The Old, The New and Other Cool Stuff

It's embarrassing to admit last year's December Daily album remains unfinished.  Journaling is not my strong suit and this is the only element remaining to complete.  I've firmly committed to completing one page each day until finished.  Four remain.  Baby steps.

Another project completed (tonight, yee-haw) is indexing all the stamps.  Most would still consider me a rookie, but stamping over 200 stamps by category is not child's play.  Now when out shopping, I'll think twice about buying 15 sets at a time.  I will not get behind again.  Once they come into the house they won't be put away until they've been stamped into their corresponding page.

I bought the 4x6 Fiskars Easy Stamp Press before beginning the task. 

 I can no longer imagine stamping without this tool.  From the beginning stamping has always been hit-or-miss, mostly miss, and as such created dread when a project included stamping  This allowed me to become a pro overnight.  Stamps have no choice but to comply with equally applied pressure.  For the first time I can stamp a clean, crisp image every time.  This rates as high as review scales go.  A definite must for both beginning scrappers and pros alike.

This vacation's mini remains in the conception phase.  I've selected all the photos, which go out to print tomorrow and I've committed to the size (8x8) and using the Fair Skies collection.  Now to get motivated.

Ready! Set!...

Every single item needed for the Little Darlings mini is within reach.  The last of the coordinated supplies came in today.  This is it... beginning Thursday morning it gets done, one page at a time.

The Tim Holtz Tattered Rose distress ink was not what I expected.  It's as flesh coloured as it gets.  I'd expected a stronger hint of rose or coral; be that as it may, it still functions as planned.  Although, if the either the Worn Lipstick or Moss Green happened to fall into my shopping buggy, I wouldn't take issue.

(Should anyone with two days of artistic training ever happen upon this site, they must forgive the misapplied terms because every application will be wrong.)

Ivory and brown are the two base colours that will be used throughout.  I'm not crazy about using the Vintage Photo ink colour for distressing as most scrappers seem, because while it presents a lovely brown, it always comes out looking overly dark for my tastes, and despite all attempts I can't get it to tone down.  In most cases I prefer working with the Tea Dye, but this has redder tones and might clash with this paper.  A compromise may exist between the two, but I haven't found it yet and probably won't in the distressed lines.

I'm positively itching to get started on this mini, but there are several firm commitments between picking up the scissors/glue/inks and the starting bell tomorrow.  Just to be sure, I went through all the page templates drawn up last month and still love every detail.  

Even at this late hour I haven't fully committed to the final overall size.  The decision to modify the book to the 8x8 size was based upon an abundance of that sized quality book board on hand.  There are nine 5x7 photos included in the album and I fear that the 8x8 size may turn out to be a smidgen too small.  The photos are the originals from almost 100 years ago, or about half that, so cutting them down isn't an option I'm comfortable with.  And, making re-sized copies of the photos defeats the purpose of creating a safe place to permanently store them, which is exactly why the mini is being created!  It's a historical preservation effort.  A curiosity happened today as I reviewed the photos going in the Little Darlings album.  On the back of one photo my mother had written, "My little darling."  So very fitting.  

The idea of documenting the album's construction still appeals.  Each day I plan to post pictures of the work accomplished.  Maybe, just maybe, it will all come together nicely enough to want to show it off when victims visit the house ;)

Look for pictures beginning Thursday night!

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Through sheer determined effort, I discovered my worst fear: the Graphic 45 Tropical Travelogue is slowly fading out of publication.  There's still time to gather everything I'd like to have, so there's no panic involved, but it's getting harder to hit one store and find an entire collection intact... a little here, a little there.  Unfortunately, this interrupts my budgeting plans as it's probably best to accumulate it quickly before it becomes a complete hit or miss endeavor.  As is the case in the Once Upon a Springtime collection.  What a nightmare!

Learning by Mistake

What a week.  Seems as if every project is somewhere up in the air... or in the mail again.

Got the photos.  When building the travel mini I designed everything to accommodate 4x6 photos, although there were a few pages designed with smaller mats.  I realized there would be many, many pictures to include and adjusted for that.  What I'm learning in putting the final touches on the album is that my matting skills have everything left to improve.  For example, in one booklet alone I punched an eye out - totally avoidable - placed photos in such a way the booklet requires constant turning to view the pictures, and as cute as the booklet is, the photos still needed an additional mat, which of course I didn't allow for.  It's still okay because the approach to this album was to treat this as a learning experience.  That certainly happened!  The next "solo" designed album will mark a dramatic advancement of skills.

While watching the daily subscription YouTube videos, I ran across someone very excited about a find at TJ Maxx getting in a huge variety of EK Success punches for $3.99 each.  That is something to get excited about.  I couldn't get to the Maxx until yesterday and it initially appeared as if all the punches I'd hoped to find already sold.  It wasn't a total loss as I managed to find one EK Success Halloween punch and a bonus Martha Stewart Halloween Punch Around the Page set for only $8.00.

I learned an surprising fact about EK Success punches. (This also includes Martha Stewart as EK Success manufactures these as well.)  They come with absolutely no guarantee, implied or otherwise.  And when calling customer support, they all but told me: too bad in just about those words.  It's a shame there's no alternative punch companies out there that back their products.  Perhaps Fiskars, but would have to look.

I've been a very good scrapper and chained myself to a strict budget; because I've realized it's not a good policy to buy something just because I "might" need it someday - sales or not.  (I must admit that I'm still working on that "chained" part :) 

So... today I finally bought a couple packs of I am Roses and doing the happy dance for it. The flower inventory is still very limited, so I've decided that for the next couple of allowances to add a few packs each time.  

It's very fortunate we live so close to the national Tattered Angel's warehouse as bottles and sprays can cost as little as $3.00 a bottle; fortunate because my investment for glittery sprays and paints has been minimal.  After watching so many videos, it's obvious Lindy's Stamp Gang's various forms of micas are far superior to Tattered Angels.  I'm buying my first four-bottle set that happens to marry up with several Graphic 45 collections already on hand.  Between I am Roses and LSG, I'm going to have a blast over the next few weeks learning new techniques.  Like the I am Roses, I also plan to slowly build the LSG spray/paint inventory.

For fear of retiring the collection I'm hoping to buy Graphic 45's Travel Travelogue in the 12x12 and 8x8 pads.  If the collection proves to be a fairly new, then I'll just sit on this week's allowance until a good sell comes along.  I wonder if there's a place where you can go to learn when a collection came out and approximately how long the sets stay in publication.

Great, great news!!  I misunderstood what the seller was offering with the partial 8x8 pad Once Upon a Springtime paper, but now accidentally own TEN face pages of the collection.  However (squeals of joy) I located a company that had the postcard page for 70c each, and had them in stock!!!  Four of these should arrive any day now.  That leaves the tag page to locate, and should I desire, the chipboard frames.

The post here is too long, but in the next day or so I'll share a project I'm coordinating. 

Fiskars

Fiskars, usually a very reliable brand, puts out a series of decorative photo corner punches.


These are the singularly absolute worst punches a person can own.  

1. The buyer is left to guess how much mat allowance to properly fit the photo
2. Getting the exact corner alignment is a matter of  hope, the guides are impossible to see
3. The punch can not be turned over in order to remedy the second point
4. It takes standing over the punch to depress the lever, which explains the third point

I own so many of their craft products, but I have to rate this one: 1 on a scale of 1 to 100




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On a slightly different note, 2 of 4 layouts completed!

Yeah, the whole photography issue.