Okay, I have projects. One, phase one is done, now for phase two. I have the cut patterns ready to go, I just need to decide on the paper. Do I want to print both sides, since they'll both be visible?
And if I print them, what do I want to print on them? Something simple? Something seasonal? Do I want to match colors?
So many things to decide.
And while the possibilities are percolating in my brain, I've been working on something I found on the internet. Everything is cut and now I have to do the necessary stamping. I have stamps, I thought they'd work out, but I changed my mind. Yesterday I made my own stamp with the Imagepac Stampmaker and I was surprised at how much easier it was to do than I remember. I used the new inkjet printer (well, new earlier this year) and I didn't think the black on the negative would be dark enough, but it was. A pleasant surprise.
Since I made the stamp, I've been playing with embossing. I'm using a teal colored paper and I want the sentiment to be white. Oh, my gosh, what a headache to get it just right. I have so much stuff to work with and until about an hour ago, I wasn't happy with how any of them were working. I want glittery white. Should be easy, right? I have white pigment ink and it doesn't lay down consistently. The outside edges of the lettering put down more ink than the insides. And when you put embossing powder on that, it doesn't melt equally. It just looks sloppy. I gave up on trying to emboss with glitter white powder. Coverage wasn't thick enough. Very frustrating. So, this morning I tried again.
First off I needed my cornstarch sock. Couldn't find it anywhere (I rub the cornstarch sock over my paper I want to emboss; this helps when I knock off most of the excess embossing powder; it helps prevent odd bits of embossing powder from melting onto the paper when I use the heat tool). I had to make another one. Then I tried to emboss with the white ink again, being very careful putting ink on the stamp and stamping the paper. And then covering the inked area with embossing powder. Finished, it still looked sloppy.
Then I cleaned the stamp and got out the Versa embossing pad, which lays down a clear fluid. I put the white embossing powder on that, hit it with the heat tool and it looked a lot cleaner.
Then I squeezed a small amount of Stickles Crystal onto a piece of paper and used a small paint brush and painted over the embossed area.
It looks so good! I'm very happy with it.
What I'm not happy with is the big stamp. No matter what I do, there are blank spaces in it. I think I've finally narrowed it down to the ink pad. I ordered more from Amazon. The pad I've been using is old and it seems like there's a fair amount of ink on it, but I tried a different ink and it seemed to work better than this one. I'll figure this out next week.
Sorry to be so vague, but when I plan on sending this stuff out, I don't want to ruin the surprise.