Earth Day recycling card, and Mama Elephant Stamp

Hi All, 

Happy Earth Day! I didn't get this post up in time per se due to scheduling issues, but here is my card for today: 

I recently bought the Stila mini-smudge liner makeup at Sephora, and it had this little plastic piece inside the set that I felt bad about throwing away, but couldn't figure out what I wanted to do with it. I finally wove some cardstock I had laying around (from a discount cardstock scraps bag) and then glued that on top of a cardstock square that I'd layered with some washi tape, then glued that entire thing on top of some yellow cardstock, before popping it all on some foam adhesives. I finally added a little cardstock piece that I heat embossed with a sentiment stamp from Mama Elephant. All I can say is that I LOVE LOVE LOVE Glossy Accents. I swear, that stuff can practically glue anything! :)

Hope everyone had a Happy Earth Day, and lived a little greener today! :)

Best, ~Z

How To: Make your own acrylic blocks!

I am all about saving money, and as more experienced scrappers have warned me, scrapbooking/stamping/cardmaking can become a VERY expensive hobby VERY quickly. Therefore, I was trying to think of ways that I could save money.

I started out with only one acrylic block that came with my Inkinado stamps from Walmart, a 3 3/4 x 1 1/4 block, doesn't fit my larger stamps. I found an article on Curbly on how to make my own acrylic blocks, and I just had to try it out. My dad is a bit of a DIY person, so he always has random materials around. I dug around our garage, and sure enough, we had several sheets of acrylic material, about 1 1/2 inch thick.

I drew several sizes that I'd thought I'd need onto some card stock (2 x 2, 3 x 3, 3 x 4, 5 x 5, 5 x 8), and then I traced them on to the acrylic.

I had my dad help me saw them, since I don't always saw straight. We used a hand saw, and it sawed quite cleanly. There was none of the splintering that other DIY-ers had warned about.

Finally, I filed and sanded the edges. The edges were dull and opaque, which was the only drawback to making the blocks myself. I heard that passing the edge over open flame would help to clear up the edges, but when I tried it, it did not give me the result that I was expecting.

Heating it also makes it give off a horrible smell, so I decided I would rather have dull, opaque edges than the awful smell. Finally, I ran the blocks under some water to get rid of all of the acrylic dust.

And thus, here we are: a set of nice, clear, (cheap!) acrylic blocks all ready for stamping! (Excuse my messy desk, though!)

Link to Curbly directions:

http://www.curbly.com/users/diy-maven/posts/7078-diy-acrylic-stamping-blocks-zero-dollars

First Post!

I should introduce myself, so um, hi! I'm ZT, and I wanted to start this blog to catalogue and keep track of my various craft projects. I've been involved in various crafting projects throughout my childhood, from knitting to sewing clothes for my dolls, but I've always drifted a bit, and I've always been in the midst of several projects at once, often forgetting one when I pick up another.

So, hopefully this will help me to be more organized and prevent too many UFO (UnFinished Objects) from piling up. Here are my current projects:

1. Quilt Blocks. I just began learning about quilting, and I've made a couple of blocks so far. I'm making them to be 9" blocks. So far, I've completed a nine-patch, and I'm working on a sawtooth star.

2. ScrapBooking: I just started working on scrapbooking, and I've made one layout about the Kid Rock concert I attended and second layout about the various antics I've gotten up to at home. The current planned layouts are:

a. Grandmother's family in the north

b. Walking in Shanghai

c. Beijing Times

3. Knitting: I'm almost finished with my scarves for the Special Olympics, which, unfortunately, are actually already over, but at least now I know to allocate more time next year. I think I'll sew them onto my knitting blanket, which had sadly fallen to the wayside when Olympic fever got the best of me.

4. Embroidery: I have three finished kits, but I have about seven that I meant to start, and a lighthouse design dedicated to my grandfather that still needs outlining. I mean to incorporate some of the kits into a designed quilt, but I think that will have to wait until my quilting skills improve.

5. Stamping/card making: I got so excited about Lawn Fawn stamps and Nicole Magouirk's online lessons that I started making some cards. I have some Lawn Fawn stamps ordered that are in the mail, so I've yet to actually start making them with stamps. I can't wait to try!

I think that is it so far. Whew! There are so many projects going on, but it is a busy, happy time. Hopefully, this is a journey that we will go on together, and perhaps even learn something along the way.