December 17, 2018 POTW Helpful Hints and my favorites

This week my Pick of the Week, over at The House that Stamps Built,  is just a few helpful hints that I use often when I make my cards.

P.S. this post may be a bit heavy in pictures.

Do you ever have small pieces of card stock that you need to cut - like for a sentiment or a thin slice, put a post it note on it to use as your anchor and cut away with your trimmer.  

Clean your acrylic blocks with a paper towel and alcohol - or use an alcohol wipe if you have one.  Clean and shiny and your stamps will stick much better to your clean block. 

If you go to a crop, friends house or stamp club like I do mark your blocks, and other tools with a sticker such as I use a smiley face on all of my blocks and tools.  Yes even ink pads.  

Do you try and pour your left over embossing powder back into that small bottle, using a folded piece of paper???  Well my embossing powder that I use often such as silver, gold, black etc. I pour in a large container with a nice tight fitting lid - then when I emboss my image I do it over a regular coffee filter, works like a charm. 

I am thinking that several designers use a stamp platform - especially to stamp multiples or to make sure you get a good image on your card stock.  BUT - have your every gotten your bar/circle magnets stuck???  Or have them stuck together with a finger in the way?  I use some pretty duck tape on my bar magnets with a nice long tail so I can handle them without any problem and on my circle one I use washi tape.  Saves a lot of hassle getting the magnets apart. 

Make your own pick-up stick to grab those pesky little sequins or gems that are so hard to pick up especially if you have no fingernails.  I used an orange stock (available in nail polish/tool section at the store), and Loctite mounting putty.  When the sticky no longer picks up - just take it off and put on new putty.  Saves a few $$$$.

I am lucky to have plenty of shelves in my craft room - and I have several ribbon holders.  I applied a tape measure to one of the cross bars so I could measure my ribbon instead of just guessing.  

I keep a small trash container right next to my trimmer on my cutting desk so I can trim and throw away any scraps I am not going to keep.  I found this cute aluminum can at Dollar Tree so you know how much it cost!!!

Below you will see three of my "favorite" cards - that I have made for challenges in the past.  I love dogs (we have 3 of our own) so Ruff Day using 8101L Bull Dog.  Colored him with copics, fussy cut him and ready to go.  My next selection I choose because of the multiple uses you can get from this set.  I would recommend getting the whole plate 10600 Holy Crap  which has more than 35 stamps in the collection.  This way you can mix and match so many combinations to make a bit "edgy" card.  I have had so much fun using this set.  You can also order the stamps individually - in my "married" card I used 10632I

Toilet Tissue, 10609F Married, 10602E You're 10618K Heard you are taking the plunge, using only the word "heard", and on the outhouse card I used 10634I

Outhouse,  and 10630J Crappy Day.  

I have given you quite a few little hints and suggestions for your paper crafting fun.  Everything I used was stuff I had in my collection so didn't have to buy anything.  

  

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