an adhesive comparison

I think I've mentioned before that I've been crafting, cardmaking, and scrapping for years now, but always with supplies from my local stationery stores, found objects (like stickers and my mom's button tin), and, when I lived in Boston, items from my regularly occurring trips to PaperSource (still a favorite, btw!). I'm very new to the "commercial" world of crafting - ie. "collection packs," Crop-a-diles, and rub-on alphabets. In fact, I used to really look down on pre-coordinated patterned papers and whatnot, because all I knew of them were what was available at my local rinky-dink and always poorly stocked A.C. Moore. (Side note: No offense to A.C. Moore! I don't know if it's a corporate thing or just at my local store, but they're completely redoing their paper crafting department, and it promises to be very inspiring! A lot more upscale product!) And now, I almost (almost!) don't know what to do without pre-coordinated collections! :) I blame my obsession on my simultaneous discovery of Two Peas in a Bucket and Kristina Werner's blog last winter - my goodness! Has it only been 4 or 5 months? It may sound silly, but crafting is so important to me that I really feel these two websites really changed my life!

But I digress... Anyway, I've always been pretty much a glue stick and double-stick tape girl. Until recently, that is, when we re-organized our home office and I changed the setup of my craft area. My wonderful husband gave me a set of small totes for Christmas and as I was organizing all my supplies into them, I came across a bright purple 3M tape runner.

I had no idea whatsoever where it had come from, but I figured I had probably spent money on it so I should probably use it up. And I fell instantly in love! Now, I've never seen anybody in the online scrapping community even mention this particular tape runner, which is partly why I wanted to write this blog entry. I used up the random one I found in my stash, searched all over for a refill, finally found them at Amazon, bought three, and used them in about 2 months! Then I was thrilled to find the refills at A.C. Moore too! When I ran out again, A.C. Moore was no longer carrying them - a not-so-awesome side effect of the awesome redo of their paper crafting department. So, I grabbed the only other tape runner I was familiar with: The Tombow Mono.

Now, in full awareness that anyone who might be reading this post has probably never used the 3M tape runner, and has probably already sworn lifelong allegiance to a particular adhesive, I would like to share my opinion of the Tombow tape runner:

a. The Tombow tape runner has very strong adhesive! For me, this is both a pro and a con. The good news is I trust it more to stay stuck and not come apart in the mail, especially in cards I'm selling to strangers. The bad news is it gives you pretty much no wiggle-room! One of my favorite things about the 3M tape runner is that you have a window of several minutes to change your mind or notice your mistake after you've stuck something down. With the Tombow, I'm finding that if I even barely touch the two papers together, they might come apart again but if they do you can bet that one or both will be ripped. This has caused a lot of headaches and wasted materials, but like I said, I'm less worried about my etsy customers' friends and loved ones receiving ruined cards in the mail.

b. Another thing I love about the 3M tape runner is how easy it is to clean up. If you get some where you don't want it, say, by getting too close to the edge and having some adhesive "fold" over to the front of the paper, you can just quickly and easily rub it off with your finger. The Tombow adhesive rubs off, but it's more difficult, sometimes leaves a residue, and can sometimes take some of the top layer of paper off with it. What this has turned into is that I don't run the adhesive as close to the edges of papers as I would like. Mental note: Invest in an adhesive eraser!

c. While I have not had problems with the Tombow "skipping" (the 3M didn't really either), I have noticed that if I don't go slowly and consciously focus on applying even pressure, it's more likely to get those dreaded little "boogers" along one side of the strip of adhesive. The 3M wasn't immune to this problem, but like I mentioned before, the adhesive is much easier to wipe away.

So there you have it. Tombow tape runners were recently "Buy 2 Get 1 Free" at A.C. Moore, so I now have a stash of 5, not including the one I'm currently using. I haven't decided what I'll use when they're gone. I'd like to hear more about the new American Crafts adhesives! :)

boy cards are hard!

My uncle moved away maybe about 2 years ago, back to where he and my mom and their siblings grew up, and where most of my maternal relatives live.  And now he's turning 50 next week! Not sure that he's really one to appreciate a handmade card - but aren't most men like that, really? :) Still, I wanted to do something just for him. And boy oh boy (pun intended!) do I have a hard time with masculine cards! I make fairly unisex cards all the time without trying, but despite their lack of outright femininity, they're still not anything I'd actually send to a guy! So... without any further ado, here's Uncle Chris's 50th birthday card!

(I took this photo at about 7pm, which is why the light is weird, but I actually think it really complements the card well!)

I used some papers from Cosmo Cricket's Joyride 6x6 pack, a Sassafras stamp, and Cosmo Cricket chipboard stickers.

And just for fun - here are a couple other "boy" cards I made with the Joyride collection.

Thanks for stopping by! :)

and now for something completely different...

This is something I've been working on for a while now. I learned how to make yo-yo flowers a couple months back. I know, I was pretty much the last person ever to learn about these things! But I love them! (And if by chance you've never tried making them, there's a great tutorial on the Studio Calico blog.) And I had this set of coordinating fabrics that I'd purchased in fat quarters ages ago, and I knew these flowers would be the perfect opportunity to use them. So for the past week or so I've been sitting in the evenings, watching The Big Bang Theory (my new obsession - too bad I became addicted just in time for the season 3 finale and now I have to wait until September for new episodes!) and sewing up yo-yo flowers in three different sizes. I wanted to make sure I had enough to choose from without having to run and make the color or size I wanted. I might have gone a little overboard...

:)

And here's my project... I think it turned out really well!

I'm planning to make a couple more ... and depending on the response, I might try it again with some different fabrics. This was a really fun project to make!

proud of me for doing two!

WOW was today ever a busy day for a Saturday in our house! I had to go into work for an hour (and I earned $20 and barely had to do anything - sweet!), my hubby and I went out to lunch with my great uncle, we did our weekly dump run (because I know that's what you came here to hear about!), spent a long time perusing a giant craft fair (and got a cute hand-painted sign that reads "no outfit is complete without cat hairs"), and I vacuumed my car for the first time in the almost-two-years that I've owned it (I know, I'm gross. It won't happen again, I swear!). SO by the time I sat down to do challenge #2 it was after 6pm and I was really ready to be done with the day. But I'd been thinking about this challenge since last night so I had to try.

This time I tackled Kimmi's challenge (scroll down to the bottom of her post). I ADORE flower embellishments and I've been watching a lot of tutorials (still trying to master this one - it's alluding me for some reason!) and playing with a lot of ideas for handmade flowers. And I am IN LOVE with Pink Paislee's ribbon pleats (just got the ones from the 365 Degrees collection, although I hope they'll go with the Starlight collection, which I can't wait to use!).  So here's my card...

I used the Queen Bee Ribbon Pleats, patterned paper, cork, and brads for the flowers - I really liked how the other flower I made with the twill came out and I wanted to try again but with an extra layer. The polka dot papers are from October Afternoon's Fly a Kite collection, and the floral paper (which inspired the whole card) is by K&Company and was FREE with a recent 2Peas order!

I have to say I LOVE how the flowers came out, but I'm not so sure about the card as a whole. As I've gazed at and pondered on it, it has at times seemed unbalanced, unfinished, and downright schizophrenic! :) Maybe tomorrow I'll be able to figure out how I feel about the finished product.

Hope you had a great National Scrapbooking Day! Thanks for stopping by!

Happy National Scrapbooking Day!! :)

I will hopefully have time to get some projects done today. How are you celebrating? Have fun!

starting the celebration early

Tomorrow is National Scrapbooking Day! This is a brand new thing for me. I'm not actually much of a scrapbooker, and I know there IS a World Card Making Day (first Saturday in October), but I still don't want to miss out on all the FUN happening tomorrow! In particular, the Studio Calico Design Team members have each issued a challenge. I'm starting off a day early with Davinie's challenge - which I'm most excited about because she was the only one to issue a CARD CHALLENGE! :) Yay!

Plus, her rules are really basic, which I love to see since I'm new to challenges and have to work with whatever I already have around. So here are the rules:
1. Create a card.
2. Use woodgrain.
3. Use the color blue.
4. Use a punch.

Super! Here we go!

I have NO IDEA where this card came from! It's completely unlike what I normally do! But I really think I like how it turned out. The idea just came to me today at work, so I sketched it out quickly while I was waiting for the pizza dough to finish mixing :) I knew right away I would use the Core'dinations woodgrain cardstock from SC's Joyland kit. It looks awesome in this photo, but while I was working with it I actually wished the two colors were higher contrast. Oh well. This is more authentic I guess. The other bits are just scraps from my "blue" file. The letters are from Basic Grey's new Basics Manila collection (you want to get this!). The card base is Stampin' Up's Ballet Blue - and I'm really proud of myself because I usually have trouble using color card bases - A weird hang-up of mine I guess!

Thanks for looking! I hope you like what I came up with for this challenge!

breaking the rules

Today I made a card that is rather different from what I usually create. It's also the first card I've blogged that does NOT use a pre-coordinated line of materials ... See? I CAN do it! :) This is a card that's been in the works for a while now and there's a little bit of back story. So...

It all started with Kristina's Five Items from My Messy Desk challenge. I have an extremely messy desk. But I've been working on Mother's Day cards made with various collections of patterned papers, so I didn't think that would be fair. Plus, I've been meaning to clean my desk (which I did, and now it's a mess again!).  I have a box that sits next to my desk that has materials that I've purchased but haven't used yet. The rule is, I can't put any new item away in my materials storage until I've used at least part of it. So it goes into the box. The box has been rather neglected lately with more new stuff coming into the house (bad!), so I thought I'd found the perfect opportunity to dig into it! So I asked hubby to pick 5 items out of the box. (I asked him not to purposely pick out things that clashed.) BUT when I was ready to get to work, he was not in the mood to go through craft supplies, plus his aesthetic taste is terrible even on a good day! So I sat there looking at his pile for a while and then decided to pick my own items from the box! That's fair, right? :) Actually, the twill pleats and the brad were in his original picks.

Recently, Kimberly Crawford reviewed Pink Paislee's Queen Bee line on her blog. Check out the original post - her stuff is so lovely! She made the cutest flower out of the Ribbon Pleats (I LOVE them!) and I wanted to try that myself. Mine didn't come out nearly as clean as hers, but once I added the cork (just a piece of 12x12 cork from my LSS, even though I'd love to get my hands on some of PP's cork buttons!) it looked so much better.

The paper ended up getting glued on a little less than 1/16" off of square. To me it's glaringly obvious and totally driving me nuts! That's why I put the flower on the right and a little higher than I had originally envisioned. I hope it sort of camouflages it! I also considered putting a sentiment of some sort in charcoal ink at the top left, but I thought it might be too busy. What do you think...?

Anyway... Thanks for looking! I'd love to hear your comments/feedback!

Materials: Pink Paislee Queen Bee Ribbon Pleats, Sassafras Translate paper (I used their 6x6 Wee Bundle), October Afternoon Skyline Motor Inn and Vacationer Motel papers, Sassafras Cameo brads, Basic Grey Simon paper

variations on a theme

I {Heart} My Mom

with apologies to all you moms out there...

Mother's Day is just not inspiring me.

Even though it's still 18 days away, I'm actually running very late to get Mother's Day cards up on etsy! Plus, I agreed to make a card for a friend at work (who makes amazing jewelry that you can check out here) ... the only specs she gave me: bright colors. Gee thanks. :)

Actually, I have a really awesome idea, but I'm still waiting for my 2 Peas order to come with Hero Art's I Heart My Mom stamp - it's currently traveling randomly from state to state all over New England and taking way too long to get to me! And I have this horrible tendency to have an idea and get super fixated on it so that I can't accomplish anything else until I can see that one idea through. Take it from me: It's not fun.

So... Hopefully more to come soon! :)