Goodness Gracious Large Sheets of Paper!

I'm not sure I've ever been really satisfied with a post title that wasn't a terrible pun or reference.

More to the point, I've been wanting to print out and perfect-bind some fantastic fanfiction novels that I think are so good they deserve a physical place in my library. The thing is, I don't really do representational art, and there isn't a lot of fanart around for this particular series. So what, I wondered, should I do about covers?

I got to thinking about colors, but I didn't want a solid color. Eventually I ended up at "aha, there's a local paper store, I think they sell great big marbled sheets -- that would be pretty!"

So I went and got some paper. I can't emphasize enough how beautiful this is outside of the photo. The feathery one is pearlescent and shiny! (These are big -- nearly 20 x 30 inches!)

And then a while later I went back and got some more in a different style, because PRETTY PAPER. And also because there are a bunch of books I need to print and bind.

And then a week later I decided that I needed another green selection, so I spent a whole Saturday hunting through the various art supply stores that were any slightly-mad definition of the word "nearby", and came home with two whole sheets of paper... one of them from the paper store I had bought the others from in the first place.

 

I suspect I can't even print on the one with gold swirls, because it's a kind of soft pre-crumpled paper. Maybe if I fix it to some carrier cardstock somehow?

My fixation on finding The Perfect Green Marbled Paper came to an end only when I went out and bought a marbling kit. I don't want to make the paper myself, but somehow without having the kit I couldn't accept these beautiful-but-not-quite-what-I-imagined papers as good enough. Now that I could make something closer to my imagination, I think they're probably fine.

Brains are weird.

Bookmarks LXXIV: Basics Geometric

 

The simplicity of black, white, and silver goes nicely with some delicate geometric patterns. But really the point was to create something nice while testing my Basics queue inkpads and trying out some new stamps. I think it succeeded pretty well -- except for the part where I didn't make a second bookmark to test the bronze, copper, and gold!

 

We can't actually see any of the ink I was testing here, though. In order to make everything show up nicely, it's covered in embossing powder. It's possible I was testing that too? I'm pretty sure the reason the black and white designs are on contrasting squares is not 100% for the visual effect. They'd look pretty good on grey/silver too. I think it's mostly that I knew I was going to mess up with the black embossing powder several times and didn't want to remake the whole bookmark each time!

This post was written in February 2019 and backposted.

Bookmarks LXXXIII: Sweet Sixteen Dinosaurs

 

These bookmarks are all about testing some of the inkpads in my Sweet Sixteen queue to make sure they didn't need refilling. Considering that inspiration, they turned out pretty cute! I think I can credit the stamp set for that rather than the inks.

This post was written in February 2019 and backposted.

Bookmarks LXXII: Peacock

 

Gosh but I love a peacock blue. And when I saw this stamp in the store, it said "Buy me, I'm shaped like a bookmark". It's not like it was wrong.

This post was written in February 2019 and backposted.

Bookmarks LXXI: Fair Fletching

 

These bookmarks make me think of painfully bright winter days where it's so beautiful and snowy that you feel like you just have to go out and do something. I couldn't come up with a way to condense that feeling into a title, though.

I'm pretty sure the inspiration here was 100% the backing paper. Then I just piled on the arrow shapes and did some color-matching stamps. The penguin is part of a set with the polar bear of Snowflake Floe, and it was still on my table from November. What is this "cleaning up and putting away" of which you speak?

This post was written in February 2019 and backposted.

Bookmarks LXX: Abstract Scraps

 

More scraps from the Winter Cards examples! You can barely tell in this photo that the black has been dry embossed with some texture.

This post was written in February 2019 and backposted.

Bookmarks LXIX: Snowflake Floe

 

 Jeepers, that thumnail is fuzzy. I've got to get better at focusing when I take pictures with my phone.

I used the confetti from this edge punch for the barely-visible snowflakes on the sledding card for my Winter Cards. Then I did some wintery stamping on the scrap and slapped it on some blue cardstock. 

 The polar bear looks surprisingly content on that tiny ice floe. Sometimes you've just got to float off into the current, I guess.

This post was written in February 2019 and backposted.

Winter Cards Demo

A group at work does a crafting activity once a month. I volunteered to supply examples, basic instructions, and, well, supplies for one about card crafting in early November.

I brought supplies for more options than this (plus, mix and match!), but these are the cards I made as examples:

This one mostly demonstrates some thing you can do with punches and washi tape:

This one is pretty much about embossing: dry with an embossing folder, and heat embossing with gold powder. (I have a lot of failed versions where I tried to figure out if I could get good images straight on the dry-embossed background. Not terribly surprising, but: no.)

This one demonstrates a nice stamp-and-die set, with some ink edging around the smaller green pieces. (I imagine someone who wasn't making mostly bookmarks might have added some foam tape to make the tree stand off.)

This post was written in February 2019 and backposted.

Bookmarks LXVIII: Karasu

This post was written in February 2019 and backposted.

Jingle Tag Ornaments

 

Now that all my immediate family is grown up and out on their own, that means they can have Christmas trees. And that means I can give them ornaments for Christmas.

I got some little wooden tag blanks, put seasonal cardstock on both sides, and caked the edges in gold embossing powder. An embossed decal stamp on each side finished each tag. To increase the Festive Quotient, I tied some small bells to the twine and fastened on some swirly ornament hooks.

 

I wrapped them in pairs in some sparkly red and green tissue paper. (The cats were very enthusiastic about pretty much every step in this project; I had to keep all the string and bells and ribbon and crinkly paper safely in a closed box.)

This post was written in February 2019 and backposted.

Bookmarks LXVII: Jeweltone Blends

 

Yep, I need to learn to focus the camera. Ah well.

This bookmark is a product only of supplies from the slightly-overboard whirlwind tour of all the Michaels stores in town, because I didn't really have anything else on hand. It's pretty much inspired by that wide streaky washi tape, with a side order of "let's smoosh some colors around and add silver". I mean, you can't buy that many kinds of metallic acrylics and use none of them.

This bookmark definitely has a friend -- I know I made one out of the other 6-inch half of the border strip that forms the base. But either I've lost it or -- shock! -- it's hiding inside a book rather than in the Bookmark Box. Maybe someday.

This post was written in February 2019 and backposted.

State of the Stash #21: I Think I Have Probably Overdone It A Wee Bit

I found this draft when I came back to the blog in February 2019 -- just the title and a saved folder of photos. I looked at the title and I thought... oh self, you have so many Black Fridays in front of you.

Then I went to edit the photos and actually, I think the title is accurate. That's... a lot of stuff.

From what I remember, I gave myself a tour of all the Michaels stores in a new city, and found one in particular that had a remarkably un-picked-over Clearance section. Jackpot!

Especially since I don't think the rest of my craft supplies had actually arrived.

So we've got the basics: paper, trimmer, ink.

Always a pleasure to find a new Cat's Eye Queue.

And of course a selection of stamps -- and a nice stamp press to make up for the temporary separation from my stamp blocks:

Love those airships, hate those scare quotes that don't make any sense. Quotes are not for emphasis.

Looks like I picked up some paper stacks, too:

 

Gosh, I wish those first two had come in 4x6 matstack format. At least things still existed in matstack format in 2013 -- I practically never see them these days, and they're perfect for bookmark-making.

Then again, glancing at my shelves here in 2019, it looks like I have at least 20 matstacks, to say nothing of the 6x6 pads, so... maybe it's good that the industry won't sell me any more.

It was a good trip for spritzes and sprays, too:

And no journey is complete without a whole lot of washi tape to hoard away for the next few centuries. I barely ever use it. Why do I keep buying it? Pretty colors, I guess, although I think I could have done without most of these.

Then we've got an assortment of dies and other tools:

I do still really like that adhesive runner.

Plus some nice border stickers:

Then we've got the less papercrafty stuff. There's certainly an argument to be made for acrylics and brushes, though I don't really use them myself in papercrafting:

And origami is certainly papercrafting, although not the kind I do on this blog.

But there's really no call for Sculpey.

Now, if pressed, I imagine I could make up something about creating tassels and tassel charms for the bookmarks. Fortunately I don't really need an excuse for crafty shopping. It was a good deal and looks fun -- it doesn't necessarily have to be papercrafty.

This post was written in February 2019 and backposted.