold dust and add it to your image.

Now add some Mystic Blue to your image.

Add some Cinnamon Brown at the bottom. Then add in some more Gold dust to the bottom area. Remember to keep your piece wet so the colors move around. Don't be afraid to spritz the image again.

If you feel that some of your edges are too defined, come back and add some more color to soften things up. I added more gold dust around the image to soften the colors.

Now, move on to the leaves. Stamp and emboss the leaf (Just For Fun Stamps.) Start by spritzing your leaf with water. Apply some Key Lime around the center.

Add some Mystic Blue around the Key Lime.

Now add in some Ocean Wave and Ruby Red.

Lastly, add some Gold dust & Cinnamon Brown. Remember to move and blend the colors together as you go. Once your image is dry, cut it out.

You'll now want to stamp and emboss the long leaf image(Evolving Images Stamps) Spritz it and add three colors the same was as before. Add Key lime, Cinnamon Brown & Gold dust. Then cut out your leaf.

Age your card with the Heritage ink pad and attach the background. Add your leaves with foam tape. Now you're finished. Please let me know if you have any questions about this technique.

Polished Stone tutiorial

4:46 PM

I was asked how to do the polished stone technique so here is a tutorial with pictures of the main steps. I learned this technique from Tim Holtz while at Ranger U. You can also see it on both of his DVD's. Enjoy!

Supplies:

Non-stick Craft Sheet

Adirondack Alcohol Inks

Adirondack Metallic Mixatives Gold/Silver

Blender Solution

Inkssentials Alcohol Ink Tool

Refill Felts

White glossy paper

Graphite Black Brilliance Ink pad(not shown)

You'll start by working on a non-stick craft sheet from Ranger. Apply your first color of alcohol ink to the felt attached to your ink tool. I just press the tip of the ink bottle into the felt.

I like to work with a mix of three colors. I chose to work with butterscotch, cranberry & stream. Then I added a very small drop of the gold metallic mixative. Then you'll tap the felt onto your glossy paper. This is the first tapping.

Continue tapping the tool onto your paper until it is all covered. Be sure to rotate your tool to avoid forming a pattern.

Next you want to apply some blender solution to your tool. This will blend any hard edges and lighten up your colors.

This step is optional but you can sprinkle the blender solution over your piece to create pools of lighter color. If the pool starts to spread too much, you may want to use your heat tool to stop any spreading.