Classic ink vs. Craft ink?

I felt it was time for a little Q&A session with 'Dear Jodie, the Stampin' Lady'. Not because I've gotten a lot of questions but because this was something that confused me for sometime when I first became a stamper and to make myself feel better I thought that maybe others were confused by this too. So the question I'm going to answer today is "What is the difference between classic and craft inks?"

Here is the low down straight from the souce (Stampin' Up! product guide for demonstrators)

Classic Ink - good for day to day stamping and the only ink most stampers will need (note: this is my comment).
■ Water-based dye ink
■ Basic Black and Basic Brown are made with waterproof dye ink and will not bleed on Stampin’ Up!’s card stock
■ Slightly raised fabric pad
■ Cannot be used on vellum or plastics

Craft Ink - takes longer to dry so more patience is needed. Craft ink does have its place but you will probably only ever need to get the stampin' spots to fulfill your needs (note: this is my comment).
■ Pigment ink
■ Slightly raised foam pad
■ For use in scrapbooks as well as on wood, fabric (see below), and other craft items (ie, plastics, vellum)
■ Opaque look on coloured card stocks
■ Great for embossing

This ink is thicker than our dye-based ink (classic ink), so you use more each time you stamp; we recommend keeping an ink refill handy so you can re-ink the pads.

Let Craft ink dry for a bit or heat set before adding photos or other embellishments.

You’ll get better results on fabric if the pad is well inked. Be sure to hold the inked stamp on the fabric for at least 30 seconds. For best results when stamping on fabric, use a tightly woven or smooth finished fabric and heat set. Line dry stamped fabrics to avoid fading. Always pretest the ink on a small swatch of fabric, as fabric finishes vary greatly. Be sure to prewash all of your fabrics before stamping.

The following colours do not work well on fabrics: Only Orange, Really Rust, More Mustard, and Whisper White.

We do not recommend Craft ink for stamping on walls; we recommend that you use acrylic paint.

Painting with Bleach

This is another card that uses the bleach technique but not one we did at club night. I thought that not pre-warning people about this card may be a bad idea. It is not that messy to do but there is the potential for disaster. To get the petals of the flower (from Doodle This) bleached you need a paint brush and some bleach in a bowl then you just paint the petal with bleach. To make this a little easier I embossed the petals with black embossing powder to make raised lines to paint inside, I was never very good at staying inside the lines so I thought I should give myself a little help. I finished the card off with some Twill Tape that I stamped the birthday greeting on with black craft ink. The craft ink takes awhile to dry so keep that in mind - I ended up with Birthday Celebrations on my hand by not waiting long enough.

We have decided on the next club date as well as a technique - Sunday March 29 at 1pm. There is still some room available so if anyone new wants to come out just let me know.

No better time to join!

If you had ever been thinking of signing up with Stampin' Up! there is no better time than now. They have a great promotion on the starter kit (which is a good deal anyways). You can get the kit for 15% off AND you get a free stamp set of your choice. That is basically a $100 value.

In the starter kit you get 5 classic ink pads (you can choose your colours) and a VersaMark pad, 4 stamp sets and the bonus free one (there is some choice in which stamps too), 3 packs of cardstock, stampin pastels, blender pens, stampin scrub and a variety of other goodies. It really is over a $400 value and until March 31 you can get it for $209. Check out the Stampin' Up! website for more details on this promotion or you can sign up using my recruiting password "Stampin' away".

If you want more information about this excellent opportunity just let me know.

Scrapbook Page #2

Here is my next scrapbook page. On this page I had more than just pictures to incorporate, I had 3 hospital bracelets and the tape measure that they used when she was born. I decided to split the page in two and put pictures on half of it and the bracelets on the other half. It was a bit of a challenge to get the tape measure on there with the little tears visible but I managed in the end. I love that this page has both yellow and pink, my two favourite colours. That makes it extra special :)

Inquisitive minds...

I had to show everyone this picture. My daughter has just perfected the art of pulling herself up to standing and will do it whenever the opportunity presents itself. She has recently realized that if she pulls herself up on my crafty bag there are goodies inside with which she can play. In this shot she got my Sweet Stems set and sat down to examine it. She has, on other occasions, found that if she throws a stamp pad on the floor it will open and also that the bag of sponges is a great thing to chew. I just thought this was the cutest and that everyone should see it.

Define Your Life

I got the Define your Life stamp set when I signed up to be a demonstrator because of the promotion at the time where you got a free set (same promotion on now too). I had coveted this set for some time but because of the price had never gotten it. But now that I have it I have yet to really use it. So sad really.

I decided to get some inspiration from my favourite source. I found this card and loved the simplicity of it, and the fact that it used embossing too. The flower and definition are embossed and then I used my blender pen and Pretty in Pink and Rose Red inks along with a little Kiwi Kiss to colour in the flower. I finished it off with a little Kiwi Kiss satin ribbon and a scallop edge. I absolutely love the way it turned out.

Upsy Daisy

I was playing around with the Upsy Daisy stamp set and I made this card. I found the inspiration from Splitcoast (surprised?) and changed the colours a bit. I used Chocolate chip and Bordering Blue.

The bordering blue gives it a bit of a sophisticated look since it isn't a bright as some of the other blues. I didn't have any wide ribbon so I used a strip of Bella Rose DSP and the dots are actually Pirouette Pink, but they are so light that you can't tell. As for the flowers I stamped them in Whisper White and embossed in clear.

I have just recently gotten my heat gun and I love it. It is so much easier than trying to emboss large areas on the stove or with an iron. It is one of my best purchases so far. You will be seeing a lot of embossing in the cards to come as I play with it.

February Club/Class card

The last club meeting went really well, there were a few more ladies there this time and we had a blast again. Aside from the fact I can't make coffee everything went really well. Here is one of the cards we made using this months technique - bleaching.

It really isn't a messy technique at all and the bleach doesn't get everywhere. To do it just get a folded up paper towel on a plastic lid or paper plate and carefully pour some bleach on it and you've made your own bleach pad. Just like with stamping in general make sure your fingers are clean, if there is bleach OR ink on them your project won't turn out quite like you had hoped :)

I would love to be able to take credit for coming up with the idea for this card but I can't, I found it on the demonstrator portion of the SU! website then tweaked it a little and thought it would be perfect for this months club. We used the Upsy Daisy set and stamped first in Chocolate Chip ink on the Baja Breeze cardstock. Then we stamped in bleach overtop of the image. There is no need to line the images up because you want them to be off a little to get a shadow effect. This one ended up a bit sploched but the ladies cards were more bleached, the way I had intended. The difference was that I didn't have as much bleach on my papertowel as they did. We finished the card off with a strip of So Saffron cs, Chocolate Chip grosgrain ribbon and a ticket corner punch for the top corners.

Scrapbook page #1

I have jumped on the scrapbook bandwagon with both feet now. I have completed my first page and I am quite happy with the results. This page is what really sparked my scrapbooking desire. We got these cute ultrasound pictures and I knew I needed to keep them forever but couldn't think of anything else to do with them than scrapbook them.

I matted them with red and blue paper that matched the flowers in the paper I found. Then I added some scallop circles and the title. For interests sake the scallop border around the title I did with my scallop edge punch, a little tricky but I had all sorts of time to perfect it.

I think I may be an addict now but oh well. I can't wait to get the next page done!

Baby Card and onesie

Here is a Welcome baby card that I just love making and giving. I have a friend who had a baby a few weeks ago so I made this card with a matching onesie and wrapping paper to boot.

I found a onesie card awhile back on Splitcoast and couldn't resist making one myself. The template that I used can be found here but there are lots to choose from if you do a little searching. I have made a few of these cards in the past but this time I decided to take it one step further and make the whole emsemble.

For the card I used retired soft sky paper and then sponged the edges with Baja Breeze and added faux stitching with the white gel pen. I stamped the birds in black and coloured them with regular markers (I don't have the SU! ones yet). I found a few white buttons in my stash of stuff and glued them to the bottom of the onesie and called it done. If I had textured cardstock I would have used that for a more cloth-like look, but you have to use what you have, right?

The wrapping paper is just the stuffing paper SU! uses in their packages and coloured with regular markers.

The onesie took a bit if research on how to do. I first washed and dried the onesie, then stamped in black craft ink which takes awhile to dry. I then heat set the ink with my iron but I read you can also do it with the heat tool. Next I coloured the birds in with fabric markers and then I think I had to heat set it again, whatever the markers said to do is what I did. Then I washed it and dried it again, so it is super clean now.

I think it is super cute and can't wait for another friend to have a baby so I can make another set. Did you hear that guys, get on it!

Scrapbooking

So I've finally decided to venture into the world of scrapbooking. It is something I said I'd never do because I thought you needed lots of supplies and I just wasn't into spending that much. I changed my mind when my daughter was born and I had all these hospital bracelets that were just asking to be scrapbooked. I now know that you don't need to spend a lot to make a nice scrapbook, you just need to have pictures and treasures that mean a lot to you and a scrapbook will just come together.

I have started a lot of pages started but none are quite finished yet. It turns out I really like to start them which involves picking out colours and embellies but not finishing them which involves cutting the pictures. I don't know why I have a problem with this, they only cost 29 cents at the store and I can always get another printed but still, it makes me hesitate.

I wanted to share where I've been getting most of my inspiration for my pages that I am starting (but not finishing yet). I have been checking out a friends blog for ideas. Sandra has the best scrapbook pages and I love how simple they are, these are the kinds of pages that make me think that I can do that too! I will be posting some of my finished pages just as soon as I manage to finish them. I have given myself a goal of at least 1 per month so keep your eyes open for February's :)