impressions...rubber. ink. paper. good stuff.

Hello. My name is Mitra and I'm a...

Ribbonaholic! OK, I have no resolve when it comes to buying ribbon. I can't just buy a few different ones because what if that one over there would be the PERFECT ribbon for that card I'll make next June?  I kid you not, I have a LOT of ribbon!  I had no clue how to organize it all and then I went out to Ace Hardware on a wander-through-the-store and scope-out-the-options trip.  This is the end result:

And yes, the shiny part is the plastic that the ribbon comes with before you use it. (I had a difficult time controlling myself at MemoryTrends and I ordered a BUNCH from May Arts). In my defense, however, it isn't as though when I make cards I make a single card for my Grandmother's birthday. Usually I'm designing cards to send to stores or classes to teach to dozens of people. Nothing worse than finding the perfect ribbon for your project only to find out you only have enough to do 5 cards instead of the 30 you need for your class! 

Anyway, my brilliant storage system worked out really well.  I bought 1/4" ugly steel dowels (they may not actually be steel, but you get the idea) and cafe rod holders (closeup below) for curtain rods.

I got good ones from Ace for around $5 but they only had 2 packages so I went to Wal-Mart and got cheesy ones for $3 because it's in my stamp room at the shop and I don't really care what they look like, I just needed to get them off the floor. If I were doing this at home, I'd make it prettier and probably either get the threaded rods or create ends for them to prevent the rods from sliding horizontally. In early testing, they don't seem too inclined to move so I'm not messing with it.

So that's my creativity for the day. Sorry, no cards but now that my ribbon is organized, watch out!

A Quickie...

Happy Thanksgiving everyone. I've been taking a rare break from the 24-7 work thing I do so today it's a quickie card using CL36 and CL137. I haven't broken out the mulberry paper in YEARS. For this I chose a pale yellow/ivory mulberry paper and the rest is just plain old stamping...Adirondack Lettuce, Wild Plum, and Bottle and one little crystal on top of the tree.

So the holiday season is in full swing now...I got it together this year and did all my shopping last week so I wouldn't have to contend with the crowds and because we're taking off on the 17th and heading to London for 10 days! We often contemplate doing this and this year we gathered up all of the frequent flier and credit card points we could find and cashed them in and just like that we're booked for a Christmas trip. I love London and am psyched to be going but I've got a ton to do before we leave. Yikes!

Festive Days

This card uses a set that I think people are a little scared of (CL150 Festive Days). It's one of my (many) reverse image sets. I really LOVE to design sets that use negative images on a solid background. The problem is that when people see the designs on the store shelf or on a website all they see is solid black squares. I think it's hard for people to envision the stamped project.

My favorite technique uses Cut & Dry Felt from Ranger with dye-based reinkers. I make what I call "blended ink pads" by randomly inking the dry felt with multiple colors of ink, making a "random rainbow" pad. I use these pads for EVERYTHING. I like them for foliage when I make my wreath cards:

These are a little far away to see well, but the fall leaves were done with a multi-colored pad in fall colors and the holly wreath features a two-tone green pad made out of Adirondack Lettuce and Pesto. It adds SO much depth to the solid stamps, all without you having to do ANY shading or coloring.

Here's another example of this technique a little closer up. If you look closely at the leaves you can see that they are stamped in two-tone green. All three of these leaf examples are done with CL84 Wreaths & Garlands - Fall/Winter:

 

I've been demoing this technique at show and stores for a year or two now and have been promising people that I would make a tutorial on it. I finally took the pictures the other day so we're well on the way to having that happen. Hopefully I will get it done in the next few days or so. I will, of course, post it on here when I get it finished.

Happy Saturday everyone!

Deck The Halls

This is a simple little card done with our CL37 Ornament Set and our new CL137 Christmas Borders clear stamp sets.  This is stamped with my favorites - Adirondack ink pads in Wild Plum and Lettuce. It highlights one of my favorite things about the clear stamps...the ability to manipulate the image on the block. The Deck the Halls border is straight on the set but I really want to have it flow with the foliage so I curved it when I stuck it to the block. A fun way to tweak the stamp I think! The border sets are really "flexible" - pun intended! You can't see this well in the photo (terrible photo, my good camera is slightly under the weather, having been dropped on the studio floor), but I did embellish the ornaments themselves with a Stardust Gelly Roll clear gel pen. Those pens are one of my addictions lately. I can't make a card that doesn't seem better to me with a little bling from those pens!

Wow...

So I've been working on the site a bit and trying to get this blog into a format I like and can see myself updating on a regular basis and I stumbled upon a section on Typepad where you can view your stats. I'm shocked and a LOT horrified to see that 100 - 150 people look at this blog each day. How disappointing this must be for them! Now I REALLY feel the need to be better. To that end I'm off to find a card to post today in the hopes that someone might feel that their cyber-trip to my blog was worth their while. Back in a bit...