Sunday, 1 October 2017
480 rolls of packing tape
The 480 rolls of packing tape? My gorgeous loving husband. He was clearing space at his place of work; they are rearranging their warehouse/office space as the company grows and he came across some tape. It was never going to be used as they now use tape with their company name printed on it. He asked his boss if he could have it. He knows me so so so well! I didn't know the extent of my haul when he asked but my challenge is to find uses. It is the brown stuff.
Well, I have all sorts of sizes of craft mats now! I will post up the video. I can say that now! I have made loads of embossing folders; the uses are amazing. Youtube is full of uses for the transparent stuff so I'm quite proud to have used the old noddle and come up with my own.
They shall all be shared. They all come with a disclaimer though. I can't see how it could happen but don't blame me if your die cutting/embossing machines break. The folders work for me and my machine is fine.
That's all for now folks,
loads of love XXXX
Thursday, 28 September 2017
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This is a very quick video of a cake I made recently. I shall make one soon of all the cakes I have made.
I could get used to all this teccy stuff!
Back to craft tomorrow
Tuesday, 26 September 2017
YouTube!!!!
I'm still not quite sure (I'm yet to upload a video) but I do believe I have just created a YouTube channel! Yeyyy!
It's called the Hapless Crafter.
I just need to figure out the camcorder.....
It's called the Hapless Crafter.
I just need to figure out the camcorder.....
Monday, 25 September 2017
What a week on my crafty journey of discovery!
O where to start on such a hectic week?! Slap bang right in the middle of packing up 17 years as we prepare to move home I have managed to secure a few precious periods of relaxation devoted to craft; watching techniques, being led on a random path selected by autoplay and actually putting some of my intended "one days" into action.
Firstly, I discovered that, as someone who cannot measure or cut out for toffee, there is actually a company out there who seems tailor made for me. Yes folks, I have discovered the wonderful world of "we are memory keepers". I never intended to mention any company when I began this blog, but thanks to them I have been punching tabs to organise my stamps, dies, making gift bags, envelopes, envelope boxes and thanks to another company I am now drowning in cereal box gift tags with amazingly professional tops. I also learned to use my paper trimmer properly! Sounds simple to most, yet no matter how carefully I lined something up it never measured what it was supposed to. It may as well have had song lyrics on it instead of ruler markings, yet now I have got to grips with it and get perfect results every time!
There has been a serious depletion in the butterfly population on my projects!
Firstly, I discovered that, as someone who cannot measure or cut out for toffee, there is actually a company out there who seems tailor made for me. Yes folks, I have discovered the wonderful world of "we are memory keepers". I never intended to mention any company when I began this blog, but thanks to them I have been punching tabs to organise my stamps, dies, making gift bags, envelopes, envelope boxes and thanks to another company I am now drowning in cereal box gift tags with amazingly professional tops. I also learned to use my paper trimmer properly! Sounds simple to most, yet no matter how carefully I lined something up it never measured what it was supposed to. It may as well have had song lyrics on it instead of ruler markings, yet now I have got to grips with it and get perfect results every time!
There has been a serious depletion in the butterfly population on my projects!
Tuesday, 19 September 2017
DIY silver foil card and are we really crafting anymore?
Making silver metallic card today; I use duct tape; the actual stuff they use on airconditioning ducts. It comes in enormous rolls and if I made a sheet of card every day forever I would still have some left.
I'm not so good with putting tape down in a straight line so there are overlaps but if it is run through an embossing folder you really don't notice.
Now that leads me onto something else... are we really crafting anymore?
Everything is made for us now; die cutting... any shape we want. You can even get dies that create a complete card for you that looks like a filigree masterpiece. One pass through a machine and presto! a card. Where's the fun, where's the enjoyment or creativity?
We haven't really made it. We just cranked a handle or pushed a button.
There's more of an effort made now by just going out and buying one! Everyone knows you used a die. A die that will never pay for itself, despite what those crafty, and I mean that in the sly sense, TV salespeople tell us.
Embossing folders; again, one pass through, you may need to trim a few edges and bung it on a card blank. An A6 rubber stamp. There's no skill to it. No pleasure. Especially after the first one.
I've fallen for them, but have they stolen the fun?
Half the creations on TV by the "design teams", well if you made them they wouldn't stand up! Thing is, they are already finished and I haven't done anything so I'm operating a machine on a production line.
My point is that there's no creativity any more.
Craft, hand-made has become commercial, isn't that an oxymoron?
- a nice little earner for the companies that make them and yeah you can "create" nice backgrounds with your super duper pens but that gets a bit samey samey sometimes. I suppose we could make it different - we could stick a butterfly on it......
Maybe I'm a bit down today. I shall watch a video by Marta. She has such a beautiful soul and she always lifts me.
Love,
Ruby-Sian XXX
I'm not so good with putting tape down in a straight line so there are overlaps but if it is run through an embossing folder you really don't notice.
Now that leads me onto something else... are we really crafting anymore?
Everything is made for us now; die cutting... any shape we want. You can even get dies that create a complete card for you that looks like a filigree masterpiece. One pass through a machine and presto! a card. Where's the fun, where's the enjoyment or creativity?
We haven't really made it. We just cranked a handle or pushed a button.
There's more of an effort made now by just going out and buying one! Everyone knows you used a die. A die that will never pay for itself, despite what those crafty, and I mean that in the sly sense, TV salespeople tell us.
Embossing folders; again, one pass through, you may need to trim a few edges and bung it on a card blank. An A6 rubber stamp. There's no skill to it. No pleasure. Especially after the first one.
I've fallen for them, but have they stolen the fun?
Half the creations on TV by the "design teams", well if you made them they wouldn't stand up! Thing is, they are already finished and I haven't done anything so I'm operating a machine on a production line.
My point is that there's no creativity any more.
Craft, hand-made has become commercial, isn't that an oxymoron?
- a nice little earner for the companies that make them and yeah you can "create" nice backgrounds with your super duper pens but that gets a bit samey samey sometimes. I suppose we could make it different - we could stick a butterfly on it......
Maybe I'm a bit down today. I shall watch a video by Marta. She has such a beautiful soul and she always lifts me.
Love,
Ruby-Sian XXX
Monday, 18 September 2017
a mixed media artistic solutions engineer...
Welcome back after a rather lethargic weekend...
After consigning yet another YouTube video to may "watch later" list I finally decided enough was enough. I finally got round to making a much needed batch of texture paste
whilst watching a lovely lady called Marta transform an old book into an amazing work of art, full of envy as she gets sent loads and loads of stuff by companies to try out so she gets to use them in such quantities that you would think they were as free as air. For her they are I suppose. That's why I stopped watching the very lovely but not so frugal any more Frugal Crafter. She started as just that, a make do and mender crafter and now dangles all these lovely supplies in out faces and talk about things I haven't even got a clue what they are even for. I guess that's fame....
So with baby powder all over the kitchen, more glue and acrylic paint, a drawer FULL of match pots I have gathered over the years I came across a rather artisticy chap talking about gesso. Finally! someone who didn't use over-complicated terminology and who had probably never heard of Tim Holtz or Michaels and who didn't think that the words "lace" and "vintage" were synonymous. The relief! Nice chap; I didn't realise anyone could chat about gesso for so long, however, I got to finish 3 half jam pots of lovely smelling runny goo.
I think all these terms - texture paste, mediums, brushos, mousses and twinkle dinkle doo dahs very confusing - mediums? the arty crafty world seems full of so many mediums it's all far too confusing for me. Like solutions. Do you remember how we once has a world which overnight became full of solutions providing companies? What's all that about? It made rather boring firms sound interesting. No it made them sound incredibly pretentious. I digress...
Now on to making the covers of my books look beautiful but that will have to wait as I have to collect up a load of things to bung on them before I can call myself a mixed media artistic solutions engineer...
Bye for now,
love,
Ruby-Sian XXX
After consigning yet another YouTube video to may "watch later" list I finally decided enough was enough. I finally got round to making a much needed batch of texture paste
whilst watching a lovely lady called Marta transform an old book into an amazing work of art, full of envy as she gets sent loads and loads of stuff by companies to try out so she gets to use them in such quantities that you would think they were as free as air. For her they are I suppose. That's why I stopped watching the very lovely but not so frugal any more Frugal Crafter. She started as just that, a make do and mender crafter and now dangles all these lovely supplies in out faces and talk about things I haven't even got a clue what they are even for. I guess that's fame....
So with baby powder all over the kitchen, more glue and acrylic paint, a drawer FULL of match pots I have gathered over the years I came across a rather artisticy chap talking about gesso. Finally! someone who didn't use over-complicated terminology and who had probably never heard of Tim Holtz or Michaels and who didn't think that the words "lace" and "vintage" were synonymous. The relief! Nice chap; I didn't realise anyone could chat about gesso for so long, however, I got to finish 3 half jam pots of lovely smelling runny goo.
I think all these terms - texture paste, mediums, brushos, mousses and twinkle dinkle doo dahs very confusing - mediums? the arty crafty world seems full of so many mediums it's all far too confusing for me. Like solutions. Do you remember how we once has a world which overnight became full of solutions providing companies? What's all that about? It made rather boring firms sound interesting. No it made them sound incredibly pretentious. I digress...
Now on to making the covers of my books look beautiful but that will have to wait as I have to collect up a load of things to bung on them before I can call myself a mixed media artistic solutions engineer...
Bye for now,
love,
Ruby-Sian XXX
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