HINGES, STAMPING & STUFF

Oooooeerrrr!!! I've been a bit slack again, haven't I? Still, I have been busy doing lots of crafting.

I finally got my stamped images put onto cards and they've already gone to a new home. I've also been playing with all the yummy Inkadinkadoo stamps that I got from the US. There are so many combinations, no two cards need ever look the same. I've always been a bit dubious about clear/polymer stamps but these really do perform well. They stamp a lovely detailed image. I've done some scrapbooking too, but as I'm not overly pleased with the way the LO's turned out, I'll not show you those.

I won another ebay auction too. This time for 10 sets of MSE alphabet stamps, also from the US, so I'm waiting for those to arrive. Unfortunately, I didn't look at the picture properly and most are of the same set. Doh!!! Still, I'm sure I'll find homes for them.

I started a tag swap on my craft forum, so have made a start on those and I've also completed another month's CJ pages. This month's theme was 'Around the World in 80 Days' and as my passion is India...well, lots of lovely pics of there.

My fave bit of work though, was a Piano Hinge Book. As I made it I took photo's and wrote a tutorial, so if you like it and would like to make one for yourself, you can find the instructions on The Canny Crafters HERE. I did say that I wanted to use my layered stamped image from my gorgeous Graphicus stamps on a book, and so I did.

I've also been playing with my Prisma pencils. I found with these that most cards worked well for the blending with the Sansodor and surprisingly, one of the best was a pearlescent card from Craft Creations. Unfortunately, I found that the card from Graphicus didn't work well and that was surprising too, as it's such a smooth card. It's a little too porous for the Sansodor. Mind you, for stamping, it's superb. It takes an image as sharp as a tack and it's also brilliant for making the cards themselves as it's such good quality. It's also excellent for blending distress inks, as I did with my layered book image. The ink saturates the card without seeping right through and blends really smoothly.

Finally, I have a bit of a penchant for monograms developing, so I've treated myself to a monogram stamper from Justrite Stampers. I'm really looking forward to that arriving. I think monograms look lovely with a scalloped circle behind them, so I looked at the Nestabilities and then I thought that rather than spend more money, I could (and should) use my Craft Robo to cut them, so I will. In between all this, I managed to cook the odd meal too, lol.