My Minc and Me

My Heidi Swapp Minc foil laminating machine arrived today. I picked it up for 1/2 price at an end of year sale at Studio Calico. Funny I did not even know I needed one, but here it is.

Before it arrived I had to make space. I decided my cameo and Minc could share space on the same metal table, but I had to build a shelf to hoist one up when the other was in use. I bought brackets at Ace Hardware for about $5 and used a sign I had picked up at a tag sale last year as the shelf, a few mollies, screws and a hammer put me in business.

The starter kit came with 3 coated card stock tags, one very large transfer folder and a small piece of flimsy (very) gold foil. (6 X 12 inches maybe). I had watched a few videos on You Tube before I tried it out, so I wasn't afraid of messing up. Luckily I knew that toner adheres to the transfer sheet, so I am very cautious to make sure there is none showing. Using a piece of copy paper as a shield works.

Two tags came out pretty good, but on the third, the arrow had two smudges, but I am not sure what caused it. It was not until after I bought this toy I found out that it only works with toner from a laser printer. Of course mine is inkjet and I don't work anymore, so it's not like I could print at the office. But UPS does laser copying and they are a back roads 3 miles from here.

I developed 4 pages of script and drawings and brought them with a piece of black card stock and several sheets of Neenah solar white to print on. I copied the black card stock so I could get a full sheet of black toner. $1.60 later I was ready to begin some testing.

I tested ink on the coated tags, dye worked and so did Stazon on a stamp and it wiped away from the gold foil.

Next I used a leaf die on the black toner paper, ran that through, my oh my. It really came out beautiful.

As always, you never throw away the negative, so I tried those on the same black toner paper. They came out ok, not great. Then I tested pigment ink on the negative leaf foil thinking I could get a white leaf. No go, in fact it gave my foil poc marks.

I am not anxious to use up all of my starter kit foil, not until reinforcements arrive or I take a trip up to Michaels... So I won't do any large scale testing on my scripts and drawings until the weekend. I may do some more die cuts tomorrow and I also want to test it with sticky embossing powder, on a lower setting, it is supposed to be like magic.

 

We will see. Thanks for stopping by.

 

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Photo shot? I forgot!

It is not usually a problem of forgetting my camera, I remember to take it, I just always forget to use it. Yesterday John and his 3 siblings were together for brunch for the first time in a long while; An extremely rare occasion that probably won't happen again for several years, if ever. Wouldn't that have made a great photo op? Guess who never took the camera out of her purse?

The restaurant, Pucketts Boathouse was a rustic building in downtown Franklin Tennessee. The ambiance would have made for some interesting photos as well. My loss. How am I supposed to scrap my life if I keep forgetting to photograph it?

 

Maybe next time. If there is one.

 

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Mini Album

This week I started working on a mini album for an online scrapping class. Several months ago I printed the photographer's photos from the wedding in July, but I had yet to do anything with them. Let's face it, I was tied up with the cross country mega album for 3 months after we returned from our trip. During that time I also put together a wedding album for the bride, a mini album of a 45th wedding anniversary party; Made a dozen Halloween and Thanksgiving cards and 60 Christmas cards. I am not complaining, I am retired and for me this is heaven.

The hardest thing about a mini album is getting started. I did not know whether I would make the album out of chipboard or use a ring binder I already had. I knew it had to be large enough to fit the 4x5.5 photos and most of those photos were landscaped. Once I had my binder in mind I was good to go.

Earlier this year Big Picture Classes which is a subsidiary of Studio Calico (SC) had a nap time sale. 20% off everything and I found these gorgeous Heidi Swapp planners that were already marked down. I picked up two of them. Not to use as planners, but to use as scrapping handbooks. As it turned out, I was so impressed by the contents I started using the Hello binder in August as a planner!

 

For the striped handbook I removed all the calendaring contents.. They will fit perfectly into the other "planner" and give me a full two years of "to do" lists. This was to be my mini album. I had some small page protectors from SC and a perfectly matched Heidi Swapp paper pad all the correct size for this handbook. One small problem: the holes did not align on the page protectors. Easy fix: make a ring guide and cut new holes.

And now I can begin. I spread out all the liner papers and matched them to photos, then piled everything according to how it will best tell the story of the wedding.

After one has been buying scrap booking and card making supplies for several months, or years, the stash starts building up and overflowing. These mini books are a great way to deplete supplies. Each little page tells a story and the opportunity to embellish is endless. But like any work of art it takes patience and perseverance.

I don't expect to finish this in one sitting, in fact it is best to break away now and again and work on something else. So far I am happy with the results. My workshop mess, now that is another story. For another day.

Thanks for stopping by.

 

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Turkey Day

I made an effort to clean my workshop just in case someone peeks inside. It is normally a disaster area. I should have a sign that says "creativity in progress, enter at your own risk"

In the last two days both of my scrapbook kits arrived on my doorstep. I got my November Studio Calico kit along with a few bonus sale items AND my Citrus Twist November kit came all the way from Washington State in 3 days. Since I am busy today cooking and getting the house ready for company it will just have to wait I til tomorrow.

Studio Calico kit

 

Citrus Twist kit

Sunday is going to be a super fun day. What shall I make first?

 

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Super easy card

I created this Christmas card using some printed cardstock, stamps and stickles. The shading makes it look 3 D. I only have 10 more cards to make before the end of next week. That makes 65 total. Some took a long time others were lickidy split.

 

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Get back to basics

I have been so remiss in writing my blog. Back burnered it. Today I was reading a friend's blog, who I might note has also been remiss. But I really like her style. It was simple and easy to read. Just day to day stuff. That was exactly What this was supposed to be. Today is the day before Thanksgiving. Not really, but for me it is. We are entertaining 10 no, it was 12, of our dear friends tomorrow with a Thanksgiving buffet. Two turkeys, stuffing, mashed potoatoes, cranberry sauce, lots of veggies, rolls, appies, and of course, my friend Barbara, a marvelous baker is bringing desserts. I got 8 bottles of wine and I am considering pulling out one of the special Freemark Abby $$$ wines to share too. My thanksgiving cards are done and ready to send out. 90% of my Christmas cards are done too. Attending some on line card classes has helped to keep me motivated. Thanks for stopping by.

Making a photo album

I started with two cereal boxes and opened them at the seam removing the outside edges. Then I cut them to 10" tall. The width is 7 3/4 and the spine 2 1/8, the actual size of the box. Using adhesive tape I glued both boxes together. Individually, the cereal boxes are pretty flimsy, so doubling up makes for a stronger album.

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Next I picked pattern papers to be the front, back and inside of the album. Since this is going to be an album depicting the 1960s I chose popular colors from that era. Lime green, pink and wild prints. I would have loved to have made a dress out of these colors in junior high!

Using my gigantic Martha Stewart scoreboard, I score 1 in at the top, side and bottom of the back sheet. Then fold and burnish.

For the front piece, trim to 12 x 8 3/4, then score the top, bottom and 1 side at 1 inch, fold and burnish. Starting with the front, apply 1/2 inch Scor tape along the four sides and burnish with bone folder or credit card. Then using an exacto knife cut away the corners to make a proper fold.

Apply a generous amount of adhesive to the front cover cardboard before placing the patterned paper on top. Be extremely cautious to make certain you have the paper and book facing upward before applying adhesive. Remove the side strip of score tape and affix in place, burnish. Before wrapping the sides, apply adhesive onto the cardboard along the edges, just to make certain the sides will adhere when the score tape is removed.

The back cover will slightly overlap the front just beyond the spine. To ensure proper folds, the spine must have lots of adhesive. Trim corners with knife and apply adhesive to the cardboard before affixing the pattern paper to the front cover, fold edges and burnish.

Someone said once "paper only knows how to be flat" so you have to train it to fold. Using your bone folder in the grooves, GENTLY fold your book covers up and down until it remembers to stay closed. Use a clip, if necessary.

For the inside you will need one sheet 17 x 9 1/2 OR use two sheets, front 9 1/2 x 9 1/2. Back 8 1/2 x 9 1/2 in coordinating papers. I opted for the two sheets.

 

 

 

 

 

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Scrapping history

I joined an online group on the Internet a few months back when I started subscribing to a monthly card kit from Studio Calico. The majority of the members of this community were scrap book enthusiasts, most subscribed to the monthly Scrapbooking Kit and/or the Project Life Monthly kit. The gallery which houses all the projects created by the very talented subscribers are mostly the scrapper variety and periodically us card makers pop up too.

Studio Calico got its start in Scrapbooking, the monthly card kit came much later this the reason we exist in the minority. Having never been a scrapper I continued with card making for several months, I also became interested in mini book making but books are not for cards, they are for scrapping. so I tried my hand at scrapping.

it is difficult to scrap without photos and I am not a photographer, I never remember to take my camera out and I would even less often print a photo. In this media, it is pretty much a requirement.. so I in order to pursue scrapping I had to start thinking photography too. is this too much to take on?

In a moment of weekness during the 10 days of Christmas sale I subscribed (risk free, noshipping) to the scrapbooking kit in addition to my card kit. I wanted it mostly for the 12x12 papers that came with it. My first kit arrived last week, it is still in its box and I am sure the January kit will show up on my doorstep in a few days. how to begin?

CHALLENGES! That is the best place to start. Last week one of the subscribers placed a challenge on us to create a layout about an object. I have very few people photos anyway so an object is doable.

I chose to create a layout about my new prescription eye glasses, I took a few photos of the bazillion glasses laying around the house and a couple of the new ones. I printed the photos on my new air printer..wow, excellent quality! I "journaled" the little write up, printed some corresponding paper and an eye test and threw a little ephemera here and there.

I titled my first challenge of the new year "OIC" - a play on words (oh I See) arh arh and called it Optical Impairment Correction. The journaling told a story about why.

 

2015 will bring lots more projects and challenges. I will be back in a few days to share some others.

 

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