“Altered Rolodex Project”

Hi Friends,

Anyone know what a Rolodex is? Well, it was used in offices to keep track of names and addresses or business cards, back when I was a teenager in the ’70s and ’80s. Yes, no computer or smartphones when I was at school or working lol:)

This is what they look, and they have divider tabs. They move around the spool, to find what you are after.

I found this near new one on a trip to Geelong doing some op-shopping for Junk Journal books. As you can see it has little pockets where these business cards are housed.

I decided to put some of my small cling stamps onto this by adhering them to the clear acetate covered pockets. This way I will find them easier when I am making cards and other projects!

At the moment I have to go to the stamp sets to find them but having them divided and kept in their categories will be much better. I made the tabs using a punch and my Dymo labeler.  I just added a few small pieces of DSP to embellish the dividers a little.

The one on the left is the one I have now finished filling with my clear stamps. I have used the Dividers with the titles of Grunge, Winged Things, Words, Quotes, Foliage, Frames and Backgrounds. To the right is one I altered a few years ago and used up some leftovers and added photos to the cards,

I will now be able to spend less time looking for these stamps and more time using on my projects. I am now going to go through and cull some of my other stamps and put them together in a similar way into categorized journals. Stay Tuned!!

Thanks for popping in

Happy Crafting

Kerri x

“Watercolour Smoosh Technique”

Hi Friends,

Who loves to watercolor? I do and I have most of today off, so I have been playing with a few different pens and inks, using the Smooshing Technique, which is easy and lots of fun!!

There are some great YouTube videos out there and I decided to do a sort of Step x Step for you.

 

Supplies Needed – Any water-soluble media like pens, crayons, ink pads, mists, etc that you have in your stash. A sheet of clear acetate or any clear packaging would work also, a spray bottle with some clean water, watercolor paper which is designed to hold wet mediums, any stamps or embossing powder you have to use for finished papers. I cut mine to A2 card front size which is approx 14 x 10cms, a non-stick mat or work surface, A heat gun if you have it.

STEP 1 – Using your piece of acetate on your work surface, lay down some different colored inks, mist, etc, then spray with some water. You will see it change or bubble.

STEP 2 – With your piece of watercolor next to you, turn the acetate onto the paper and with your fingers smoosh the ink over the paper. You will see the ink move through the acetate and you can move it to where you want your color.

STEP 3 – Lift the acetate off your paper and you will see the color and water blended on the paper. If you have a heat gun dry it before continuing.  Just watch what colors you put together as some of them will go muddy!

 

STEP 4 – Continue these steps, to add layers of color to your paper until you are happy with the result. You can see above the different layers from letting each application of ink dry.

After I made mine and they are fairly dry I put them under some heavy books or punches which helps flatten them out a bit.

STEP 5 – If you want to you can now stamp with your embossing ink and use whatever color emboss powder you choose on your card front. I had a go with the black and Gold and all of mine are Stampin! Up’© stamps. You can also use these as backgrounds and add some pattern paper and other bits to make them your own 🙂

I created the black watercolour for the background on this one and added some extra stamping and some lace to finish his card off for a black and white challenge for a FB group that I am in:)

This is a fun, quick technique with a great result and for quick cards! I hope you have a go at ‘smooshing” and I would love to see some of your creations also. If you would like any info on the products I used, please feel to message me and I can help you.

Happy creating

Kerri x

 

 

“Beginner Stamping Technique”

Hello, my lovely friends,

I hope you are having a lovely Monday!

Apologies for being a little absent, but I have been flat out with work as I probably told you and my oldest son Cody had a bit of a brush with a kangaroo last Wed nite coming home from work, on his motorbike. I am feeling pretty drained, but the main thing he wasn’t too badly hurt and his bike will be fixed!

In between everything and having most of today off work, I have been trying to get some cards made but not much luck. I thought I would make a One Sheet Wonder to show you, which is great for anyone to use and you can make some quick cards with it.

SUPPLIES NEEDED: 

1.   3-4 Ink Pads in your choice of colors

2.  Some nice white cardstock to stamp on. I always use Stampin’ Up! © Whis[er White in A4 or 12×12 size.

3. Some set/sets of stamps with a few different size images.

 

STEP 1 – With a larger stamp, randomly stamp a few images over the cardstock, leaving a lot of space in-between. I used for this OSW the Floral Essence stamp set which has a few different size stamps in it. I just used ink colours that I thought looked nice together.

STEP 2 – Next I used a few more stamps, a little smaller, with different colours to fill in some of the gaps. Make sure to stamp off the page also, so it is covered around the edges. I used a few stamps from the Pop Of Petal stamp set for this step.

STEP 3 – To finish off filling the sheet of cardstock with stamped images, I used a bee image from a retired set of stamps to fill in the other areas and used two different toned inks. The more stamping you have on your page the better for this technique the better your finished cards will look 🙂

STEP 4 – (optional)  I really like the look of the open images, but I decided to go a bit further and give some of them a tint of colour. Instead of using a water brush to paint over them and draw some of the ink into the open parts of the image, I used a Wink Of Stella glitter pen which gave them a lovely shimmery, bling look. I didn’t use any extra ink on these so it just gave the flowers a soft coloured look.

As I also need to make a few masculine themed cards I thought I would get out my grungy and background stamps and create another sheet using the above stamps.  I just stamped the large Crackle Paint, Handwritten and Birch backgrounds partially over the cardstock first. I then filled in with the smaller images from the Artisan Textures set. I just used random brown and blue inks and layered them for a bit of depth. Backgrounds would have to be my favourite stamps that I use the most, as you can do so much with them.

 

   STEP 5 – Once you have finished stamping your One Sheet Wonder backgrounds, you can go ahead and cut them up to your desired pieces to add to your cards.  Above are a few cutting templates to guide you or you can cut it up as you like.

I found this image on Google just to give you an idea of how you can use your stamped sheet of paper or use a piece of pattern paper also. You can make them Clean and Simple, or add embellishments etc to them. It’s up to you………………….

All of the stamp sets I used can be purchased from me and if you have any questions please feel free to contact me here or over @ my online shop “HERE”

I hope you enjoy my little Step x Step on how to make a quick background, to make some quick cards for your stash, to have on hand.

Stay tuned as tomorrow, I am hoping to create some cards to show you using the two I have made today 🙂

Happy stamping

Kerri x