Frugal Stamper

Today's WT challenge was to be frugal and find things that help us save. I think Julia was talking about embellishments, but I tried my best for my entire card.

Items I didn't buy:
Ribbon - it was given to me by my boss. She knows I make cards and apparently she's been saving ribbon for me.
Felt Flower - it was part of my reveal gift for the VSN Secret Sisters last August. It's one of the things I dug up when I was cleaning the Dungeon on Sunday.
Damask background - I won a contest on the Flourishes forum on SCS a while back. I don't think it's what I asked for, but I use it A LOT.
Dimensionals - part of a package from a CCRAKer.

Imogen the Fairy is stamped in Palette Noir on PTI Cream. She's colored in with Copics (very carefully, I had bleeding of both the markers and the ink.) The background is another piece of Cream, embossed in clear and sponged with Pure Poppy ink and Fired Brick Distress ink.

**NOTE: As you can tell, Palette inks (Pure Poppy is one) stick to embossing powder. This was a bad move on my part and this isn't what I wanted the background to look like.**

Stamps: Stamping Bella - Imogen the Fairy; Flourishes - Damask. Paper: Real Red, PTI Cream. Ink: Versamark, Palette Noir, Pure Poppy, Fired Brick DI. Accessories: Copics, clear ep, dimensionals, ribbon, felt flower.

It's pouring outside. I'm hoping that we're not about to wash away.

Wishing everyone a dry few days.

My Copics are here!

Yay for super-fast shipping!

My 13 new markers, refill for my colorless blender and a new pair of Dahle scissors (which were free with my order) all arrived today.

I'm so happy.

I've already filled in the spots on my Copic marker chart and I need to get the marker cases and slide them into their spots.

A New Improved Dungeon **Lots of pictures**

First off, I'd like to say that confession is good for the soul (yesterday's post.) I felt I needed to be honest with myself and make it clear to anyone who reads the blog (and possibly cares) that I'm not perfect when it comes to things like not spending $. I'm trying to save up, but the urges get to you sometimes.

On Saturday I mentioned that I needed to clean the Dungeon - my stamping area in the basement. It was a mess and desperately needed to be organized. I also promised pictures.

I headed down there yesterday afternoon with my handy-dandy iPod and set off to work. (I had laundry going as well, so multi-tasking was the name of the game yesterday.)

Two and a half hours later, it's not perfect, but it's a whole lot better than it was.

Before pictures:

A random box I brought downstairs and never cleaned out (I actually stacked stuff on top of it.) A crate of extra SU cardstock and a pile of things to be altered.

Cart where I put my SU stamps.

The view down my table.

My dp rack and area around it.
Papertrey cardstock (and surrounding mess.)

Table - closest to my ink caddy.

Table - where I sit and work.

Table - dumping ground.

Middle/After Pictures:

The box is gone! (the rest of that stuff isn't mine.)
Yeah, I know, the crate looks messier than before. I moved all my dp into one place and I had more alterables to store.

View down the table. Yeah, it's worse - I had to put stuff someplace in order to sort it.
The cleaned off dp rack and new storage.

Hey, you can see my box of Papertrey cardstock! (which will be replaced by a file crate and files)

Another shot of the messy tabletop. But hey, we're making progress! Final status of the cart - Cuttlebug alphabets, plates and Nestabilities are stored in that purple storage caddy on top. View down the table. I figured out that the tray is perfect for the rolls of ribbon I've had floating around. Messy tabletop - not so messy now!

A clean tabletop!

Confession

Hello, my name is Sara.

(hello, Sara)

I have a confession.

(sympathetic noises)

I mentioned about a month ago that I was on a buying moratorium - no buying anything stamping-related for a while.

(nods all around)

Well, I cheated on my moratorium.

(gasps)

I was on the Buy/Sell/Trade forum for SCS and I bought some Bella stamps from a person cleaning out her stamping room. It was a good deal: 3 stamps and shipping for $15. I'm helping another stamping person out - the stamps are going to a good home.

(semi-understanding nods)

Then, today, I was monitor shopping (window shopping online) and found myself on Oozak.com - where I found out that their really low price on Copics was only going to last until March 1st. So... I started looking at what markers they had available.

(groans of "oh, Sara")

I bought 13 markers and a colorless blender refill. It was a really good deal: the markers were about $4 a piece and the refill was about $4.75.

(sighs)

I fell off the wagon. I acknowledge this and understand that not spending money on stamping supplies is an on-going battle.

My goal: make it past Easter before I make another purchase. I survived the temptation of a Papertrey release this month. :)

(cheers of "you can do it, Sara!")

Fun with Embossing Powder Day

Well, that's what it turned out to be today.

A coworker and I are going to a scrapbooking event next Saturday and she asked me to decorate some chipboard letters for the front of her engagement album. No prob, she gave me the letters yesterday and asked if they could be purple, teal and silver. The purple and teal letters were inked with Brilliance Moonlight White before being sponged with Taken with Teal and Elegant Eggplant inks. They were then embossed with a combination of UTEE and glitter. The silver letters were done with 2 layers of embossing powder.

Ink: Versamark, Taken with Teal, Elegant Eggplant, Brilliance Moonlight White. Accessories: Raw Goods chipboard, embossing powders.

I miss having time/energy to just go down to my Dungeon and just play, so while I was there, I felt the need to experiment. A teacher at the school left a box of manilla shipping tags out for anyone to take if they wanted. Hmm... 10 tags for $2 at Rubbernecker or however many I want for free???

My first tag card is using PTI's With Sympathy. The sentiment and swirly vine were inked in Versamark ink and embossed clear. I then sponged PTI Lemon Tart, Summer Sunrise, and Dark Chocolate over the tag to make the embossing stand out. The hole in the tag is filled in with an antique copper snap and I added some smaller snaps down the edge to coordinate.

Stamps: PTI - With Sympathy. Paper: PTI - Lemon Tart, Summer Sunrise, Dark Chocolate, manilla tag. Ink: Versamark, Lemon Tart, Summer Sunrise, Dark Chocolate. Accessories: clear ep, snaps, dimensionals, cropadile.

Now for my other card. Same color scheme (I like the way the yellows cover the tag), but I went a little wacky.

I stamped a rose stamp I got from Rubbernecker in Versamark, embossed it in clear, and sponged the tag with PTI Lemon Tart, Summer Sunrise and Dark Chocolate inks. I decided I didn't like the way it was looking, so I grabbed my SU markers and colored in the leaves and stem with Old Olive and the petals of the rose with More Mustard.

I STILL didn't like it - too much color, too defined, I don't know, I just didn't like it. So I grabbed my spray bottle of water and spritzed the tag down. After 2 sprays, I was finally happy and I took my embossing tool to it to dry it.

I still can't use that hand-held sewing machine to sew a straight line - and to think I wanted a sewing machine for Christmas. The button is threaded with a very thin piece of Lemon Tart cardstock.

Stamps: Rubbernecker - rose. Paper: manilla tag, PTI Dark Chocolate, Lemon Tart, Summer Sunrise. Ink: Versamark, Lemon Tart, Dark Chocolate, Summer Sunrise, SU - Old Olive & More Mustard. Accessories: hand-held sewing machine, dimensionals, spray bottle, clear ep, button.

I think it's time to organize the Dungeon. I have too much stuff and it's all over the place. Time for an overhaul. This definitely needs to be photographed as well - befores, middle of the mess, and afters.

Wishing everyone a warm weekend (because I'm not having one),

A mid-week challenge

And a quickie post because I have to be to work in an hour and I have a headache.

Today's Thursday and the challenge today was to use stripes - striped paper, striped ribbon, striped stamps, create your own stripes, etc. Which is right up my alley because I have a LOT of designer paper in all sorts of patterns: stripes included.

I also have stamps that I haven't used before. Which isn't as big of a shock as it would have been last year - I've been so tired. So I felt required to show some love. Flowahbella is stamped in Dark Chocolate Palette ink and colored in with Copics.

Stamps: Stamping Bella - Flowahbella. Paper: More Mustard, Really Rust, Chocolate Chip, white, My Mind's Eye dp. Ink: Dark Chocolate Palette. Accesories: adhesive pearls, dimensionals, Copics.

Grandma's doing better - she's out of the hospital and in rehab at a nursing home. Hopefully she'll be able to get enough strength to go home to Grandpa soon.

Wishing everyone a good rest of the week,

Work Takes Over

Again.

Seriously, 'tis the season for daycare teachers to get sick (or really busy.) So while my hours have been cut, I'm one of the first people they call to pick up hours.

Speaking of work, I have a work-related project to share. Daycare has it's own little portable on the grounds of an elementary school and up until this school year, all the kids have been in it. This school year, the oldest kids (3-6 graders: my group) were moved over to a room in the elementary school. Everyone over at the school has been nothing but nice to us, so I thought I'd make a little treat to show my appreciation.

Beate had a tutorial a while ago about how to make boxes to hold the Ghiradelli squares. These boxes are adorable - and easy to make.

Stamps: PTI - Heart Prints. Paper: dp, Select White, PTI kraft. Ink: Raspberry Fizz. Accessories: tacky tape, corner punch, dimensionals, sponge.

I like to cook. I don't seem to do it very often, but I like to cook. I just got a recipe for white chicken chili and it calls for ground cumin - I have whole cumin seeds in the house. Well, I could fork out the $5 for a bottle of ground cumin (which is silly because I have the whole seeds) or I could get something to grind them up. So I picked up an inexpensive coffee grinder when I was at the store yesterday.

Problem? My new coffee grinder is identical to the one in the house used for coffee. I don't think the coffee drinkers will appreciate cumin-flavored coffee - and I really don't want coffee-flavored spices. I added some SU rub-ons to the body of my coffee grinder to make it stand out.

Accessories: SU rub-ons.

Papertrey Ink's 2nd anniversary is coming up this weekend - and they're having this huge bash to celebrate. Nichole's blog has been filled with contests to win some of the new products they're carrying. Friday's challenge was to create a card using the colors Ocean Tides, Summer Sunrise, Pure Poppy and Ripe Avocado.

I created a gatefold card out of Ocean Tides cardstock and stamped butterflies on it (not that you can really tell, they seem to have disappeared.) The white panel was cut with a Classic Rectangle Nestability die and punched with SU's spiral punch. All the stamps come from PTI's With Sympathy set.

Stamps: PTI - With Sympathy. Paper: Ocean Tides, Pure Poppy, Summer Sunrise, Select White. Ink: Ocean Tides, Ripe Avocado, Pure Poppy, Summer Sunrise. Accessories: ribbon, tacky tape, rhinestones, glue pen, spiral punch, rectangle nestabilities.

I've had a hard time concentrating on most stuff over the weekend. I found out on Friday that my grandmother had another stroke and was taken to the hospital. She's already had 2 relatively minor ones (at least), so everyone in the family's pretty worried. Mom flew out there and it seems like Grandma's going to be okay.

Wishing everyone a good week,