Rain Writer

Posted on May 17, 2013 by kath

6a00d8341c09ea53ef017c38821d30970b 350wi DAWNS GEL/WATER CARD

dawn's water gel card

DAWN’S GEL/WATER CARD VIDEO .. this is a cute idea that I have tried before and I love it and believe it or not it is mailable… not sure that is a word but you get the idea. The big hint is not to try to fill the little zippy bag toooo full… a little I am guessing about a leave teaspoon is just fine… too much and maybe it won’t make it.

The first one I got was an stamp image of a toilet and inside it said ‘hope this doesn’t get FLUSHED in the mail’… very funny… and it didn’t… my friend included the directions on how to do it and it was little harder as we were using the ‘seal a meal’ thing and having to make up our own baggies but the mini zippys are lots easier and if you don’t fill them too full and let out as much air as you can they work great.

I didn’t have a dollar store near me so I was at grocery and found a large cheap bottle of blue hair gel with lots of bubbles it was ‘DEP SPORT’..now while it looks really blue in the bottle the small amount that you and I will use makes that blue a lot less noticeable…

Here are two that I did one with a small punch out of a boat and the other I used the water punch border and MS’s whale and Of course there was the option of using a goggly eye so I did use one of the tiny ones…. I just love it…

my whale gel

You can really see the bubbles right? The other one was a ‘bon voyage’ card and I used the tiny sail boat punch that was one of Fiskars’ handle ones

I was in such a hurry with this one that I forgot to squeeze out most of the air so you don’t see the bubbles as well…but I still like it …but you can also see that because it was on a white background the blue doesn’t show up as much as it did on the lite blue background.

Another idea is a small person or animal etc image under water and the words ‘could be I have been in over my head’…and make it a belated birthday or an apology etc..

Also fish with WISHING YOU BEST FISHTIVITIES on your BIRTHDAY…

QUICK TIP FOR CLEAR CASES

I know you may think that I get a kickback for pushing some of DAWN’S merchandise but I assure you I don’t… however, I looked for over a year for these clear cases to store my unmounted stamps in and couldn’t find them anywhere…if they had them at STAMPIN UP I didn’t find them but now they do have them for sale a really good price and her idea of sticking the image on the back (she also thinks that leaving the image sticker off the back of your clear stamp makes it stick to block better) is a great way to store images that are unmounted. I put like things together like animals etc or birthday or just greetings. Then you can store these clear boxes on a shelf or in a drawer or in a basket. Anyway as my favorite calligraphy teacher CAROL DU BOSCH would say its worth the price of admission. LOL. I think the boxes are like 5 for 5 dollars…check her website under storage or if you have a STAMPIN UP rep that you deal with I am sure they have them also. In any case they are a good thing.

The gel/water cards have become one of new favorites… just remember not to put too much gel in the baggie..squeeze out as much of the air as possible …you can use punch outs like the whale or stamps like my fish…as you can see I felt they could even do with a goggly eyes…yeah I use them as often as I can….

AS ALWAYS THANKS FOR STOPPIN BY …..wireheaded cyber toad…aka kath

Posted on May 10, 2013 by kath

GREETINGS, I wanted to share this DIAMOND ORIGAMI FOLD with you because I thought it was fun and easy to fold. It works best with light weight paper. This is the front of the card when its folded.

Diamondorigamicardstep17b SCS DIAMOND ORIGAMI FOLD CARD

SCS DIAMOND ORIGAMI CARD

and this is the inside which for me is way toooo busy… less is more…but everyone has there own ideas on that so you do what makes you smile.

Diamondorigamicardnewslette1 SCS DIAMOND ORIGAMI FOLD CARD

DIAMOND ORIGAMI OPEN

SCS DIAMOND ORIGAMI FOLD CARD This is a really cute card and it has become one of my new favorites… Last night I sat and folded 15 while watching TV… lol… yeah obsessive…While this is the name that SCS gives it I am going to refer to it as Diamond Pocket card because there is also a different diamond fold and I think they don’t have the word origami in it but it is in there resources and its very cute also and totally different.

As you can see from this one and from the video it could actually be used as both the card and the envelope if you write or lable the back of the card with the mailing address…however NOTE: its square so it is going to cost extra ..that said depending on how much embellishing you do on it you are probably going to have to pay extra postage anyway..(currently 66 cents) so it may not matter. In addition you want to make sure that you have inserted the front flap in and secured it with some type of removable adhesive or with a belly band so that it will go there the mail and not be eaten…

Another point that is not really addressed is that this is going to work best with some type of lighter weight paper , heavy card stock is not going to fold nicely nor stay folded. At some point I walked into Michael’s and found that they had huge book of 12×12 light weight paper ( not card stock but not text weight either so somewhere in-between) It is all printed on one side but white on the other but that doesn’t matter as you will not see the other side if you fold this correctly. Also you can’t really tell for sure but the pocket on the right side can be sealed shut as you will only fold that flap into center you will not be tucking anything into it.. the pocket on the left side is the one on the front and that needs to be left open so you can tuck the top point into that pocket.

Now if you folded correctly both side flaps are the same so it doesn’t really matter which little pocket you use to tuck the top flap into ….if you like the one on the left better for some reason use it either way the card opens the same.

One more note I will mention…is that if you are sending this as a card but lets say you have a desire to also write a letter you can print your letter on the back before you fold it and then don’t stick it all shut at the end but leave it so the recipient can open and read the letter as well …you may need to give them a heads up with a small note on the inside that says open fully or something like that…

If you have old car atlases those old map pages will work well also…You can also see from my samples below that I am into those little wooden embellishments…I get mine from IMPRESS RUBBER STAMPS and you can order from them on line… I just got the little houses box of them and then I rub stamp ink on them to give them some color. The little bird is new also..this box of birds has them on branches and in different then the first ones I got which were pretty much all the same but different sizes… the box also has little owls…How cute will those be for a GUESS WHOOOO…

kh diamond pkt made of map page

diamond pkt kh

kh more diamond pkt

Ok that is only 5 of the 15….I didn’t want to bore you to death… on the bird one it is duck paper so I was going to wish the a ducky day or write “a little bird told me…then HAPPY BIRD DAY. The house one inside will say from my house to yours …HAPPY BIRTHDAY OR GET WELL WISHES…etc..The U rock is a congrats or a graduation type card or birthday for thank you whatever works for you…The All about U one is blue so inside I was going to write something LIke I am so blue without you… missing you …etc. Ok enough pocket folds..

Here is more EYE CANDY … This first one is from my extremely talented friend BONNIE NOEHR..whose wizardry with pointed pen knows no limits. She complete hand drew this whole image with her pointed pen and the reproduced image may be hard to see that there are tiny gold dots …it is so exquisite that it must go in a frame at least until next years little bit of lovelyness… I am such a lucky girl to have such a talented friend who graces my mailbox with lovely designs . THANK YOU BONNIE… ( you may remember I posted her lovely little VALENTINE back in Feburary it had similar images even smaller and multi dimensional pop out heart)

Bonnie Noehr’s hand drawn birthday card 13

Bonnie’s valentine

Bonnie’s envelope error

Above is the beautiful envelope she wrote to mail my card in which however, she got back because she did not have my address on it… that one is wrong… she was so freaked when she go it back she sent me an e mail showing it too me so I would know she tried to make it on time… Well I love stretching my birthday at least until my hubby’s in april it was not problem and the second time this is the envelope it arrive in!!!!!

I had posted this previously and briefly it was larger and when I saw it on the blog I FREAKED as in the background was my kitchen garbage can…aaarrrggghh..the kitchen has the best light and so we took photo there and looking at a thumbnail I didn’t realize that it was showing the GARBAGE…well I edited photo cropped out the garbage and reinserted, reposted it into that blog as well as putting it in this one.

The reason I can do that is because I am able to go look thru a media library of images on my blog and easily find and repost it… if you are thinking of a blog I LOVE WORDPRESS! That said it is all I know…or have ever used but still I find it does a great job.

ONE MORE HADDA SHARE..I found this site on PINTEREST and just thought it was fun ….TISSUE PAPER FLOWERS..tissue paper comes in such great colors and designs but it is always hard to work with but this looks simple and makes a great package topper or embellishment…DON’T JUST SIT HERE go PLAY…

AS ALWAYS THANKS FOR STOPPIN BY.…wireheaded cyber toad….aka kath

Posted on May 3, 2013 by kath

DAWN'S TWISTED GIFT CARD HOLDER

DAWN’S TWISTED GIFT CARD HOLDER

I loved the idea of this card as a way to send a Money gift card.. giving money even a debit type card seems so impersonal so if I can make the holder a little more personal than the folder they ususally give you with the card ( if they give a holder at all) is important to me… and this was just the perfect answer… Its quick …its simple especially if you use duplex paper ( her word is designer) which means there are coordinating colors/ designs on both sides of the paper, then you don’t have to cut paper to insert. Remember when you are adding something like a gift card you may want to be sure to pay to track it so you know that it arrived , it’s not much. Also you will probably need to add additional postage like the 66 cent butterfly stamp or any variation of stamps to add up to that amount. It’s gonna make a bump in your card and it probably going to go over an ounce.

Now while this is designed to hold gift cards.. you can also use money and then fold it in the origami heart ( easy ) or in the origami star ( little more difficult) or any number of other money origami folds. In addition you can also just use it as a birthday, get well, congrats card with inserts in the pockets with either stamped messages or hand written messages. REMEMBER …. I am at least the princess of repurposing…

SCORING TIP.. Dawn suggested using your paper cutter and the scoring blade..well don’t know about you but in the heat of creation… I know I would accidentally cut the paper rather than score it…mainly because there are at least 3 black scoring blades to my fiskar paper cutter hiding out somewhere in my room. I never can find them when I need them and I even do tell myself that they should go right next to paper cutter when I do find one…but the little devils wait till I turn out the lights at night and then they run away… SO my solution is to MOVE AWAY FROM THE CUTTER….go back to my desk and use my scor-pal… now making a score that long is always difficult and you have to find a way to line up the top right and the bottom left on the same score line or it just makes a mess… so I found lining up next to double lines on the scor-pal was the easiest way to do this for this project I used the 7 1/4 LINE ON THE LARGE SCOR-PAL…it’s right next to another line which has no measure mark next to it so I have no idea what it is…but the two lines so close together makes it easy to line up your top right and bottom left on the same score line and score away….Ok hope this helps… or that you are better with using the scoring blade on your paper cutter than I am…

Well I know this is a little short but sometimes enough is enough…right…

front my twisted gift card holder

This was the one I did and I did insert a gift card in it. I really do like this card for using with gift cards, tags, notes, money ( folded origami style of course) etc. Even a photo would be good but you would have to print it smaller that 4×6. Business card size would be good.

MORE BIRTHDAY EYE CANDY

I have a great friend JANIS in OK..who not only reads the blog…lol but actually makes things from my posts. These are two of the birthday cards I received from her and they were both done it the VELUM DRY EMBOSSING style . The Magnolia is just stunning and the Iris done sorta like a stained glass window is also just lovely… She told me that she added the color on the back side of the images using colored pencil. I think she would also agree that the images show up better against a dark background in this case her’s were on a dark green background an the Magnolia was on the same background but she had used and embossing template to make the background appear polka dot. As I have said before I AM SUCH A LUCKY GIRL. THANKS JANIS for enhancing my mail box and for following my blog.

AS ALWAYS THANKS FOR STOPPIN BY… wire headed cyber toad…kath

Posted on April 26, 2013 by kath

Hi there, friends and fellow card makers !

MY BFF has been hounding me for over a year to get on PINTEREST…well I drug my feet cause I REALLY don’t like being on FACEBOOK…(reason below) but I am on it mainly due to my grandkids refusing to communicate other then to the world on FB….so if I want to even try to find out what they are doing or liking etc I had to get on FB…my daughter too..in fact EASTER SUNDAY we all went out to dinner and we took my mom who would be great gramma and the minute we were seated they all had their phones out and were texting or posting…. like the rest of the world wanted to know ..was just dying to know where we were eating. Ok I’ll get off my soap box and go back to my story about PINTEREST..so I finally got on and WOW…. I am blown away with all the stuff I end up looking at… in fact the first night I was up till 3 am ( had no idea of the time) looking at cards, nail art, calligraphy etc… well the good news is I came across this little booklet that you can make which looks like an ICE CREAM CONE….

PINTEREST ICE CREAM CONE

NOW it was created to be in a scrap book so it was a huge circle and too large in my opinion to be a card…but they were adding photos to the ice cream part so it needed to be bigger… I wrote at the top that I used an 8 ” circle but actually to make my circle punches work for the ice cream I made the circle 7″…. It’s an easy fold and then you can tie it together and if you run the circle thru your embossing machine with some type of over all pattern , herring bone, etc it will look even more like a cone…the way I did it was to fold the cicle in half and run it thru the template that way… if you paper is really thick then it may not work and you may need to try using the foam pad if its too hard to crank.

TIP:.DON’T BREAK YOUR base or your machine by forcing it too hard..( been there done that broke B plate after using it a lot for cutting so it was major scarred and warped… )

TIP: when embossing or cutting flip the plate over every time so you are not making it warp or at least warping it evenly..

For the inside on the ice cream parts I wrote the old kids quote …I SCREAM …YOU SCREAM ….WE ALL SCREAM …FOR ICE CREAM …THEN HAPPY BIRTHDAY OR CELEBRATE…or even GET WELL SOON …especially if they had their tonsils out…lol…

Ok I am wacky I know it and I embrace it… saw a quote the other day that said IF YOU LAUGH YOU WON’T NEED MEDICINE …IF YOU LAUGH FOR NO REASON YOU FORGOT TO TAKE YOUR MEDS…lol… that’s me..In fact it is so me…that I am going to just write the word porn in here again buried deep in the blog to see if I get another 259 hits…and to prove to myself that I didn’t just get super popular one day… lol…

AS ALWAYS THANKS FOR STOPPIN BY wire headed cyber toad aka kath

Posted on April 19, 2013 by kath

YOOOO HOOO… I ‘M BAAACCCK…lol

DAWN’S BUTTERFLY aka VELLUM DRY EMBOSSING

6a00d8341c09ea53ef017d41d9775a970c 450wi Dawns Butterfly embossing aka vellum dry embossing

DAWN'S DRY EMBOSSING ON VELLUM

Well, I really liked this idea of Dawn’s and while I have embossed on vellum before (this is not with powder and heat, this is with muscle and a stylus) I was usually using the metal stencils where you would emboss the complete image or words… with this technique you stamp and then go back and look for the white areas and just emboss those… or as in the butterfly above you can make the whole image look more dimensional by embossing completely around the image as this will raise the butterfly. I do think I like it on a solid background best and the samples of mine below are all mounted on the black card stock for the background.

Dawns Butterfly embossing aka vellum dry embossing

my dry embossing

Ok, as you can see all of my images are mounted onto black background then re-mounted onto a colored card stock… My favorite stamps were the bees, (RUBBERMOON STAMPS) moon stamp (memory box from IMPRESS rubber-stamps) the dogwood ..this one really shows up nicely (IMPRESS IMAGE) and the last one I tried was the postage cause I love saying YOU’VE GOT MAIL…but it was the hardest to do because finding the spaces to emboss were harder to find…

Now at this point I am sure some of you are saying well I can do this same thing by using my Cuttlebug (or other embossing tool) and running a similar template thru it and raising up the images and it quicker and easier…NOT…yes all of that is true but if you look closely and even better if you actually try it you will see that using the stylus on the vellum makes it go from a semi transparent to WHITE.. it looses some of its transparency which is why I prefer to mount it on that black background for the most contrast. Your embossing templates and your embossing machines will not create the white effect that using the tool does… but hey, do what you want. Everyone has there own limit of tediousness and I know just by looking at some techniques that even if I like the effect I know I’ll never do it cause I am a lazy stamper/card maker… I want the WOW factor but not a lot of work… or I know I will only do this for one person cause they really appreciate my cards…and my efforts.

DAWN’S GLUE AND CLEAR STAMP TIP... she calls this the glue from STAMPIN UP however it is also the same glue you can buy in any craft store (that isn’t out just when you need it) and its ZIG DOUBLE ENDED. She also mentions in the video that she doesn’t put the image on the back of the clear mount stamps from STAMPIN UP… wish I had known that but hey, this works and mine stick pretty good for stamping but my cleaning often pulls the image off the clear block…( speaking of cleaning I only use water on the fuzzy pad and rub it off ) but this idea of using the double ended glue stick will make the stick better, I tried it… every so often you will need to clean your clear block and reapply. The reason that this works so well is that if you let the glue dry first then it becomes a repositionable type of glue PLEASE REMEMBER TO LET IT DRY FIRST…OTHERWISE YOU WILL HAVE JUST GLUED YOUR IMAGE TO YOUR CLEAR BLOCK FOREVER!!! so hope you find this helpful and I am not sure about all of you but I just love Dawn… she makes me giggle and she is always so upbeat and cheerful sounding…

NOW THIS IS AN ENVELOPE

One of my really talented calligraphic buddies is BONNIE and she made this huge envelope for me for my birthday…she had included a wonderful set of animal origami place mats… as well as a wonderful birthday card…

Ok guys, that’s it for the toad this week… enjoy and AS ALWAYS THANKS FOR STOPPIN BY….wire headed cyber toad….aka kath

PinExt Dawns Butterfly embossing aka vellum dry embossing

Posted on April 12, 2013 by kath

GREETINGS AND SALUTATIONS

HI YA’LL this is one I have been meaning to post for awhile now. Dawns THANK YOU CARDS are these adorable little cards and each month she posts a new one. They are all this small and then you can mail them in a 3 1/2 x 5 inch envelope (that’s the smallest mailable size of envelope.) I really liked this little one because it has this little flap that you tuck the fold on the top into. You could also turn the side sideways and use that flap as again to hold the card closed… but once you are on her website check all the other ones she has and while I don’t have this exact little punch …you can use any type of punch ..heart, circle, square, little rectangle, star just about any shape… it could also be a birthday, get well, thinking of you just about anything you can think of will work. I even thought of a St. Pat’s using a shamrock I have..

Dawn's Thank You with tab

Inside this one I used a stamp that says ‘birthdays a reason to have more cake’..

wishing you a stellar day

So don’t panic cause you don’t have the small punch you can buy one but you probably have some others that you can use instead…or you can use a small circle or even just cut a small square then a slightly smaller one. Maybe you have some dies that you could use to cut out shapes…or think of all your punches ..well maybe you are not the punch addict that I am but there are so many out there and whenever there is a sale it seems I am always able to find one more that I don’t have yet!! Anyway below are a few of the ones I came up with just looking at my punches…most are being held shut with the punch image …except the birds on the wire… I love that punch and so I used it on the flap and then added a commercial daisy that I had to be the closure…. Yeah, just think of all the commercial embellishments that you have, lots of them might work for closure images…

So as you can see sometimes I just get on a roll….give this little guy a try and you can mail it in the small 3 1/2 x 5 inch envelopes… write a note inside or just stamp ‘happy birthday’ inside…for the crab…I thought ‘sorry I have been crabby lately’… the birds… ‘a little bird told me it was your birthday’….spring…the zebra stripes I used one as a thank you and then another as a ‘GO WILD on your birthday it only happens once a year’.

Googly eyes… I love any excuse to use them…

assorted thank

So this is my new quick favorite… and I think of them as sorta a MATCHBOOK card the only thing I would mention about Dawn’s video is that I think she tells you to score at 1″ then at 3″…WELL THAT WON’T WORK OUT RIGHT …unless you fold the 1″ up and slide the card up …so think it should say SCORE AT 1″ AND THEN AT 4″ the bottom of the card should fold up to score line of the 1″ score… so just a little heads up…

NOW SOME EYE CANDY FROM MY BIRTHDAY

Stuart's handmade card

Stuart stamped the trees on white then cut it so it looked like Mt Rainier…he knows how much I love that mountain then inside he said it was to make me homesick and to come home sooner…lol… I love it…

This is from my WA BFF and she wrote nice things about me and the butterflies are dimensional…then inside she found a stamp that said…”HOPE YOU GET A LOT OF NICE STAMPS FOR YOUR BIRTHDAY…CAUSE I KNOW YOU’LL SHARE THEM WITH ME …RIGHT….LOL

Cynthia's easter bunny

Cynthia’s Easter bunny was so cute ’cause he was cut out of faux velvet paper…very clever and very dimensional the card layout is similar to one here but its larger and opens on the side rather than the top…. so many ideas…so little time…EVEN WHEN YOU ARE SUPPOSED TO BE RETIRED…LOL

This was an e-mail I received from calligraphy friend Linda and I am not sure if she wrote a while ago or if it was something she found and saved then sent to me at Easter…in any case its just great….

THANKS FOR ALL THE GREETINGS AND SHARING…AND AS ALWAYS THANKS FOR STOPPIN BY...wire headed cyber toad….aka kath

Posted on April 5, 2013 by kath

GREETINGS……

OMG I have to share more about the blog….as part of WordPress there is a graph you can check to see how many people have looked at your blog…on an average I rarely get more than 40-60 people a day…which is great as far as I am concerned…but on March 25 I had 259 people on that one day….it blew my mind….and I have wracked my brain trying to figure out what was so appealing that I got that many people in one day!!! As I am writing this I just figured it out….that is the one where I told you about getting the unwanted links in comments…I don’t want to be specific as to what those links were or it will happen again……but ug I am sorry I thought of this as I was really excited to think that many people had checked out my blog for a good reason…oh well….easy come easy go…anyway…hope you enjoy this little booklet.

SPIDER CIDER TEABAG HOLDER…. well this is what Dawn was calling it and it will work for a teabag however it also will work to insert a small note or tag as well as Ghiradelli chocolate squares….yuuuummmm. I know its long past and long before Halloween I BUT this doesn’t have to be halloween inspired it can have any image on the front that you want A BIRTHDAY INSPIRED or THINKING OF YOU.. and if you happen to have a grandchild or child graduating then it would be a great GRADUATION card too. You can use those pockets for money or a gift card..and if you use money then think about folding it in that Heart shape that I think I posted last year at Valentines….just put on those thinking caps. I am maybe the queen ok maybe only the princess of re-purposing…If you don’t believe me, I used to go to gun shows with my husband and you know that I am a calligrapher and what do calligraphers have ….lots of pen nibs…… and while wandering thru the gun show I discovered BULLET BOXES yep…boxes for my man to keep his bullets in but I also discovered that 38 bullet boxes (that’s a size of bullet for those of you who don’t know) was just perfect for holding assorted pen nibs… now that’s RE-PURPOSING…lol..

So you can see she put tea bags in her’s but you can also put tea bags in and make it a get well card… just another possibility…

As I mentioned earlier its also just perfect for GHIRADELLI Sea Salt Caramel Dark chocolate squares…… if you haven’t tried these you have no idea what you are missing…I am just sayin…

So here is my version of SPIDER CIDER as a GRADUATION…( my oldest granddaughter is graduation from college and going on to get her Masters. I am so proud of her so I am thinking $$ in here Folded in a heart shape..

My Graduation Spider booklet

front of booklet kh

Ok this is the front of my grad booklet and I used the school colors and the brads came from Jo ANN’s I think but back a few years just because I had others graduating also…if I remember correctly they were not in the scrap/stamping section but over in the readymade cards like with the confetti. Confetti would work also if you can’t find the brads.

inside and tab card

This is the inside and the tab card….. I didn’t want the tab to stick out so I made the card smaller and also I didn’t have ribbon that I liked for these colors so I just left the ribbon off all together and use the red heavy duty double stick tape to hold the pockets on the inside

OK …..ready…set ….GO MAKE SOMETHING!

AS ALWAYS THANKS FOR STOPPIN BY..wire headed cyber toad…aka kath

PinExt SPIDER CIDER TEABAG HOLDER from DAWN

Posted on March 30, 2013 by kath

GREETINGS YA’LL

I have to tell you that this blog business is strange…it is relatively easy to actually write the blog provided you have something to say then again photos can either be scanned or with a camera. My blog is run on the WORDPRESS platform and as part of the package they have a very good spam filter. That said..the comments are the craziest /weirdest part . The filter removes a good many of the spams but some slip thru and they go in a spam category for me to look at and either approve or delete. One slipped thru recently that would take you to an ultimate fighting championship photos….ick..I removed it but I have noticed that lately I have been discovered by PORN sites..even bigger ick..I have been deleting them as fast as I can but beware what you click on IN THE COMMENTS section. These are never in the blog itself but only in the comments section. Just a bit of a heads up. Now the post on BLEACH..a good cleansing …lol

BLEACH

This post is all about a couple of TECHNIQUES….The first one is bleach. There a couple of things that you need to think about when it comes to bleach, the big one is that you should know about. Rubber is a living thing…. that means that whenever you add chemicals you are ultimately looking to kill the rubber. This means that over time the chemicals will work to make the rubber hard..ie it shrinks up and becomes harder and harder. There is no way to predict how soon this will happen but if its a stamp you really love and use a lot you should know that both the bleach as well as those STAZON pads are working towards turning the rubber hard. The best way to do this is to only use die or pigment based stamp pads and don’t put bleach on the stamps themselves. So what is the solution, well the best one is to merely stamp the image and then heat emboss it using a clear embossing powder or a color if that’s your choice. Then go back and use small amounts of bleach on the card stock. That said, you need to test each piece of cardstock as some will bleach out to a color you may find unacceptable and some black ( I know this for a fact) won’t bleach at all. Again as I said you need to heat emboss the image so that the bleach doesn’t erase the image.

So then the technique is to heat emboss the image as I did with the one below then go back and use a small amount of bleach. You should also know that when it comes to bleach it loses its potency when exposed to air or placed in plastic or glass. So the best way is to heat emboss several images on various card stocks then use a small glass dish and pour out only a small amount of bleach…use a brush that you don’t use for anything else so if you have several brushes I would use tape and mark it so that you know its for bleach only and bleach will also eat some brushes like natural hair so a synthetic brush or even a felt tip to bleach out the paper inside the image. After you have done that dump your bleach so that you don’t spill the container that its in. I reccommend a mid size pyrex bowl since its heavy and not easily dumped. Also only use a about a cap full bleach poured directly from the bottle ….you can also use the scented bleach so you are overwhelmed by the smell of bleach. There is a video on the STAMPING SCHOOL ( a STAMPING UP) web site…. that said this is the only one that I have found that has a fee for becoming a member. It has an annual fee of $35. That seems like a lot but I think they have about 600+ videos and good directions for each project and they are divided by categories. I think if you go to the link above (in Blue) before you become a member they allow you to look up a few of the cards/videos. They also send you an e-mail every time they post new videos. So what I am saying is that its up to you just wanted you to know about them in addition to the SPLITCOAST STAMPERS and DAWN’S web site which are both also STAMPING UP websites. ( based on my experience and I just signed up for year two…there are some duplications between STAMPING SCHOOL and SPLITCOAST STAMPERS. But since I tend more toward the special folds or funky cards I have not seen a lot of duplication still a lot of the cards are just ways to layer and obviously using SU stamps and punches.)

BLEACH/EMBOSSING

OK this was done on dark purple texture card stock with heat embossing in clear then using brush bleached out the centers and then when dry added colored pencil.

bleach/heat embossed

This is also heat embossed and colored pencil added after the bleach dried.

just stamped then bleached

This one was just stamped with permanent ink then lightly bleached and then colored with colored pencil so permanent ink will hold if you don’t over do the bleach.

bleach black on black

Ok so this is one more way to use the bleach… I wrote the quote myself with black ink on white paper then I took black cardstock ( that I knew would bleach this is very important) and went to a copy store and photocopied the quote onto black paper …hence black on black… it doesn’t show up here as well as it might but before you bleach it it is very hard to see… once its bleached in this case my black cardstock bleached out GREEN… that doesn’t usually happen it usually bleaches out a sort of rusty brown color but for whatever reason this brand of cardstock went green …I was delighted and I did know that it was going green before I photo copied it as I had tested it at home. So cut these down and used them as ST PATRICK’S CARDS…YOU MUST PHOTO COPY AT A COPY STORE because home printers don’t have any carbon in them and its the carbon printing that makes it not bleach out…

BLEACH 2

One of the other ways to use BLEACH is simple to put a small about in a small plastic or glass spray bottle a spritz a small amount of bleach on the paper either before you stamp or after you have stamped but if after try not to get too much on your image or you may lose some of it but even that can sometimes be interesting and make the image a little more rustic looking or watercolor looking.

This is just the craft cardstock with bleach sprayed on and then let dry ….then below I used a moon stamp cause I thought this looked kinda like stars so this is what it looked like after stamping over the dried bleach.

stamped on bleach background

BLEACH 3

This would be my least favorite for the reasons I listed at the beginning it will definately damage the rubber ( I have no experience with the clear stamps)but how quickly that will happen is hard to say… I am less worried about using it with the $1.00 stamps that find at Michael’s or with at stamp that I willing to lose or sure that I can replace. The images below were done by adding a small piece of felt to a small amount of bleach then pressing the stamp on it and then pressing the stamp on the paper. I didn’t try to create an actual stamp pad but you could still I would think that you would not want to add to much bleach to it as it will dry out and you will probably need to add more each time you go to use it. You can probably use the same bleach brush you choose to simple brush on the bleach on the specific stamp image. As I stated I have no experience with the clear stamps and not sure at all what effect it will have on the image, its possible that it could melt it completely or have no more immediate effect on the image than it has on the red rubber. If you try it please give me your feelings and results at in either comments or krhblogger@gmail.com.

bleach on stamp

So these were two dollar stamps that I was willing to sacrifice but the bunny was solid and didn’t show up much and so I used a fine line pen to sorta outline it… the then chick was harder to see and again I only brushed on the bleach so again I used a colored pencil in this case to make it show a little more… I feel sure that if you are willing to actually make a bleach stamp pad you would probably get better results on the image…but again this is not something I am willing to use very often. That said, its possible that I would be dead long before the stamps hardened and was no longer making a good image or I might just get tired of the image and be willing to play more… just wanted you to be aware in case you had something that you never wanted to lose.

SCS WAX RESIST

This technique is from SPLITCOAST STAMPERS … they are going to show you how to use a white crayon to put a wax resist on top of your image then using a sponge add watercolor background to make your image stand out. In addition to using a white crayon you could also do the same thing using a wax blender color pencil over your color with the same result the watercolor will not stick on top of the waxed surface… You can even color your image with colored pencils to begin with then use a lot of the blender pencil over the top of your color….then the watercolor…and wipe off the watercolor with a kleenex or paper towel. The advantage to the colored pencil blender is that it won’t make your color look faded… and it will also work with the colored pencil. Below are some of my samples.

wax resist and sponged color

wax resist /watercolor

This last one I stamped on watercolor paper and then used colored pencil and wax blender pencil over the top then lightly watercolored over the top …except the grass which I did stamp last after the watercolor.

HUMOR AND EYE CANDY

Because I am both a paper freak as well as an ALL APPLE girl I thought I’d share both the calligraphy site so you can see a wonderful idea of what its like to practice calligraphy without and sound…for me this would be hard I usually HATE total quiet it makes me hear things like my blood pumping etc… But I am trying to use some meditation techniques to try to make sure that I reduce stress in my life and NEVER HAVE another episode of SHINGLES…I do plan to give this a try…I do think it will be meditative and I do love getting lost in the letters one of her suggestions is something I tell students when I am teaching lettering styles..choose a style practice it using an exemplar a few times then just start writing “stream of consciousness” which means just write whatever you are thinking about ie just write it out, grocery list, worries or maybe you are feeling very mellow and some favorite quotes will come to mind… DON’T bother to make corrections to spelling or start over…just rewrite the misspelled word and keep going the idea is to really get into the lettering not the spelling at this point. I hope you enjoy this video as much as I did…think Monks on stools. ILLUMINATED LETTERS 2013

This one was sent to me by a cousin and it cracked me up… obviously I love my ipad and I am probably a lot like the guy in the video… smile… A PAPERLESS FUTURE ?

AS ALWAYS THANKS FOR STOPPIN BY…wireheaded cyber toad…aka kath

Posted on March 22, 2013 by kath

GREETING’S YA’LL

Before we get started.. I have to share a definition that My hubby came up with for me. I thought I should share it with you cause it’s very possible that my blog reflects these same attributes that my speaking does.. anyway here it is for a heads up and perhaps a chuckle..

In literary criticism, stream of consciousness is a narrative mode that seeks to portray an individual’s point of view by giving the written equivalent of the character’s thought processes, either in a loose interior monologue or in connection to his or her actions. Stream-of-consciousness writing is usually regarded as a special form of interior monologue and is characterized by associative leaps in thought and lack of punctuation. (See Kath Harney)

Ok on to the card technique

THIS IS SO CLEVER!!!DAWN’S SPOTLIGHTING technique… First be sure you watch the complete video cause she adds a third idea for using this technique that is very clever also. I just love this girl.

6a00d8341c09ea53ef017c36229c46970b 450wi DAWNS SPOTLIGHTING TECHNIQUE

Two ways to spotlight by Dawn

kath's spotlights

These are two of mine and I like the tulip one the best …at time of this writing I didn’t have a butterfly but I am getting one… as you can see I took the lazy way and punched out the colors after stamping on the colored card stock… but the smaller image doesn’t work as well as the tulips ( which I think are Hero arts) In any case, I do like this technique and hope that you will too and do try some with stamps you already have…but think of your larger ones rather than the smaller ones… I also tried this with just large word stamps (below).. and made balloons out of the circles on the words RAH RAH RAH… inside I wrote hurray its your birthday not mine… but you could just write hurray its your day… Happy Birthday..oh yeah I also slipped in an oval for an oval balloon… I tried it on white paper and it didn’t work as well so I switched to black and liked it much better as the punch outs really seemed to pop.

kath's spotlight words

Well I hope you’ll dig thru your stamps and come up with one or two that will work with this technique .

AS ALWAYS THANKS FOR STOPPIN BY….wireheaded cyber toad…aka kath

Posted on March 13, 2013 by kath

GREETINGS FROM INKYPHINGERS’ FRIEND aka kath

MY dear friend MARLENE MAJESKI has refered to herself as inkyphingers for a while now and she had a mug made using that title and so of course I HAD TO copy her and have one made that said INKYPHINGERS FRIEND

IMPORTANT MESSAGE RE: GEL PENS ( ALL OF THEM)

According to SPLIT COAST STAMPERS… I just found out why my gel pens seem to dry out while still full of ink…. I ASSUMED that laying them flay was the best way to store them…NOT SO…they recommend that you stand them up with the tip down SO THAT THE INK STAYS AT THE TIP… apparently the gel formula seperates and dries out when left lying flat for long periods of time….aaaarrrrggghhh SHOULDN’T IT HAVE SAID THAT ON THE PACKAGE..oh well NOW YOU KNOW.

EVERYTHING YOU WANTED TO KNOW ABOUT PARALLEL PENS

WELL maybe not everything but some basic info anyway,,,,So my greeting seemed appropriate since I want to share with you calligraphy’s great cartridge pen and the source of most of my INKYPHINGERS in the past. For years there have been SHEAFFER CALLIGRAPHY CARTRIDGE PENS and there are a few nib sizes but while they are fine for everyday they never gave the fine hairlines that calligrapher’s are looking for or the crisp letter forms that we get with a dip pen.. then several years ago …not sure the exact date but PAPER AND INK ARTS introduced us to PILOT PARALLEL PENS….OMG…it set the calligraphers on fire …finally there was a calligraphy CARTRIDGE pen that would give us very close to the crisp letters done with a dip nib as well as incredible hairlines. Here are pictures of the two that I use the most.

These are the two largest sizes but there are several more and in addition they keep adding new ones…I just saw that they have not a diagonal nib in several sizes… I am going to have to find out what they use those for as I have no idea except it could work sorta like a ruling pen so this is just to let you know that calligraphers definitely love these pens. Each pen is approximately $10 and they cartridges in a wide selection of color plus you can refill used cartridges with any ink you want I like to use the walnut ink so I have cartridges filled with walnut ink.

I also know that several people don’t even bother with the cartridges but rather just fill the pen barrel with whatever medium they are wanting to use…including gouache (opaque watercolor) acrylic paint you name it and you can probably use it in these pens. BRENDA BROADENT ( former owner oF PAPER & INK ARTS) still teaches classes in how and what to do with these pens. If the FISHER PEN is the astronauts pen of choice for space then PILOT PARALLEL PENS are the calligrapher’s choice to carry with them. Because mine are often in my purse when traveling by air I am chicken to carry them without a cartridge but with the cartridge even the ones I have refilled I have never ( knock on wood ) had them leak in my purse.

There is also a book called PARALLEL WIZARDRY (spelling correction thanks to LINDA O’NEIL she told me I left out the R…lol.. thanks girl)…that you can purchase which will show you how to clean them as well as all the ways you can use them I highly recommend you get that book along with at least one pen... I like writing large so I use my 6mm (largest) one the most but the smaller ones are also fun and allow you write smaller.

The pens and the book are available at both PAPER & INK ARTS as well asJOHN NEAL BOOKSELLER.

Needless to say they are great for use with the THICK & THIN script that I posted pervious to this one.

This is a HADDA HAVE pen and if you are just getting started in calligraphy or wanting to start I would recommend this pen because while it won’t replace the dip nib for truly commerical or formal calligraphy…. it does make one less area of stress for the beginner…no dripping…no spilled bottles of ink and it drags and sticks a lot less then a dip pen… If you really just getting started the ZIG CALLIGRAPHY FELT NIB the double ended ones with a 1mm small end and a 5mm large end are even better for not sticking or dragging and throwing out ink blots they are also becoming harder and harder to find… seems Zig decided to change to a double end that is 2mm and 3 mm… the three is ok but I really like the 5mm end…especially for a beginner.. why you ask…well learning to write a a new script is always easier if you write it as large as possible so that you can compare it with the exemplar. While you might want to write smaller later its best to learn AND PRACTICE LARGE…Then after you feel you have the script down you can start to downsize. Also The felt on these pens is soooooo much better than any other felt out there that you can even continue to use this pen and felt nib even after its out of ink…you can just dip it.you can also dip both the PARALLEL nibs in ink if necessary.. Again a lot of this is noted in the booklet PARALLEL WIZARDY…and again I highly recommend you order that booklet along with the pen. You can also dip the nib even if you have ink in the cartridge with exciting results of blending colors.. Don’t forget at least one box of multiple colors cartridges , you get both a black and a red with each pen but you are going to want these other colors and be sure to save empty cartridges for refilling with your own inks, paint etc…. I am telling you these PENS are to CALLIGRAPHY what THE IPOD is to MUSIC…

They have also come up with a few variations on the original sizes I have bought one of them and I am not pleased with it..its ok but it does scratch and I don’t feel that it slides over the paper as well as the original nibs if you are beginner I recommend you stick to the original sizes. My favorites are the 3.8mm and the 6mm shown above.

With all the info above I decided to play with coming up with a lowercase version of the THICK N’ THINS so here it is for better or worse… if you come up with a better idea for any of my letter forms then please e mail them to me so I can share with others…

CALLIGRAPHY EXEMPLAR LOWER CASE THICK N THINS

KATH'S LOWER CASE THICK N THINS

HUGE THANKS AGAIN TO BRENDA BROADBENT FOR FINDING AND MAKING THEM AVAILABLE TO US and continued thanks to PAPER & INK ARTS for their continued discovery of new ways to use them and new sizes and styles. TRUST ME YOU NEED AT LEAST ONE OF THESE THEN DON’T LEAVE HOME WITHOUT IT…

AS ALWAYS THANKS FOR STOPPIN BY...wireheaded cyber toad…aka inkphinkers friend…aka kath

A Blog by Kath (Kathy) Harney

Kath (Kathy) Harney's Blog