If you have a mouse pad around, you can use it as a crafting tool! Here are a couple of ways to get some use out of a mouse pad.
A mouse pad can be helpful in the craft room!
Turning a mouse pad over so that the spongy side is facing up, and you’ve got the perfect surface to use for stamping with acrylic stamps which don’t have a built in cushion.
Place your paper on top of the mouse pad
Place the acrylic stamp on an acrylic block
Add ink to your stamp
Gently but firmly stamp your image, and remove
Voila! A great image!
A mouse pad can also be the perfect tool to use with a piercing tool. Those piercing tools are sharp and can quickly poke and gouge into your work surface. There are sets available which include a mat to use with a piercing tool, but they are usually small. By using a mouse pad, you’ve got a much larger protective piece to work on. So if you’re doing paper piercing as a decorative element, or you are just poking a starter hole for a brad, try out a mouse pad!
Have you ever stamped something and wanted to cut it out, but didn’t want to do a bunch of fussy cutting? I’m sure most of us have! Yesterday, I showed you some cards where I used Close to My Heart Thin Cuts to cut some coordinating stamped floral images.
I thought you may like to see exactly how to use them. Take a peek at this video.
Did you notice how she showed the little magnetic sheet to keep them all in place? Well… I was thinking about the magnetic base that is available to use with my Big Shot, and thought this was a good idea to just stamp my images and put them on the little enclosed magnetic sheet to hold my Thin Cuts in place. NOT a good idea! As soon as I lifted my cuts off, and realized I had almost cut through my magnetic sheet, it dawned on me how goofy that was! However, it didn’t cut all the way through, so all is well. I never said I was perfect! Laugh amongst yourselves!
For some reason, it seems like I never have enough birthday cards! Sometimes it seems like I could just get by with a ‘Happy Birthday’ stamp and leave it at that. Just kidding! You know I couldn’t do that. Yet it brings up the question of selecting greetings if you are trying to make up a batch of cards in advance. How do you decide what and how many to make of your greetings? Actually, you don’t have to make it such a hard decision!
One way to deal with this problem is to go ahead a make a bunch of cards and leave off the greetings! When you find a stamp set that has a lot of different greetings or sentiments they usually tend to be a similar size. That makes it easy to make cards and just leave off the sentiment, and stamp it later! Then all you have to do is have the stamp set easy to find, grab your ink pad and stamp an appropriate sentiment!
Here is an example of using this technique, using a double-sided, printed paper.
Cut the paper to fit the front of the card. Cut a strip 1″ to 1.25″ wide. Make sure your strip is large enough for the sentiment if your stamp set has larger stamps. You could also use the busier side of the paper for your bottom strip, leaving plenty of space to stamp above the dividing line of your papers.
Now you can use both sides of the paper on your card, and coordinate the top and bottom.
An additional strip was added from coordinating paper on one card, and some shimmer trim on the other. I love shimmer trim! It has an adhesive side, and quickly jazzes up a project!
Next, add any other embellishments. The flowers and leaves were made using the Springtime Wishes stamps and Thin Cuts.
Bottom section is left blank, to stamp sentiment on later.
If you want to stop here, you can put your cards away, and keep you stamps and an ink pad handy to stamp an appropriate sentiment as needed.
NOTE: When using this technique, you’ll want to leave the area to stamp as flat as possible. Don’t add layers and layers with paper and adhesive, because you’ll want to make sure you get a good image when you stamp. These cards only have the printed paper on top of the card base. When ready to stamp, open your card out so that you are stamping on as few layers as possible!
The bottom has enough space to stamp a variety of sentiments, as you need them.These flowers have a bit of colored pencil in the centers, as well as a little pearl accent.
Sentiment stamped when you know what you want! Green shimmer trim and little pearl accents finish off the embellishments.
Here are a few great sets you may be interested in because of all the occasions they will cover. Plus, Close to My Heart is having their Stampaganza during the month of March.It’s a buy 2, get 1 free. You all know the rules… the free one can’t cost more than the one’s you purchase. But this would be a great time to stretch your dollar for purchasing some of the larger sets.
Close to My Heart, D1646 – Finding Words
D1525 Casual Expressions, Close to My Heart
C1633 – For Family, Close To My Heart
C1605-Happy to Be friends, Close To My Heart
B1504, Sending Love
This could also be a great time to share stamping with a friend. Make up a few cards and help her get comfortable with basic inking and stamping techniques. Then she could use a set of greetings and an ink pad to take this idea home. What is better than a new crafting buddy? You can’t convert everyone to enjoy your favorite hobbies, but you never know who will find out they enjoy sharing in a fun pastime with you!
Be sure to come back to see another One Sheet Wonder this week! We’ll take one sheet of printed paper to create a stack of cards! Links to products used today are below, for your convenience. But first….
It’s Make it Monday! Alison, over at AlisonDayDesigns.com, is prepping for Easter. Remember it comes kind of early this year, March 27th! Hop on over and see what she’s doing!
Here are some quick links to the main products used on today’s cards:
Today’s Artful Adventure is exploring a technique using stamps and tissue paper. This is great for getting crisp images onto areas where using traditional stamping methods may not give you the desired look. Be sure to see below the video for some additional information.
Since this provides a translucent look, any color of tissue can give you some great layering possibilities.
I used Ranger’s Glue N’ Seal to adhere the tissue, you can use any product you like for this collage-type method. Products like Mod-Podge, liquid matte medium from Liquitex, Golden’s Gel Medium, or anything you prefer will work for this method.
If you like the stamp set I used, it is the ‘Treasured Friendship‘ set from Close to My Heart, and is available in the current 2015-21016 catalog.
I hope you’ll try this method and feel free to share with us over on the FaceBook group!
Now, since it is Make It Monday, let’s move on to see what is next this week. Be sure and visit Karen at PhotosKeptAlive.com to see how she was inspired by a sketch!
Welcome, it’s Make It Monday again! Today I wanted to share a background technique that is quick and easy and provides great results by blending ink.
It seems like every time I use this technique I use at least three colors. Today is no different. Supplies needed:
glossy card stock
ink pads (today I used dye based ink)
foam tipped daubers or sponge (I used my sponge rounds and cut them into 6 sections)
Minimal supplies for a background.
So that you don’t cross contaminate your ink pads with a totally different color, be sure to use an applicator dedicated to one color. You don’t have to have one for each ink pad, but have one for yellow, one for orange, one for green, etc.
I like to start with the lightest color and apply it first. Just use your applicator and rub it on your ink pad. Then apply it on the glossy side of your glossy card stock.
Apply your first color.
Next, you want to apply your second color, blending it up into the first color as you add it. You can use circular motions or just swipe back and forth.
Apply second color, blending it into the first color.
You may have already guessed, now you apply the third color! Again, blend it into to color you applied previously. It doesn’t have to be perfect. Remember it is going to be a background!
Apply the third color; again blending into the previous color.
A baby wipe can help you blend the color even more. However it will lift off a bit of the color as well, but can create a little different look.
A baby wipe can further blend the colors.
For the card I made with this background, I stamped a tree with Versamark ink, and then used black heat embossing powder. Because heat embossing will resist the ink, you can also emboss the image before you blend your ink onto the paper. Either way will work if you are heat embossing.
This was such a quick card. I used Bronze Shimmer Trim for even more pizzaz! And finished it off with a bit of bling from the Sparkles Brown and Tan Assortment. I already had the tree stamp, but it is very similar to the Always Grateful, Close to My Heart set.
A sunset background using the a blended ink technique
I hope you’ve been enjoying the Make It Monday blog hops as much as I have! Did you land here from Digital Scrapbooking HQ? Melissa Shanhun always has great ideas on making memory keeping fast and easy. Today she shares how to use the new Project Life App for documenting a Week in the Life project. Next on the hop is Alice from Scrapbook Wonderland with a brilliant tip on using a postcard on a layout. Remember, to think broader than scrapbooks — think art journaling or mixed media, too!
Thanks for stopping by and be sure to leave a comment. You are always welcome to shop at my online Close to My Heart store if you are in the USA. The links for some of today’s products are below.
Have you ever stamped something and wanted to cut it out, but didn’t want to do a bunch of fussy cutting? I’m sure most of us have! Yesterday, I showed you some cards where I used Close to My Heart 
NOTE: When using this technique, you’ll want to leave the area to stamp as flat as possible. Don’t add layers and layers with paper and adhesive, because you’ll want to make sure you get a good image when you stamp. These cards only have the printed paper on top of the card base. When ready to stamp, open your card out so that you are stamping on as few layers as possible!
Here are a few great sets you may be interested in because of all the occasions they will cover. Plus, 
Now, since it is Make It Monday, let’s move on to see what is next this week. Be sure and visit 
