What have you been stamping lately?

I went to a Stampn' Up play-time day last week. They were using watercolor crayons on bold stamps. I used the Heartfelt Thanks stamp set on creamy watercolor paper with Blush Blossom/Always Artichoke watercolor crayons. The Creamy Caramel wash for shading and More Mustard wash for highlights on the background set it off nicely. The card stock was also Blush Blossom/Always Artichoke. I tore and slightly curled the watercolor paper edges to set it off from the card stock. It looked great so sent one to a friend for her birthday.

SAD

I haven't had time to do much art stuff lately. Although I did go to the scrapbook convention in Pleasanton, CA last week. Went nuts buying everything :) Took a couple of classes, one of which gave a distressing pad, so I'm looking forward to playing with that. I finally got a Staz On pad too, so as soon I have time, I want to play :)

Jeannette

How cool! What new stash did you acquire, other than the two pads? Did you learn any techniques or ideas that you can share?

Barbara

Oh gosh. I got a foil/glitter writing set, some acrylic blocks, tons of paper, some stickers, some die cuts, those 2 pads, glue lines, some fabric flowers in milk bottles, and more paper :) I saw some embossing paste that I wanted to get, but I guess I'll have to get that some other time, since I spent more than enough money. Didn't really learn anything "new" but got to actually do some stuff that I knew only in theory, like stamping on acrylic, the foil stuff, and distressing.

Next month there's a stamping convention that I hope to go to, assuming that I've recovered money-wise from the last one.

Jeannette

Wow! So many things I haven't heard of. I hope you don't mind my asking questions here. What is a foil/glitter writing set, glue lines and embossing paste? What kind of acrylic did you stamped on and with what? What is distressing? SAD

The foil/writing set apparently goes on sale on QVC, it's Tonerex Foils, their website is

got the $40 set which came with a tower of fine glitter, 2 write n rub pens, some foil, and some foil stickers.Glue lines is just an adhesive, a continuous strip of double-stick tape. Embossing paste is used with brass embossing stencils. see the ones at the expo came in different colors and came in sets of 6? colors in a tower. Pretty nifty.I just stamped on thin clear acrylic using a Staz On pad. They were cut into tags, circles, and rectangles. They also had them in different colors. Distressing is making something look worn by sanding the paper. We used nail filers to distress a 6x6 album. Making Memories actually has a distressing kit (which I got some time before but haven't really played with yet)

Jeannette

Thanks for the info. I'd try the foil/writing if I had better penmanship. It looks pretty and a lot of fun.

I've never distressed anything (except DH when I go to a convention) but it sounds interesting. Will have to check it out on-line. Do you know of a website?

Now that you explained about the Embossing Paste it reminds me that I've done that but used Joint Compound from DH's garage (more stress). As soon as I step into his garage he gets a pained look on his face, wondering what I'm going to find to use in my craft room. LOL

I've used black Memories permanent ink to stamp on acrylic but it never gets very dark. Maybe a StazOn pad would work better. I glue and glitter the back side of the acrylic afterwards. Is that what you do or is there new things to do with it now? I can see I need to go to a convention again since there's so many new things out there in the world.

SAD

I've just been stamping a few different things here and there. It gets hot this time of year in my stamping area, so I don't do as much crafting as usual. I tried Staz On inks and now I'm stamping a lot with them. I always used to stamp and emboss everything just to get deep color, but I like the Staz On when I don't feel like embossing. Now that I have Staz On I might try some of my Blockit stamps again. I took a class a while ago for them but never got back to them.

I'm planning on getting my Twinkle H20s out and do some serious watercoloring, but haven't gotten there yet.

I've been playing with a few coluzzle templates and find them fun to use with my stamps.

The Write n Rub pen doesn't require nice handwriting, just a steady hand. I stamp an image then trace the image with the pen. Then wait for the glue to dry, and place the foil over it or sprinkle glitter over it.

For distressing, I found this website:

a search under distressing or shabby chic, there's lots out there.For the acrylic, we simply stamped on it, using different colors to create a collage of stamped images, using both sides of the acrylic. Then, if you wanted to glue it down, lightly cover the back side with Diamond Glaze and press down so that the entire back is covered with adhesive.

Jeannette

If you already have Brilliance inks, they work great on acrylic! Zap 'em a tad with your heat gun (using laser-printer transparencies) and you're good to go. They "stick" to the acrylic really well, and are nicely opaque.

HTH, A