Cheating

Of course not so good when you are, for instance, writing an exam, but very good indeed when you are crafting. I guess it is not really cheating, the more political correct phrase would be capitalising on what you have to make the most of limited supplies.

Yes, that is a mouthful, I think we shall stick to cheating ...

... or rather: Tips and Tricks

Let me quickly go through a few of the things I did the other night to maximise the supplies I had on hand. None of this is new, or particularly innovative, but sometimes even an old idea can trigger a creative thought in someone else, and maybe something I think of as old hat is new for you or vica versa.

MASKING
Okay, a little confession here, I have not always been into rubber stamping. Yes, it is true, I mentioned it briefly the other day, and I apologise to all the die hard stampers out there. In my before-I-got-into-stamping world, if I wanted to have a border around something I would simply stick a piece of card onto another piece of card ... right? But I have found with stamping that I often want to stamp something that overlaps both colours and that never makes for a good clean impresssion if I have layered cardstock on two different levels to deal with, so now I usually mask and ink instead.

I used this technique to create the darker border around card 1 for the challenge. Simply cut a piece of scrap paper to size, round the corners, adhere with removable adhesive and then colour the exposed area with ink and a dabber or piece of cut n dry foam. A make up sponge works well too.

I do this often and mask all sorts of things. Herma is very happy with me, as I am spending a fortune on removable adhesive, but I love the flat surface I get to stamp on as a result.

Of course Stampin' Up! have now also added temporary adhesive to their new catalogue. I used that the other night and it was great. Put a few spots of the liquid adhesive onto the mask (not onto the main card), wait for the liquid to dry and turn from blue to clear, and then voila ... repositionable adhesive. The waiting bit is important - do not be tempted to stick the paper down before the glue has dried or you will be sorry .... take it from someone who knows!

AND THEN  ... NOT MASKING, BUT JUST INKING
For the scallop circle in the Joy card I really could have done with having cardstock in a shade that was just darker then the old olive to offset the circle, so I just inked the old olive scalloped circle with old olive ink creating a darker shade. Easy Peasy, and without the need to use two seperate pieces of coloured cardstock.

WHITE GEL PEN
Up there with my Green & Black chocolate ... okay maybe not quite up there, but I do love my white gel pen.

Because I stamped this star with red ink onto red cardstock, the dots were almost invisible. Gel pen to the rescue.

SCALLOP EDGE
Many people create scallop edges from circles or by using corner rounder punches, and it is relatively simple to snip a circle in half. When dealing with an oval it is a little more tricky to get the scallop edges the same size, so this was what I did.

I drew a line onto the underside of my punch with a sharpie pen. I could then easily line the cardstock up with the line creating scallops that were exactly the same size every time.

and lastly, the low down on the two little scallop edges on this card.

I don't really need to explain this, the picture says it all. Use the SU square scallop punch and then cut the shape in half. Trim the top and bottom scallops to create two perfect small edges for the patterned paper embellishment.