Running With Scissors…

Some of you remember my Ruby Tuesday posts.  This post probably explains it best, so I won’t repeat myself, but I will mention that Ruby Tuesdays were all about the BasicGrey Stella Ruby designer paper collection.  Where did Stella go?  Well, let’s just say she’s been resting.

During my stamp room clean out last week I sorted my designer papers.  Perhaps it’s going too far to say I “sorted” them.  It would be more fitting to say I “weeded” them, specifically my Stampin’ Up! papers.  Not picking on Stampin’ Up! or anything, but I had so many papers from a dozen collections, and no hope in the real world of ever using all of them.  So, one by one, I sorted them into piles, throwing out the scraps, keeping the full sheets I’m more likely to use, and bagging up the others to give away.  I was as ruthless as when I sorted the stamps (see yesterday’s post).

And then there was Stella.  Stella Ruby.  On the top shelf in her seat of honor above all the other designer papers.

Well, I sat right down and started making Stella layouts.  I had nine cards in various stages of completion before you could say “Ruby Tuesday”.  Among the scraps was this stamped panel, so it became my first card.  Now, Stella can be much prettier than this, it’s true, but there’s something about this card I really like.  It’s earthy, simple, clean, and it feels good in my hand.  The leaves are a stamp from Rubbernecker.  If I could find the stamp on their site, I would provide a link, but I’ve looked to no avail.  I stamped it once in Chocolate, then stamped it again, slightly offset, without reinking, to create the shadow effect.

I put the card together and then remembered I wanted to add brads to the main image panel.  Too late for brads, and pearls or rhinestones would have been too fancy.  So… those squares which appear to be brads are actually Page Pebbles – clear epoxy stickers which I stuck on Chocolate cardstock, then trimmed around and glued to the panel.  Anything self-adhesive is great for these afterthoughts or goofs, which is why I love my pearls and rhinestone so much.

Here’s a peek at Stella waiting to happen, complete with sticky notes with design ideas (just a peek):

The thing about making the layouts first (see this post), is once I’ve got the layout made, the rest of the card is a cinch.  It’s the layouts that take me forever.  However, if I’m making a layout with no particular image in mind, it goes together very quickly.  Then, suddenly, I know exactly the image I want to use on the card and I have to stop myself from finishing it then and there.  Many of these layouts-in-waiting have the images already stamped and ready to color, and some have actually been completed (when I couldn’t stop myself).  I’m ready for several more Ruby Tuesdays.

And so these SU! papers remain (these and many more).  We won’t even talk about all the 6×6 pads and the non-SU! 12×12’s.  Heaven help me!  I need to get a grip!  But won’t it be fun making all those layouts and coloring images for them?  I think so!

Thanks so much for sitting with me today while I do all the talking.  Feel free to jump in any time.  I love to hear (read) what you have to say.  It’s most enjoyable to kick back on a work night and read your side of the conversation.  Stella will be with us again next Tuesday.  Let’s see…what shall she stamp next…?  Have a great day!

Stamps:  Rubbernecker leaves, sentiment from SU! Vases in Vogue  Paper:  Bazzill chocolate, SU! textured Old Olive, Flourishes Classic Ivory, BasicGrey Stella Ruby designer paper  Ink:  Chocolate Chip  Accessories:  Twill ribbon, Page Pebbles, 3/4″ and 1″ circle punches, Scotch brand foam mounting tape

I mentioned a while back that I’d like to choose one stamp set for the month and create a card a week with it throughout the month.  The last thing I want to do is impose schedules and rules on my free time, but it sounds like a great way to spread the ink around my stamp room a little bit.  Hmmmm… that sounds messy, doesn’t it?  Well, you know what I mean.

So, I’ve been thinking about this a lot.  Over the last two weeks I’ve been busy in my stamp room — cleaning out and restoring order, or creating order in certain areas where no order existed before.  More on that later.  One big undertaking was to clear out most of my Stampin’ Up! sets.  I kept all the backgrounds, and all but one sentiment set, as well as a relatively small collection of image sets.  I decided I simply had too many.  It was not humanly possible to use each of them frequently enough to justify all the space they were claiming in my stamp room.  I’d nearly quit buying new stamps because I had nowhere to put them.  A sad state of affairs.

Since I boxed up all those sets I’ve done a little stamping, and I find myself more inspired by my more limited collection, which is still quite vast when you consider all my non-SU! stamps in addition to the SU! sets remaining on the shelves.  I’ve had the occasional urge to pull a pretty set from the box and place it back on the shelf, or I’ve remembered a particular sentiment that’s part of a set, or I’ve thought of a stamp that might be a good filler or accent.  But I’ve resisted, and in all cases, I’ve found what I need among the stamps I’m keeping for the time being.  It’s just that those old SU! stamps are so familiar… it’s a habit to reach for them, or to search among them.

But I’d love to have new stamps.  I miss the thrill of the hunt, the anticipation of their arrival, the opening of the box, examining…turning them over in my hand and imagining…  So I’m starting out fresh — a new plan, a new determination to do it right this time.  We’ll see…

Today’s card was made with a brand new (to me) stamp set.  It’s by Impression Obsession, called Gardening.  It came to me as a Christmas gift and I love it.  Happily, I sat down and stamped out each image, colored every one of them and commenced making cards.  I did the coloring with Copics and machine stitched the panels.  The sentiment is from Flourishes Cherries and Peaches.  It’s a bright, feminine, happy card, and it makes me feel good!  So this is my Stamp Set of the Month — a card every Monday for the month of January.

I took a photo of the Copics I used for coloring (and it was a very pretty photo — all those colors), then realized I left out all the browns and grays.  No time for a redo after today’s blog issues (this post almost didn’t happen).  Suffice to say they were yellow-greens, cool grays, and browns.  Not sure how helpful that info is — sorry!

I must run off now.  I’ll be back tomorrow, but the rest of the week is still up in the air.  I’m off to work after a two week vacation, but I’ll do what I can when I can do it.  Enjoy your day!

Stamps:  IO Gardening, Flourishes Cherries and Peaches (links above)  Paper:  Textured white (something old from Wal-Mart), Memory Box Key Lime, Flourishes Classic White, BasicGrey Lemonade designer paper  Ink:  Memento Tuxedo Black, Chocolate Chip, Copics for coloring  Accessories:  Ribbon, brads, Prima flowers, Scotch brand foam mounting tape

Hello!  There were a few questions about some of my stamp room features, both in comments on my blog post and in emails I received, so I hope I can do a satisfactory job of answering them here for all of you.  I did reply to the emails, but perhaps others might have been wondering about some of the same things so…

I was asked about this chest and what I keep in it.  I believe this is supposed to be a jewelry chest.  It was a gift from my husband several years ago.  He thought, correctly, that it would be an attractive storage chest for the embellishments I use on my cards.  The hinged top opens to a storage area a little deeper than the four shallow drawers.  It really is ideal.  At one time this was more than adequate for my needs.  Little did we know…

I was also asked about this handy unit:

I did a Google search on Stampin’ Up! storage units and found this site where you can see a selection of storage solutions.  I believe it’s the same site where I purchased my unit several years ago.  There is a wall unit that includes storage for the markers, as well.  I love having my inks at my fingertips.  Sorry about the glare of the light, by the way.  That’s my new Ott light, purchased specially for my newly reorganized room.

Finally, I made reference to the fact that I index these various wood mounted stamps in a binder and I was asked to explain how I do that.  Well…they’re rather loosely indexed –  my method is very low tech, but it’s easy and it works for me:

When I first started stamping I kept my few stamps jumbled in a Rubbermaid tub.  I could never find anything, even when it was right before my eyes.  I’d wind up dumping out the whole tub and using all my available time just searching for a particular stamp.  These drawers allowed me to sort them into types.  Rather than label the drawers, I turned the first row of stamps label-forward so I can easily see which type of stamps a particular drawer contains.

To index the stamps in those drawers I started a catalog — a 3-ring binder divided into categories:  flowers, Christmas, baby — that sort of thing.  A page in the catalog will have several related images stamped on it – all flowers or all Christmas, etc.  I can leaf through the catalog to see what I have and make a choice as to what I want to use.  I then go to the drawers and find the stamp.  A particular flower may be in one of three drawers but the drawers are smallish and shallow so not much digging is necessary.

This is my catalog.  Granted, it’s one of the prettier pages in my catalog…I no longer color the images — that was from the old days when I seemed to have more time on my hands.  Back then I was just learning — practicing my coloring and figuring out how to use an image on a card.

I still have every one of the stamps on this page but when I give away a stamp, I simply cross it out on the page.  I mentioned that my system is very low tech…

That’s it for now.  I think it’s time to go stamp something…maybe something from this page…  Have a fabulous day!

It’s not a dream room, perhaps, but it’s my happy space and I’d like to invite you in for a visit.  I’ve finally come to the point where the room actually feels spacious and uncluttered.  There’s more work to be done — customized cabinets, shelving, etc. – but I’d like to enjoy it as is for the time being.  My room is a smallish bedroom with a south-facing window.  In our neck of the woods ground floor bedrooms usually have high windows so, no, I don’t have a good view of the garden while I stamp.  On a pretty day I’m always outside, anyway, so no matter.

I recently turned the whole house upside down to reorganize everything around my new desk.  It’s a computer desk from Staples — it makes an excellent stamping center.  The cost of a real wood desk like this would be formidable, but this is a composite with a fake (but very nice) laminated finish which wipes clean easily with a damp rag.  I love my new desk.  I feel so nestled into my stamping area there.  All my coloring tools, papers, embellishments and most frequently used gadgets are within easy reach.  You can click on any of the photos if you’d like an enlarged view.

We’ll just turn in a circle around the room.  This is the other arm of the desk under the window.  The iris carts, also from Staples, are a perfect fit under the desk.  Formerly, there was a large dresser under this window.  The drawers were too deep to be efficient — too much rummaging through piles of supplies.  The shallow iris cart drawers keep things much more accessible.  The bottom drawer holds hanging files reserved for my new PaperTrey cardstocks.  The Sterilite drawer units alongside the desk hold stamps from various companies.  They’re organized by type and indexed in a binder so it’s easy to find what I’m looking for.

Here we are on the opposite wall.  It’s a pretty short trip.  This desk is my embossing area which doubles as a second work space when I have company.  The desk will be replaced with something prettier one of these days.  I like having a peninsula of sorts in this area so I’ll maintain the general layout.  My embossing powders and glitters are kept in an old spice rack.  I’d like to paint it white and maybe do a little stamping on it.  Either that, or find something more efficient.  The spice rack seemed like a good idea until my collection started to outgrow its home.

Here, you see evidence of a room in need of a paint job.  Yes, that’s on the to-do list.  I did wash all the walls but this spot just wouldn’t clean up.  Honestly, what can I expect from a ten year old paint job?  There are Stampin’ Up! sets on the shelves and miscellaneous stamps in the drawers.  The Stampin’ Up! sets are shelved in the order of backgrounds first, then sentiment sets.  Orange cardstock marks the divisions.  After that comes sets A - M on these shelves.  The rest are across the room.  Someday I hope to have better shelving (or fewer stamps?).  I labeled the end of each box with the name of the set and marked the retired sets with a hot pink highlighter.

The black file cabinet is full of my Stampin’ Up cardstocks.  I’m happy to finally have all my cardstocks and designer papers protected from the fading effects of light.

The designer papers are stored in the cabinet pictured below.  They’re stacked in 12″ x 12″ trays which I purchased from the Paper Wishes catalog.  More Sterilite drawer units make better use of the large open area of the cabinet.  The top drawer of the other cabinet is full of ribbons (in addition to the ribbons on top of the cabinet).  You can see more about my ribbon storage in Ribbon Central.

We’re back around to the desk again.  This cupboard is where the computer tower would sit and, once again, I’ve maximized the space for my purposes with the Sterilite units.

One last picture — I hung a curtain rod the full length of the window for my punches.  These are the large and medium-sized punches.  The small punches are kept in one of the iris cart drawers.  I love my punches and use every one of them, some more than others, of course.  Can you imagine how much space these occupied on a shelf?  This is much better!

There are not a lot of decorative touches in this room but it’s a pleasant space for me.  I’m surrounded by the things I love, tidily arranged.  It gets a little messy sometimes when I’m working on a project — the more rushed I am, the messier it becomes, but it picks up quickly with a niche for everything.  I’m working to make it more pleasant and efficient all the time, but I hope not more crowded.  In the process of all this rearranging we hauled three truckloads of the years’ accumulation to Goodwill (not all of it was from my stamp room).  I also packed up a large box of stamps and other supplies for my coworkers — spreading the love to budding stamp artists.

Gosh, I think I feel like stamping now…  Thanks for stopping by for a spell.  I sure enjoyed having you over.  Let’s get together again real soon, okay?

Hello, again!  As I mentioned before I’ve spent the last few days reorganizing my stamp room.  That is, I’ve spent every available minute working on it.  Not every minute is available, of course.  One of the reasons it’s taking so long is that I’m going over it with a fine toothed comb.  I’ve already filled two large garbage bags and have a lot set out to give away.  The garbage bags contain mostly packaging.  It’s amazing how much space can be saved by sorting things into a few, or not so few, handy receptacles.  The two big garbage bags don’t even include the burnables–that all goes into the wood stove.  Sheesh!

My ribbon collection was completely out of hand.  I’ve seen bigger collections but if there was a contest for the messiest collection I’d enter it with high hopes of winning.  I had one big drawer full of ribbon that started out somewhat organized but wound up with rolls piled on until I could hardly get the drawer closed, let alone find anything.  In addition to the drawer I had a big basket with ribbon rolls and packages tossed in haphazardly.  And then, of course, I had two sets of Stampin’ Up!’s ribbon holders.  The top tier of each is cut off in this photo, as are some of the contents in the near end of the drawer.  I have another matching jar to fill with ribbon scraps but it’s soaking in the kitchen sink right now.  The jars held candles.  I considered altering them but decided the ribbon inside was pretty enough.

Until I completely remodel the stamp room I simply had to find a way to compact and organize my ribbon, making it more accessible.  With no additional floor space available I was left with no recourse but to clean out and reorganize the whole room.  This is what I wound up with for the ribbon.  One thing I’ve come to love about Offray ribbon is that no matter what kind or how wide it is, the rolls are all the same size and they’re beautifully contained in these small Made Smart bins that I found in a local store (Bi-Mart).  Aren’t they pretty all lined up there, ripe for the plucking?  Who doesn’t love ribbon — show of hands?  I gave up trying to sort them by color and went with “types” instead — all the polka dots, stripes, plaids & ginghams, satins, sheers, velvets, grosgrains, florals and novelty ribbons, metallics, particular collections, ric racs, lace ribbons, taffetas…  I painstakingly wound all the loose ribbons (except the bulky twills) on embroidery floss cards and pinned them in place.  I found a whole baggie of the most beautiful taffetas I’d completely forgotten about.  Oddly, there are times I feel I don’t have just the right ribbon for a card I’m working on.  Well, there’s just no excuse for that!  This is the dawn of a new day for me and my ribbons.

After I completed this project I had need of one of the sheer dot ribbons that I’d wound on an embroidery card.  I’m happy to report that I removed the required length, re-pinned the card and placed it carefully back in its neat, new home.  Now that I can see what I have, I’m feeling all kinds of inspired!  Oh, happy day!  I hope you’re having a happy day, too.  Take care!